In January, 2015, the US Federal Aviation Administration issued the first permit for agricultural use of unmanned aerial vehicles to the company ADAVSO. Steven Edgar, president and CEO of ADAVSO, says his Idaho-based business will use a lightweight, fixed-wing drone to survey fields of crops. According to a study by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the drone, or UAV, industry in the U.S. could produce up to 100,000 new jobs and add $82 billion in economic activity between 2015 and 2025. The AUVSI also predicts that agriculture could account for 80 percent of all commercial drone use, once government regulations allow it.
Drones could be used in a lot of different ways in agriculture:
