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Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
41–50 of 279 posts
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#42>> fly the drone with no physical effort and no direct exposure to pesticides—some of which have been associated with diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Slightly tangential, but what's the thinking here? We don't want to get it on us while spraying it, but then we'll eat it and it'll be fine?
> We don't want to get it on us while spraying it, but then we'll eat it and it'll be fine?
I suspect that a big part of the issue is the amount of exposure.
Dental x-rays aren't dangerous to the patient, but they are dangerous to the dental technician, because they're (potentially) exposed to many x-rays every day.
Same deal here - if you consume say... 100 lbs of rice a year that's not that big of a deal. But if the worker is spraying entire fields - they're just in contact with a lot more pesticide. And that's beyond the fact that white rice has the husk removed, etc.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#43>> fly the drone with no physical effort and no direct exposure to pesticides—some of which have been associated with diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Slightly tangential, but what's the thinking here? We don't want to get it on us while spraying it, but then we'll eat it and it'll be fine?
The laborers spraying the pesticides get an order of magnitude more exposure, repeatedly and in its raw, most harmful form.
While we do consume some amounts of them it’s minuscule, more so when the food is prepared after proper washing and boiling/fried etc.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#44This is so great. My long term dream is that robotics take over farming, individually plucking each weed or weevil, and metering just the right amount of water for each individual plant, so that all the crops are organic. Most of the chemicals (yes, including nitrogen fertilizers) offset labor, so when the labor is free we shouldn’t need them. And people won’t have to spend their lives in stoop-back work or exposed t…
Out of curiosity how does nitrogen fertilizer offset labor?
Directly, as a substitute for more labour intensive sources like manure, compost or crop rotation.
Indirectly by increasing yield per acre per day.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#45>> fly the drone with no physical effort and no direct exposure to pesticides—some of which have been associated with diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Slightly tangential, but what's the thinking here? We don't want to get it on us while spraying it, but then we'll eat it and it'll be fine?
Rice grows inside a husk. And, white so-called "polished" rice has the outer coat removed. So, insecticide/pesticide residue on the surface isn't such a big deal, even for brown rice. Ingesting and breathing in the concentrations of insecticide associated with spraying is orders of magnitude worse risk to the farm worker and people around, than incidental food contact risk post production/packaging. Many chemicals ar…
> Merryl Streep ad 30 years ago where she's washing broccoli with soap..
???
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#46>> fly the drone with no physical effort and no direct exposure to pesticides—some of which have been associated with diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Slightly tangential, but what's the thinking here? We don't want to get it on us while spraying it, but then we'll eat it and it'll be fine?
The thinking is that you clean the food before eating it.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rice grows inside a husk. And, white so-called "polished" rice has the outer coat removed. So, insecticide/pesticide residue on the surface isn't such a big deal, even for brown rice. Ingesting and breathing in the concentrations of insecticide associated with spraying is orders of magnitude worse risk to the farm worker and people around, than incidental food contact risk post production/packaging. Many chemicals ar…
> Merryl Streep ad 30 years ago where she's washing broccoli with soap.. ???
https://academic.oup.com/chicago-scholarship-online/book/173...
In 1989, Meryl Streep became the celebrity spokesperson for a Natural Resources Defense Council campaign to publicize the risks of pesticides and chemicals applied to food, especially the danger of Alar-laced apples consumed by young children.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#48Ultimately drones may enable purely-mechanical pesticide-free removal of each individual insect/weed.
Reminds me of the mosquito laser. It would target only female mosquitos of the specific breed (they are the malaria carriers).
It was only prototyped and never commercially produced.
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#49But can they mount speakers and play Ride of the Valkyries
Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Until recently though, spraying by drone was a near impossible permitting nightmare (now it’s only a minor permitting nightmare) and was inefficient because you needed a Part 107 pilot and a Visual Observer for each individual drone. But, things have gotten better. Before, spray drones over 55lb (the limit for a Small UAS in the US) had to go through an experimental aircraft registration program and be granted a…
Is it possible to buy a piece of land and just get a rule that says "I can pretty much fly anything 100 feet up in the air above my property"? It's kindof frustrating that this isn't the case. If you're a company developing drones, for instance, how do you even test them?
You can fly indoors, where the FAA has no jurisdiction (probably, ask a lawyer). You can get all kinds of waivers as well, but I don't know if there's one for that - they tend to be more one-off exemptions from a single regulation, type of thing. There are some dedicated test sites as well where the FAA might be more relaxed with the regulations: https://www.faa.gov/uas/programs_partnerships/test_sites/loc...
Most companies though probably have a part 107 pilot on staff, or have had some of their employees in other roles certified as such.