The first agricultural drone competition in Russia is held in the Tomsk region

The first competition in Russia for piloting UAVs used in agriculture has started at the airfield in Berezkino, Tomsk Region. Competitions are held as part of the intensive "Archipelago 2023".
Teams from TSU, TUSUR, OOO Mezheninovskaya Poultry Farm (Tomsk Region), SFNTCA RAS, NSAU (Novosibirsk Region) and OOO Transport of the Future (Samara Region) participate in the competition.
At the opening of the competition, the participants were welcomed by Deputy Governor for Economics Andrei Antonov, Deputy Governor for Agro-Industrial Policy and Environmental Management Andrei Knorr, General Director of the NTI Foundation Vadim Medvedev, Vice-Rector of the National Research Tomsk State University Viktor Demin, director of the engineering school "Agrobiotek" of TSU Kirill Golokhvast.
On Tuesday there were competitions in four disciplines. The teams had to answer the questions of the theoretical part, conduct aerial photography with the help of drones, analyze land plots and identify sectors in need of agrochemical processing, as well as carry out the processing of land plots using an agrodrone in automatic mode.
Among the participants of the competition is the team of Mezheninovskaya Poultry Farm LLC. This agricultural enterprise is so far the only one in the region that uses drones to process crops.
This year, Mezheninovskaya Poultry Farm launched a digitalization project. The first part of the project was the digitization of the fields, which was carried out in May 2023. The sown areas of the SPK Mezheninovsky (7 thousand hectares) and the agricultural firm Mezheninovskaya (21 thousand hectares) were digitized.
As Vladimir Ermolenko, deputy director of Mezheninovskaya Poultry Farm, explained, the digitization of sowing data has greatly facilitated the life of the company.
- The effectiveness of digitalization of the agro-industrial complex is difficult to overestimate. For example, a domestic-made self-propelled sprayer costs from 15 million rubles, and one drone designed for the same purpose costs 1.5 million rubles. If earlier we had to sum up all the results of the work done during the day in the fields manually at the end of the working day, now we control and manage the entire production process onlineduring the working day, - said Vladimir Ermolenko.
Deputy Governor of the Tomsk region for agro-industrial policy and environmental management Andrey Knorr noted at the opening of the competition:
- Russiais one of the largest industrial countries in the world. We have 11 hectares of land per person. Therefore, the solution of many global issues depends on us. One of them is the efficiency of agriculture and the reduction in the cost of agricultural products. The Tomsk region has long been a region where new technologies are being actively introduced. Usually, nothing is grown beyond the 55th parallel, except for deer. And we are digitizing the agro-industrial complex. The introduction of drones is a prime example of this. I am glad that Mezheninovskaya Poultry Farm is among the participants in the competition, where a digitalization project has been implemented since this year. I hope that soon we will work on domestic drones, - Andrey Knorr emphasized.
Today the results of the competition will be summed up and the teams will be awarded.