Humans will continue to consume more food but there are fewer farmers to do the work. To survive and thrive farmers must adapt to new ways of doing things.
In a typical, 20-minute flight, a drone will take around 10,000 photographs from a systematic grid pattern using predetermined track width, overlap and vertical or oblique look angles.
Drones are being used in Australian national parks for search and rescue, controlling weeds and pest animals, monitoring beach erosion and photographing heritage assets.
The Australian postal service is currently working with Swiss Post to see what can be learned from their experience, and whether drone delivery services could be used for accident and emergency.
Although drones are at this moment used by the retail sector in a specific commercial way, in short time agriculture will make the most intensive use of the technology.