Bangladesh introduces new drone technology to assess crop damage dealt by diseases or extreme weather! The Asian Development Bank adds that around 20 officers from the Department of Agricultural Extension are learning how to use this drone technology.

A workshop titled ´The use of drone and satellite image for crop monitoring and crop damage assessment´ was conducted by Malay Choudhury and Edimon Ginting - additional agriculture secretary and Asian Development Bank country director respectively - at the InterContinental Hotel in Dhaka to launch a seven-day training programme.

The trainees´ programme is divided into two parts: four days of classroom training on GIS and remote sensing analysis for crop damage detection, and a three-day field trip to Sylhet where they will learn ground data collection using mobile devices.  

Edimon Ginting claims that to ensure agricultural productivity and food security, proper assessment of crop diseases and losses is a critical step towards reducing climate change threats. The director adds: ´ Asian Development Bank will continue to bring in innovative solutions including advanced technologies to help Bangladesh tackle climate impacts´.

Director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension says that this training programme will help counter the climate change crop damage in the future, thanks to advanced geospatial technology.

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