Agricultural Use of Drones

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Unmanned aerial vehicle technology, in other words drones, has the potential for a multitude of innovative applications when it comes to agriculture; surveying crop land, determining property lines, and perhaps in the not too distant future helping plan for planting, spraying and watering crops. Recently during debate on H.R. 2577 the House of Representatives unanimously passed Congressman Dan Newhouse's amendment to require the Federal Aviation Administration to take into consideration the agricultural applications of UAV technology during the rule making process for UAVs. Congressman Newhouse shares his thoughts on the importance of drone use for agriculture.

NEWHOUSE: I think that this is a technology that just has a lot of positive uses if done safely, which is what we all want to do, and that is what the FAA is focused on. The one thing that we have going for us is that usually the uses of agricultural drones would be in fairly uninhabited areas, rural areas, and so wouldn't have quite the concerns of using drones say to deliver your package from a retailer where it would be in more urban surroundings - lots of power lines, lots of buildings, a lot more people. Certainly the FAA is moving forward cautiously. I think we will see these advances allowed here soon, and I'm excited about the potential.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.