XAG for supporting the agricultural sector - how do agricultural drones affect the economy and efficiency of agro enterprises?

We discussed these and other questions with Maksym Romanovskyi, Head of the Precision Farming Department of Tіtan Machinery Ukraine (as you already knew, Titan Machinery Ukraine became the official dealer of the XAG brand in Ukraine in February 2022).

How did Titan Machinery Ukraine decide to start working with drones, and why did you choose the XAG brand?
- Our company has been working with precision farming technologies since its first days by offering machinery with built-in equipment. We work with well-known brands that help our farmers to achieve a certain level of automatization. Since 2019, we have had a separate department working in this direction, which has an ambitious strategy and development in the Ukrainian market. The market does not remain stable, there is a particular shift and development, so it is a logical step for Titan Machinery Ukraine to enter the niche of drones.
There are not many manufacturers of agricultural drones in the world. We were focused on people, support, and responsibility when choosing the Partner. A new way is always challenging, so always it's better to have a reliable representative of the manufacturer in Ukraine. XAG has been in Ukraine for two years and has already occupied 60% of the market. The official distributor of this brand already has the experience and a qualified professional team ready to provide support to both dealers and customers. Titan Machinery Ukraine has formed warehouses, the availability of equipment is complete, and drones are available for sale today. We also pre-organized a process of service support, pilot's, and service engineer's training from Titan Machinery.

What are the main advantages of agricultural drones? Are they competing with traditional sprayers?
- We offer CASE IH Patriot self-propelled sprayers, which are well known in our country. And additional equipment of self-propelled sprayers that allows for the creation of a machine according to specific agrarian needs. Regarding the agro drones, I would say that it is a "scalpel", a precise tool in the hands of an agronomist, which allows working with elementary areas without entering the field. A drone will enable you to work more efficiently and significantly reduce costs. It is convenient in small and hard-to-reach areas of the field with complicated logistics. It cannot wholly replace a sprayer, but it will be advantageous during the last phases of crop development because it will allow you to act more promptly and efficiently. Ultra-low-volume application technologies are developing, and new opportunities appear with each season. For example, this year, there was already a request on the market to treat about 40 thousand hectares with agricultural drones, which indicates the interest of farmers and their willingness to try new technologies.

What about consumables for agricultural drones? Are there many of them, and are they difficult to replace?
- Consumables are batteries, tubes, and atomizers. Everything is easy to replace in the field. Engines have a higher resources. Based on the experience of XAG Ukraine and breakdown statistics, most of the incidents took place due to operator errors. The same applies to the case of poisoning operators with chemicals. It would help if you acted by the rules of working with pesticides to avoid negative consequences. I want to pay more attention to atomizers - they do not clog, work efficiently, and are easily replaced - this is the best solution. 

Are drones more suitable for service providers or agriculture companies as well?
- Agrodrone is not only for service providers. They are convenient for one-person farms with a land bank size of 50-100 hectares.

How do farmers get the clearance for flights in the current situation in Ukraine?
- It has been possible to carry out work with agricultural drones under the conditions of obtaining permits from regional military administrations by the official Explanation of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food since the beginning of April. The mechanism has already been developed.

- If you keep up with the times and are not afraid of changes, you should go ahead and always try new technologies. Titan Machinery Ukraine is constantly working with new technologies. Tomorrow, technology will become our reality, and the winner will be the one who made this step first. I want to advise farmers also to make this critical step. If you look after the technologies of precision farming and robotics and would like to stay in the agricultural market, you cannot do without technologies. We can protect our harvest, working systematically and using technologies to help ourselves.
Titan Machinery Ukraine conducts drone demonstrations for free. You could fill out this web-form for to leave your request, and our representative will contact you and inform you about the date of the demonstration in your region.