Group photo of the workshop participants
Universiti Teknologi MARA Sabah hosted a workshop on 13-17 July 2022 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, as the first program of a series of trainings to be conducted across 5 Asian nations including Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. A project entitled “Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building Workshop for Precision Agriculture using UAV Techniques in the South and South-East Asian Region” is an international project in a collaboration between Hokkaido University, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Jahangirnagar University, Universitas Gadjah Mada, and Can Tho University. A funding was provided by Asia-Pacific Network Global Change Research. Faculty of Geography UGM delegated Dr. Wirastuti Widyatmanti, with Kurniawan Nugroho, M.Sc. and Deha Agus Umarhadi, M.Sc. as team members in the workshop.
The first day began with an inception meeting to address a big question: “How can we use drones as a tool to support lower capital/smallholder farmers in making their enterprises more efficient and profitable?”. Various stakeholders were involved in the meeting consisting of the local government, private enterprises, farmers, and academics by sharing their knowledge and opinions as well as discussions. The project leader, Dr. Ram Avtar, an associate professor at Hokkaido University, Japan, emphasized how crucial UAV to support the precision farming. Through a multi-national collaboration, insights from many countries would emerge the best solution. Dr. Wirastuti Widyatmanti from the Faculty of Geography UGM delivered a presentation on the current state of precision agriculture practices in Indonesia. A lively discussion has formulated a conceptual framework of UAV mapping in precision agriculture, starting with its elements then the demands, related issues, and finally the solutions.
Dr. Wirastuti Widyatmanti receiving souvenirs from UiTM after giving a lecture
Training programme was conducted 4 days straight from 14-17 July 2022 in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sabah with extended participants including students from UiTM and University Malaysia Sabah (UMS). Dr. Wirastuti Widyatmanti presented one of the lectures with a topic “introduction of the use of UAV in precision farming”. She accentuated why UAV-GIS-remote sensing is important in the precision agriculture by also elaborating various applications.
Kurniawan Nugroho, M.Sc. from UGM sharing the practice of precision agriculture in Indonesia
Practical hands-on training presented by Deha Agus Umarhadi, M.Sc.
Practical programs were delivered in the following two days, beginning with the flight planning, UAV data processing, until the data visualization. On the last day, a field excursion was carried out in Kota Marudu, a 2-hours driving from Kota Kinabalu, to visit a smallholder farmer who has been practicing technologies to intensify the rice production. A UAV mounted with a multispectral camera flew over the rice field covering about 1 ha in just few minutes which has answered the participants’ questions why this technology is required. This was followed by the demonstration of a drone fertilizer-sprayer that amazed the trainees by its gigantic size, a 25 kg weight drone with a maximum of 25 kg payloads
UAV data collection during the field excursion
Thanks to the ease of COVID-19 restrictions to allow international flights to become possible again. “By looking at the successful programme in Kota Kinabalu, Faculty of Geography UGM will be preparing as the next host, possibly in the end of this year or next year”, said Dr. Ram Avtar, the APN project leader.
Writer : Deha Agus Umar Hadi
