Drone Technology: A means of solving Herdsmen and Farmers clashes
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By Shehu Asma’u Abbas
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too “dull, dirty or dangerous for humans and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications.These include aerial photography, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring,river monitoring, environmental monitoring,policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.
An agricultural drone (Ag drone) is an unmanned aerial vehicle used in agriculture operations, mostly in yield optimization and in monitoring crop growth and crop production. Ag drones provide information on crop growth stages, crop health, and soil variations. Multispectral sensors are used on agricultural drones to image electromagnetic radiation beyond the visible spectrum, including near-infrared and short-wave infrared.
The use of ag drones has ethical and social implications. One benefit is that they are able to monitor and control the use of pesticides properly. This allows minimizing the environmental impact of pesticides.
Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria are a series of disputes over arable land resources across Nigeria between the mostly-Muslim Fulani herders and the mostly-Christian non-Fulani farmers. The conflicts have been especially prominent in the Middle Belt (North Central) consisting of Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, and Plateau States, as well as the Federal Capital Territory since the return of democracy in 1999 till date. More recently, they have deteriorated into attacks on farmers by Fulani herdsmen.
Ag Drones can potentially play a role in reducing the conflicts between farmers and herdsmen in Nigeria by:
1 – It helps monitoring grazing patterns and detecting potential conflicts before they occur.
2 – It provide early warning of cattle encroachment on farmland.
3 – It also monitors herd movements and keeping track of cattle ownership.
4 – It provide real-time surveillance of areas where conflicts are likely to occur.
5 – Provide emergency response capabilities, such as delivering medical supplies or evacuating people from conflict zones.
In conclusion government should help provide drones for those who cannot afford it or fix some taxes that would be paid in the process. And in addition government should build viewing centers so that Farmers (more especially those in rural areas) will have a view of the situation his farmland is into.
Written by Shehu Asma’u Abbas, a student from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State. You can reach Abbas via shehuasmauabbas@gmail.com
