Document Type

Poster

Journal/Book Title/Conference

American Association for Agricultural Education National Conference

Location

Charleston, South Carolina

Publication Date

5-15-2018

Award Number

USDA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) 2017-68010-25960

Funder

USDA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also called drones, have been used commercially since the early 1980s. Today however, practical application for UAVs are expanding faster than ever in a variety of industries. UAV technology has given the agriculture industry the possibility of a technological makeover. Specifically, UAVs give the opportunity for improved crop supervision, soil and field analyses, and the ability to more closely and timely monitor crops (Mazur & Wisniewski, 2016). In order to keep up with increasing demands, agriculture has to utilize every technology available to the industry. Based on a global report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the market of UAVs in agriculture is estimated at $32.4 billion (Mazur & Wisniewski, 2016). UAVs will allow individual farms to be highly data-driven, which will lead to an increase in productivity and yields. Due to the low cost, UAVs can be used for better crop management practices. Despite the growth in technology and opportunities to utilize UAV in agricultural practices, there is little being done to prepare students for careers utilizing this technology.

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