The Midwest states make up the largest percentage of area of land used for agricultural purposes in the country. The MidWest offers large area's of land for extremely reasonable prices. This land is usually land that has been over farmed and is neighboring farming communities. Start ups and expansions of companies like John Deere, Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, and other large companies in the MidWest will be the primary purchasers of these large plots of land. They will most likely purchase this land to build large facilities for engineers and use the extra land to build mock farms or habitats that will allow them to test the equipment and technologies being produced.
With the University of North Dakota's "Unmanned Aerial Systems Operations" four year Bachelors Degree leading the country in qualified graduates and with top notch professors like Ben Trapnell, states in the MidWest are receiving more and more qualified UAS Operations workers as each semester passes. The first semester of students to graduate from UND with a Bachelors Degree in UASO were just a small number of students but these students all went on to prominent jobs within the industry and some starting their own companies. With each passing semester the number keeps getting higher and higher and soon at some point UND might be graduating 100+ qualified UAS specialists each Semester. The MidWest drone market relies heavily on UND graduates working with MidWest Companies projects and also rely on the people who graduate from UND's UASO (Unmanned Aerial Systems Operations) program that start their own drone companies throughout the Midwest.
Do you agree that the MidWest is the key to the Agricultural Drone Market?!
Joshua Johnson - Diy Drones News -
Comments
Ag Drone would be better. Two weeks ago at the Kansas UAV conference Michael Toscano (CEO, AUVSI) was who suggested forming a agriculture association of Midwest states and bringing a self managing entity solution to the FAA.. much like the AMA.. having a self managing entity that ensures compliance to rules that the FAA as agreed to as far as operational rules is a lot easier of a sell to the FAA to get them on board with the 5lbs foamy plane flying over fields in the middle of rural countryside.
@HeliStorm, I'm currently in conversation with a few AUVSI chapter leaders and the Vice president of AUVSI on possibly starting a MidWest Agricultural AUVSI chapter. Also I'm currently looking into the possibility of creating a Midwest Unmanned Agriculture Association or something with a similar type name.
think a Midwest drone association would be a great idea! Who wants to start?
Gary, you said, "most of the graduates head off for warm sandy places."
Like, the beach, right?
Oh...THOSE warm sandy places.
@Joshua.. I would start by referring to them as UAVs or something other than 'drone' as that really is a loosing battle in the public perception front which is the front that we need to win in order to actually operate.
The drive to big farming has a lot of different reasons, one being the costs associated to running a farm.. equipment is not cheap... which some co-ops I believe share equipment.. but as a bigger operation you get more pull on seed prices and such as well as contracts with large food companies. Also farmers aren't rolling in the $.. equipment costs, operational, land, labor.. etc.. all makes for bigger or go home.. do more with less.
I have never heard of someone using a helicopter for aerial agriculture remote sensing... but get your point.
I don't think it will be the extremely large farms that benefit from UAVs.. it will be all of them.. unless they want to fly equipment than sure the big player.. but most utilize crop specialists and agronomists which will be the ones utilizing these UAV tools.. I really don't see producers/farmers flying their own equipment as it takes a expert in the loop to understand the remote sensing data, make decisions based on the many different layers of data.. that isn't necessarily the producer. Actually I believe in California a certified crop consultant has to provide the chemical recommendation that the producer is to use.. as a way of controlling how much chemicals are applied in the state.
@LanMark, I totally agreeKansas State University's Unmanned Aircraft System Bachelors is equally as important and impressive as UND's program. I've looked into creating or starting an agricultural drone association in the Midwest or at least start one within Minnesota and hope it spreads to other states to join in on the group. As you stated I'd much rather have the people who use them (Hobbyists and business people) then the FAA just throwing out regulations based off just their own judgement.
@Gerard, I personally agree on the aspect that most farmers are hostage to big companies and trading prices of goods. Also they are hostage to the prices of water, farming equipment, and fees to have someone in a helicopter take photos of your crops to check for plant health and disease. It costs farmers millions of dollars over a lifetime to rent out helicopters or pay someone to do it in the Midwest because of extremely large our farms are in terms of square miles or acres. These extremely large crop fields in the Midwest are the farmers that are going to benefit the most from autonomous aircraft , autonomous farm equipment, and watering systems. One of the biggest ways farmers in the Midwest can start releasing themselves from these slave like circumstances they have been under is by the emergence of companies and regulations to support agriculture around the Midwest first but then the entire U.S. overall.
@Gary, Yeah the sad thing is the U.S. is stalling its own drone market by holding the civilian sector hostage while they gain what they need off the military contracts and such. At least efforts within this website and other places are helping to keep the U.S. up to pace on what's going on in the international drone market/industry.
@LanMark, I don't have exact placement numbers but I can ask people that I am in contact with who would have those figures. Last I heard though the placement rate for these individuals for extremely high and a lot of graduates found $150,000-$250,000+ a year type jobs with large government contract companies like Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup, etc. I brought up the cheap land close to farmers because it will be essential for these companies agriculture drone teams to work closely with farmers in their area to not only help develop products that farmers need but also it's great publicity/advertising to the farming to community.
The assumption usually is that locally produced foods are for local consumers, but that's not true for some time already. The produce gets transported and redistributed and may serve completely different markets than the one it got created in, as well as only serve one "large" consumer, which is the retail forefront, which really nibbles down on the price for farmers whilst keeping profits for themselves. Unfortunately, the local market has been more or less destroyed in the western world by supermarkets.
Food produced for local or even regional markets produces much more value. In Brazil the logistics costs ramp up the price so much that these local markets still exist. Here you get a very large "farmer's market" for the entire city region where large, medium and small producers sell their goods and where local 'ferrymen' intermediaries transport this to different locations around the region. In the entire process, all the little guys get a little of the pie to sustain their life. If this were replaced by a large corporation which hauls the products off to some 'redistribution plant', none of those guys would be able to sustain a living that way.
The midwest may be really interesting farmland and offer opportunities, but not necessarily to the average Joe given the size of these lands and who they're selling to. I think it's more likely that eventually a larger company drives in, launches their drone with FAA support and covers the entire area in days. It really depends on the size of the farmland and how financially independent these farmers are.
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