Drone helps farmers tackle old challenges

Ashraya Badayak of Kanchanpur has made his farm profitable by using drones to spray fertiliser and pesticide.

For decades, sugarcane farmers like Ashraya Badayak of Hattibhoja in ward 6 of Belauri Municipality in Kanchanpur, struggled to control pests—the cane grows tall, making it difficult to spray pesticides or apply liquid fertilizer by hand. Moreover, the workers faced health risks and often the spray machines could not reach all parts of the crop. To make matters worse, wildlife such as tigers and leopards occasionally roamed the fields, adding fear to an already arduous task.