CHENNAI: Chennai-based Garuda Aerospace has adopted drones as the service route to cater to the growing demand for drones in the agriculture industry.
“We’re like Uber for drones,” said Agnishwar Jayaprakash, founder and chief executive officer of Garuda. Speaking to this newspaper, he said the company has bagged orders worth USD 1.2 billion or nearly Rs 8,800 crore from farmers and farm science centres.
“We got orders for around 22 crore acres from the total 40 crore acres (apx.) of farmable land in India, so we have captured 50 per cent market. To execute the projects we need 4-5 lakh drones,” he said.
“Farmers only utilize drones as services, not as products as the land holding pattern in India is 1- 1.5 acres, so we’re selling drones to service providers such as dealers, distributors, FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations), FPCs (Farmer Producer Company), village entrepreneurs and large farmers. They will rent out the drones to smaller farmers in the form of a contract,” he explained the reason behind the model.
Small and marginal farmers have to pay Rs 400 to Rs 500 / acre for spraying pesticides and fertilizers in their fields. He said it reduces pesticide usage by up to 70 per cent and reduces water usage by up to 80 per cent. He further said that “Drones were able to cover 25- 30 acres a day while manual labourers could only cover 2-3 acres per day.”
Agnishwar Jayaprakash was speaking on the sidelines of Garuda Aerospace opening the country’s first Drone skilling and training e-learning platform at its Chennai manufacturing facility. It was inaugurated by Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Anurag Singh Thakur.
The demand for drones has also increased the demand for remote pilots and start-ups try to bridge the skill gap with this training. Agriculture drones form 65 per cnet of the company’s products. Among many other applications, it also focuses on logistics space for delivering food and medicines.
“We have partnered with Swiggy for drone deliveries. We’re looking at various models, not just rooftops but hub and spoke models like we fly the food to the nearest delivery agent,” he said.