Regina company likes to drone on about precision pest control

The owner of a Regina business believes robots are the solution to the inefficient use of pest control products on farms.

According to Daniel McCann from Precision AI, 80 per cent of pesticides and herbicides that are applied through the practice of broadcast spraying end up on the ground and in the water supply.

“It’s hugely wasteful and a big cost to the farmer,” McCann said.

His company uses autonomous drones that scan fields, zero in on the weeds and spray them.

“This will actually reduce the chemical footprint in the food and water supply because you’re not actually spraying the crop anymore. You’re spraying just the weeds. Your crop when it’s growing is completely free from herbicide and pesticide,” he said.

McCann showcased his idea on Tuesday during Pitch@Palace, a pitch competition founded by the Duke of York for entrepreneurs. It was hosted by the Rideau Hall Foundation.

Among those in the audience was former Gov. Gen. David Johnston.

There were 15 companies vying for four spots to represent the prairies at the Canadian final in Toronto. From there, one or two will travel to the United Kingdom for the global competition.

McCann found the networking particularly valuable.

“Our technology, we believe, has markets beyond just Canada and the United States. We believe it will go international,” he said.

“It’s a very large idea with a very large scale and the types of contacts that this particular thing can bring in is very attractive to our company.”

McCann sees his innovation as just the beginning of a seismic change in agricultural practice.

“We’ve got a fixed amount of farmland in the world and an increasing population, so we need to get smarter about how we grow food,” he said. “It has been called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to automate the farm using robotics and artificial intelligence, and I think it’s inevitable that we go that way.

“We want to be one of the companies that helps advance that model.”