An eye in the sky
New Britain Palm Oil is proving that drones can be put to good work in PNG.
Papua New Guinea’s mountainous terrain means that new drone technologies can offer great advantages. New Britain Palm Oil (NBPOL) is making strides in this area and its experience provides pointers to other PNG agribusinesses.
Will Unsworth, group technology and sustainable development manager at NBPOL, says the company is aiming, with its aerial surveys of its operations, to achieve “precision agriculture”, ensuring that the inputs, such as labour and machinery, are understood.
“Excess input is a waste; inadequate input is a loss. Precision avoids waste while maximising outputs.”
To plan for better use of its fertiliser with the drone technology, NBPOL also needs to have a new approach to collecting, processing, reporting and using data.
Unsworth describes it is a balancing act.
“If fertiliser is over ordered, there are storage costs, more double handling and losses from spoilage and theft. If the fertiliser is under ordered, palms are under-fed, their yield falls, and there is a need to make additional orders, which can be costly.”
The drones are being used to generate aerial imagery of the plantations and count palms. From that it will be possible to generate an accurate number to ensure that the correct fertiliser volumes are ordered.