Empowering Small-Scale Vegetable Farmers with Drone-based Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Production

In India, small-scale vegetable farmers face significant challenges in achieving sustainable and profitable production due to limited access to modern technologies and decision support tools. This study explores the potential of drone-based remote sensing and decision support systems (DSS) to empower small-scale farmers and promote sustainable vegetable production practices. The research involved deploying multispectral sensor-equipped drones over 50 smallholder vegetable farms in the state of Maharashtra, India to collect high-resolution crop health and growth data across multiple growing seasons. The aerial data was processed and integrated into a cloud-based DSS platform that provided participating farmers with actionable insights and recommendations to optimize irrigation, fertilization, pest/disease control, and harvest scheduling. The DSS also incorporated weather forecasts, market price information, and expert agronomic knowledge to help farmers make informed decisions. However, challenges remain in building digital literacy, trust, and infrastructure to enable wider adoption among smallholder farmers. Future work should focus on participatory design of DSSs, integration with existing agricultural extension services, and inclusive business models for delivering precision agriculture technologies to small-scale farmers in developing countries.