It’s early morning in a quiet village in Uttar Pradesh. The sun is just rising, casting a soft golden glow over the fields. A farmer stands at the edge of his land, watching something unusual in the sky—a small drone buzzing gently above his crops. He’s seen it before, but it still feels a little like magic. The drone moves smoothly over the plants, scanning everything below. A few minutes later, his phone pings. It’s a message on WhatsApp, with a map of his farm. The message tells him where his crops are stressed, where pests might be hiding, and what he should do next—all in simple words, in his own language.

He doesn’t have to guess anymore. He doesn’t have to waste money on extra sprays or wait for a local dealer to visit. A few taps on his phone, and the exact treatment he needs will arrive at his doorstep. For farmers like him, this tiny flying machine is not just about technology but peace of mind. And it all started because two young engineers brought their drones to the fields, simply hoping to help.

In India, where farming is as much a heritage as a livelihood, generations of farmers have relied on intuition, inherited wisdom, and the occasional advice of a pesticide dealer to tend their fields. But in today’s climate-challenged world, where pests evolve faster than the solutions meant to stop them, such instinctive methods are no longer enough.

“I used to check my field just by walking around. If I noticed any yellowing or pest, only then would I take action, but by that time, the problem had often already spread,” says Atendra Kumar Verma, a small-scale farmer from Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh.

The farmer’s experience reflects the daily uncertainty faced by millions of farmers across India, until two aeronautical engineering graduates decided to change the script by bringing aerospace technology to agriculture.

How college drone experiments took root in rural agriculture

Amandeep Panwar from Delhi and Rishabh Choudhary from Allahabad weren’t farmers. They weren’t even thinking about agriculture. Their world revolved around drones, circuits, and flight paths. As engineering students at BBDNITM, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University in Lucknow, their days were spent tinkering in labs and flying drones wherever they could find open skies.

The neighbouring fields of Barabanki became their informal testing ground—a quiet patchwork of farmland where their machines could fly freely, far from city interference. At the time, it was just about experimentation, a chance to push the limits of what their drones could do.

But then, something changed.

What Began as a Drone Experiment Became a Lifeline for Farmers

Farmers from nearby villages started gathering, not just to watch the drones, but to ask questions: Can this spot pests? What’s wrong with my crop? Why are my leaves turning yellow?

© The Better India