People are getting worried about drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The concern is that soon they will be being spied upon, tracked and eavesdropped by drones. In fact, one US state has just put into law a 2-year moratorium on the use of UAVs by law enforcement.
Hopefully any assault on our privacy by UAVs can be controlled, and their capabilities used beneficially. Specifically, it turns out that one of the biggest markets for them may be, not law enforcement, but agriculture.
This should be no surprise. The more data farmers have, the more efficiently they can plant, water and harvest. One expert here in Australia said to me, "Australian farmers are the most water-efficient in the world. And what makes that possible is information."
In my previous post, I discussed why soil moisture is critical data, not just for agriculture, but for meteorology, public health, environmental protection and restoration, and mining. Moisture-poor, high-productivity nations like Australia are particularly in need of this information.
The Wired article doesn't really say what farmers and graziers will use the UAV-derived data for. Some guesses: looking for areas of poor crop growth; evaluating erosion prevention methods; checking the performance of infrastructure such as irrigation systems or feeding systems; tracking down wandering livestock; and monitoring the condition of grazing crops and herds.
I hope the cattle aren't concerned about their privacy.
