A few days ago, we covered this story about the Nigerian government making plans to invest in drone technology to supplement to its efforts against border crimes in the country.

Well… at least one of our readers was not impressed.

“Nigeria (the govt) has been saying this for over eight years,” wrote the reader in a comment. “But thus far no tenders, RFIs (Requests for Information), RFPs (Requests for Proposals); nothing. The northeast, Gulf of Guinea and delta regions need help.

“UAVs (Group 2, small Group 3) can do the job. Start with a basic system, use it, get good at it, then spread your wings. But make a decision.”

We do think the reader has a point; and it is for this reason that we are usually not very comfortable covering intentions about a government or organisation looking to deploy drones for whatever end; without concrete evidence on the ground that there is activity towards making those blueprints real in the foreseeable future.

We are cheerleaders for drone technology – that is a given – but we do take our readers seriously, and are averse to taking you for a ride by bringing you puff pieces that have little chances of seeing the light of day.

And for that, we would have loved to be excited about the news that the Zimbabwe government is planning to purchase agricultural drones as a counter measure against pests, birds and diseases threatening the country’s winter crop.

But we have had our fingers burned before, so we will see what happens.

Zimbabwe’s agricultural minister Anxious Masuka told a local publication recently that the government would be buying ten “long range” crop spraying drones to help protect crops in both the winter and the summer seasons.

Besides vegetables, farmers in Zimbabwe usually engage in the growing of wheat, barley and maize in winter; and these crops are at the mercy of frost, diseases and pests.

“We are in the process of buying ten long range agricultural drones that are able to cover 100km to mitigate against the surge in birds, pests and diseases that threaten the winter wheat and the summer crop,” Masuka was quoted saying.

“So in future when an outbreak of Quelea birds happens here for example (in Kwekwe), we would be able to launch from Gweru (the Midlands provincial capital).”

We’re not sure there is a crop spraying drone that can cover 100km yet. That’d call for massive enduring power for a drone travelling at relatively low speeds; not even speaking about the carrying capacity a drone is required to have to cover 100km.

Maybe the minister meant 100 square kilometres, which would still be a massive area to cover. The biggest crop spraying drone that has been made public is the VoloDrone from VoloCopter; which has the capacity to carry 200kg worth of chemicals at one go.

But the VoloDrone can only fly for 30 minutes on a single charge; and another thing – it is is not even in issue yet.

Otherwise, there are some really good crop-spraying drones on the market – from reputable companies like DJI and XAG – and a good number of them are already being used by private agricultural drone services suppliers in the country.

But these drones have a maximum payload capacity of 40L and can only stay in the air for not more than an hour with a single battery.

There are also regulatory issues to consider, as long-range drones have to travel beyond the pilot’s visual line of sight; and that provision had to get the greenlight from the local aviation regulator.

We do believe the government’s plans to introduce provincial response centres from where drones can be deployed to farming areas countrywide is a noble one. Small scale farmers in the rural areas often struggle to save their crop from pests and bird plagues.

Unmanned aerial support from the government and provincial agricultural structures would be welcome.