Day 55: Salakatti – Drones Bring Employment Opportunities Too

A thing about drones is that they need a support team for optimum functioning. This includes a pilot, a co-pilot and a maintenance person. This effectively translates to increased opportunities for skilled workers. Something farmers in the next region were asking for. Welcome to Day 3 in Karnataka. We are in Salakatti for our drone demonstration for the day.

Post a successful demonstration in a paddy field which was attended by many farmers as well as Syngenta’s distributor and retailer network, our interaction with the farmers started. We provided the farmers with a brief of about how drones will help alleviate the challenges of the farmers in terms of time consumption, labor requirements and so on for spraying. Interestingly, the farmers were concerned about the unemployment that may increase because of the drones.

They were interested in knowing if the local village boys can be trained to fly the drones so that they will have an employment opportunity. We assured them that Syngenta is working with their partners to ensure proper opportunity is given to the youth of India’s villages in terms of training and jobs for our drone service. The farmers also wanted to know about the subsidy which the government has declared. We provided them the information as well as how Syngenta is providing a service and farmers do not need to procure drones.

We now move to our next location in Kawaloor for our next demonstration. Stay tuned!