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Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

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Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#161

Post by stef25 »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #148
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dont farm rice > I know rice is traditionally grown on flooded plains but that seems very risky A recurring HN trope is people who don't know about a subject feel like they have to have an opinion on it anyway. Why do you believe it's very risky / in the hands of nature? Flooded plains (aka rice paddies) have been used for thousands of years; rice is a semiaquatic plant so it needs to be submerged, and paddies ar…

History is also replete with droughts that killed millions of people We are in 2025. We have plastics. Anyway thats nit my question. My question was simple: how is is that continued, ongoing drone expense -into perpetutity- was cheaper than a one-time investment in irrigation system which can be used for water, pesticide, and even fertilizer?

> We are in 2025

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#162

Post by eunos »

ammo1662 wrote: post #76
luyu_wu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like a DJI Agras model to me! Amusing considering the recent news regarding DJI being banned.

I'm not sure whether they can be exported even if DJI is not banned. Just check [0], their latest agricultural drone T60 sold in China has 60KG payload and AESA radars. (No English page provided) They also has a T50 [1] with English introduction page. While the air force of some countries in the world still does not have AESA, DJI already uses AESA to grow crops. [0] https://ag.dji.com/cn/t60/specs [1] https://ag.dji…

If we are moving to neo feudalism, even upper middle class families might have a better air force than many smaller and poorer countries.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#163

Post by [deleted] »

hamlsandwich wrote: post #96
zo1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think we should have more human labor take over farming but on an individual level that's working much much closer to the consumption source. Think having your own farmer and food-producer in your own house or property, or perhaps shared with your small flock of neighbors. Way too-many of the problems plaguing society atm can be solved by reducing transport and eliminating all the huge intermediate step…

Local, small-scale food production used to be the only way food was produced - people didn't eat better then, and there were many, many fewer people to feed. There's huge variability in what can be grown where, especially if you want to reduce the amount and number of inputs that are imported from further afield. There are places that can support all the crops and livestock that provide a healthy, balanced, and susta…

[deleted]

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#164

Post by bluGill »

dukeyukey wrote: post #142
majoe wrote: post #80

Slightly related, but off-topic. It's astonishing how high-tech agriculture has become without the general public noticing much of it. I recently had a longer talk with my uncle, who is a farmer in South Germany, where he told me about the newish technology he is using: - Milking robots: the process is entirely automated, the cows basically go inside the milking stations by themselves. - His newer tractors are all dr…

Is there anything happening with self-driving tractors? I'd expect that in the absence of speed and most of the typical hazards cars on the roads face, when doing pretty rote stuff like spraying, harvesting row crops, or tilling a field we'd be able to automate it pretty easily.

A lot is going on. 15 years ago farmers were putting the dog in the tractor - it worked so long as there were no deer or other things in the field. Safety is just as hard as for cars though and so progress is just as slow.

I work for john deere. But I don't have non public information and I don't speak for the company.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#165

Post by eunos »

camillomiller wrote: post #104

Most of these high tech drones are from DJI (check out the Agra lineup). You know who has great use for that? US farmers. Instead they get an all-out ban on DJI and they’re stuck with provider-locked John Deere tractors. I really don’t understand how easy it can be to fool the American public just by saying “national security”, even when it’s clear that large parts of the public will not be best served by Washington’…

Because the Blobs saw how's drone perform in Ukraine war and they are spooked that US has no national champions for drones.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#166

Post by eunos »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #72
blackoil wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason of them being banned is they are very good and hence very popular.

The main reason is a fear - which as far as I know is unsubstantiated - that China's got backdoors in tech sold in the west. But with so many hackers and national security agencies disassembling and analyzing these things, surely they'd have found it by now? Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more about market protection. Which doesn't make much sense to me because is there a major US drone manufacturer that…

It's a fear that US has no similarly competitive drone companies

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#167

Post by greenie_beans »

crubier wrote: post #125
zo1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think we should have more human labor take over farming but on an individual level that's working much much closer to the consumption source. Think having your own farmer and food-producer in your own house or property, or perhaps shared with your small flock of neighbors. Way too-many of the problems plaguing society atm can be solved by reducing transport and eliminating all the huge intermediate step…

Oh yes, taking agriculture back to where it was 2 centuries ago, when there definitely weren't any famines at all.

counterpoint: like the great chinese famine, when the government forced the country from an agrarian economy to an industrialized economy, and they fucked up the local food systems.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#168

Post by bluGill »

pawelmurias wrote: post #138
thworp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think having your own farmer and food-producer in your own house or property Impossible. The world is too urbanized, there simply is no space to do this for more than a few % of the population. > Way too-many of the problems plaguing society atm can be solved by reducing transport and eliminating all the huge intermediate steps [...] Maybe some problems can be solved, many more will be un solved. Reducing our trans…

If we accept subpar nutrition we could propably plant GMO potatoes and things like that all over the place

Gmo can also increase nutrition. anti gmo and anti vaccine come from theisame anti scienece background, don't fall for either. Yes deand safety studies but then use what is good.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#170

Post by gumby »

greenie_beans wrote: post #160
tda wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And more, smaller, robots vs large tractors could put an end to monocultures. Monoculture is the result of optimizing for minimal human labour, not an optimization for yields. So when labour is free, mixed fields are the way to maximize profits

wouldn't a monoculture help the robots, too?

But it doesn’t help us, and the robots are for our benefit. Make the robots go the the extra effort.
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