“This is amazing because you can get the veteran business the most money with so little hassle. And it’s in these hard times!”, Oleksandr Kvyatkovsky shares his feelings on the victory in the #VARTO competition from the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
Oleksandr Kvyatkovskyi received funding for the processing of agricultural crops with the help of an agrodrone. He will provide such services for ukrainian farms.
Oleksandr is a combat veteran who served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ air reconnaissance in the Donetsk direction from the first day of the war in 2014. Due to his health, he is currently unable to serve and is instead holding economic front.
Since Oleksandr worked with drones and UAVs in the army, the idea for his business was actually on the surface. And now, during the agricultural season, he offers services for making maps of fields and using drone photos to assess the condition of crops. This information is needed to put precision agriculture into practice.
Oleksandr also acknowledges that he couldn’t imagine how important his business would be now, given that many fields have been mined, and they still need to be cultivated and fertilized somehow.
He explains: “Those farms where fights have taken place try to use tractor tillage as little as possible. It takes more than one year for full demining, the drone is a safer alternative to the tractor: fewer passes of heavy equipment means less chance of hitting a mine or an unexploded shell.”
His business is funded on the principle of ensuring food security, which is a crucial area of supporting state security, especially during wartime.
Oleksandr says that: “The use of drones is relevant not only in the military matters, but also in agriculture, because it allows the use of precision farming approaches. This results in significant cost savings, improves the effectiveness of the use of fertilizers and plant protection products, and lowers the expenditures of fuel and lubricants, among other benefits.”
Oleksandr adds: “Not many people are aware that Ukraine is currently a leader in the development of unmanned technologies for the agricultural industry. And drones now are greatly helping to reduce the expenditures, fertilizers used for processing and to speed up the cultivating process, and this saves a lot of resources for farmers and helps to process them in a short time. There are even periods when there is no substitute for such drones. For example, when corn or sunflowers are high, and it is simply impossible to go there with a combine harvester because it will damage the crop.”
With the help of the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation, Oleksandr will be able to revitalize his company, broaden its range of services, create new jobs, employ veterans, and help farms affected by the war recover faster.
