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Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta
Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta, cutting down the amount of pesticides and fertilizers that wash into the ocean in the process.
Lê Quốc Trung was born into a rice-farming family in the Tràm Chim area of the Mekong delta and understood the pervasive risk that rice diseases pose for crops. Because drones spray or scatter the ideal concentration uniformly over a precise area, farmers require less pesticide and fertilizer than they would if applying materials by hand, says XAG engineer Long Hung. “Later, I bought two devices, thinking of them as an investment that I also made for my children.” For 20 years, he cultivated his family’s four hectares by hand; today, he can sit at the edge of the field and fly the drone with no physical effort and no direct exposure to pesticides—some of which have been associated with diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract.
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