From helping out small holder cocoa farmers map out their pieces of farmland, to introducing drone technology solutions to mango farmers, Ivorian drone services start-up Investiv has really come far.

So integral has their agriculture solutions become to farmers in the country that in the small village of Sokrogbo south of Côte d’Ivoire, locals never tire of a particular sight: the take-off of the T-10 drone, a 25kg machine capable of spraying up to 4.8 litres of pesticides per minute.

“I don’t stand too close to the drone,” Amoin Koffi, an agronomist and drone pilot said recently.

And he has a really good reason for doing that.

Koffi is a drone pilot for Investiv, the young provider of drone-based precision agriculture solutions that introduced itself to the farming world in the country when it helped the UTZ Certification programme with drone-based sustainable precision agriculture solutions in 2020.

The young company has been in Sokrogbo since November 2023, providing phytosanitary products and rents out its drone services to planters.

“I move a little further away. And then, anyone who wants to watch stands behind me.

“They are curious, they want to know. They call it a ‘little plane’,” she explained while standing in front of a crowd of curious children.

One of the local farmers, Banouri Coulibaly, grows oil palm on a shared 25-hectare plot. At 60 years old, he has spent his life using backpack sprayers but was won over by this new technology – faster and more efficient than manual spraying.

“When I heard about it, I wanted to try drone spraying to see if it was really better,” Coulibaly said.

“And indeed, it’s more efficient. I immediately realised that it would improve my productivity.

“Since it sprays from above, it can reach the tops of the palm trees, which we can’t do from the ground. Where the drone has passed, the leaves are greener, and the bunches of palm nuts are heavier.”

The locals also like the drone for its economics – at this centre, it costs 10,000 CFA francs (€15) per hectare, whereas manual labour for spraying costs between 20,000 and 30,000 CFA francs (€30-40) for the same area.

“Things are changing day by day,” noted Hervé Jean-Luc Kouakou Koffi, a cocoa, palm nut, and vegetable producer.

“Agriculture has moved from an archaic phase to a mechanical phase. We, the youth of today, at my age of 34, just follow what will be easier for us.

“There’s the time factor: with the drone, in no time, the work is done. There’s also health; working with the drone is the best way to stay healthy.”

Aside from spraying, Investiv – which is also the local custodian of the Flying Labs network of drone and robotics enterprises – also offers the farmers aerial photography services, topographic surveys and data collection.

“We’ve evolved along with drone technology,” Investiv founder, Aboubacar Karim said.

“When we started aerial spraying activities, we used a ten-litre drone that required 80 batteries a day. Today, we use a 50-litre drone with six batteries.

“The drones are bigger, and logistics are less cumbersome. Drone technology is evolving extremely fast.”