I bought a mini-drone last week and since then I’ve been hearing that they are all the rage. Mostly we use it to capture video of events and spy on unsuspecting members of our family – but it’s been interesting to hear how they are used in different industries – starting with Amazon’s plans for delivery drones. Agriculture is another industry that’s using drones. National Public Radio just did a story on ag drones…

Catching a fungus early, documenting damage when cattle break into your fields, knowing which fields aren’t flourishing so you can write them off; all these decisions can make or break a growing season. Unmanned, semi-autonomous little airplanes promise to be able to do all of that.

So this year, Reimers and his brother invested about $20,000 in a couple of small drones to begin scanning their fields. These little drones weigh less than 10 pounds each. The Reimers can fly them remotely, or the drones can be programmed to fly themselves on a grid to map and image an entire field.

The drones collect huge amounts of data, and modern farming is a data-driven business. “[That’s] my role on the farm; that is all I do,” Reimers says.

Like a software programmer or Web developer, Reimers runs an endless series of tests on his land, altering things like crop density, fertilizer and planting width. Modern, GPS-enabled farm equipment not only can drive itself, it’s accurate within inches and can adjust precisely how much fertilizer or pesticide to spray.

If farmers know exactly how each field is faring, they may spray less. For the Reimers family that could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings each year. It could increase their yield and margins while reducing stress on the land.

In Australia, they are using drones to deliver broadband…

Today, we are thrilled to unveil our latest innovation – the Kogan Drone Broadband Network (DBN) – a game changer that will use drones in the sky to deliver faster Internet for all Australians, replacing the need for the National Broadband Network (NBN).

The current Australian NBN rollout is going to cost an estimated $73 billion. Frustrated by the delays and cost blow-out associated with the NBN, our team of engineers decided to take matters into their own hands. …

The network is capable of delivering four terabytes of data across Melbourne in under 60 minutes via automated drone, providing a transfer speed of 1.3Gbps. Way faster than the NBN’s paltry 100Mbps download speed.

The Kogan DBN does not require any expensive infrastructure. It does not rely on the poorly maintained Telstra copper network. It won’t require an expensive fibre rollout, manual labour digging up unsightly trenches, or littering Aussie streets with ugly data boxes.

This is a commercial venture. I haven’t been able to find much about their ventures in drone-delivered broadband since they made the announcement a month ago. (Coincidentally, Google announced that same week that they had acquired Titan Aerospace, presumably to look into matching drone-power with the balloon-powered Loon project they announced almost a year ago.)

Maybe drones are a good fit for last mile delivery – although we’ll still need the infrastructure for middle mile to reach the drones. Interesting to consider – especially given that farmers already have a line item in their budget for drones!