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In the last few years, drones have become popular, even in the media - when we want those magnificent aerial shots for our stories. But these drones can do a lot more than just take footage. They are used for monitoring, surveillance and delivering mapping information. And that’s how the Ministry of Agriculture will use the 3 drones they got from the Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture. There was a short handing over ceremony yesterday in Belmopan and both the IICA Representative and the CEO in the Ministry of Agriculture discussed how these drones will enhance the Ministry’s work.

Dr. Dowlath Budram - IICA Representative
"At a request from the ministry we agree to collaborate in the ministry in the post hurricane event by providing this kind of technology here that will help in data gathering and verification of information in the field. So we went ahead and got some resources from headquarters, we were able to purchase 3 drones and so we have these here today and we will be handing over these to the ministry."

Jose Alpuche - CEO, Ministry of Agriculture
"This that we're getting today while we're doing it as part of the hurricane recovery and I must thank Dr. Budram and Dr. Villalobos from IICA for responding quickly. What this is doing beyond the disaster recovery is to put us at another level. I'm truly hoping that the training that you will be getting over the next 2 days I believe it is has more to do with the operation of the equipment but under a project already being implemented with the IDB we're beginning to build the database, beginning to build the systems to begin data collection and forecast supply balance and production of estimates. It should what can be done with the application of technology not only in the time of a disaster but actually in the time of everyday work in terms of assessing a crop, doing crop forecasting for example yields forecasting. One of the tasks we've undertaken within the ministry with the help of IICA and FAO and a few others but at the end of the day what will depend on the work that you do is for us to truly put this functioning farm registry, the geo referencing of the farms and having the ability to begin doing forecast supply balance. Something the ministry has never done before, we take statistics but the statistics is always post production which is good and we have a good system of post-production data but we don't do forecast supply balances." 

The ceremony was held yesterday at the Show Grounds.