Agriculture's most innovative investments under €100k

A Romanian farmer ended up with a fractured spine after getting curious about whether he could fly a crop-spraying drone – then panicking and letting go from 7 meters up.

It's just one of the hazards that come with agricultural drones—the heftiest machines available to civilians—some of which can easily hoist a person, or even several, off the ground.

Of course, the reverse scenario is just as plausible: in life-or-death situations, a sufficiently powerful drone might be the only way to pull someone out of danger. Just last week, headlines went around the world about a Ukrainian soldier stranded for nearly 500 days behind enemy lines, finally airlifted out by one of these flying contraptions.

Farmers adopting the new herbicide-spraying tech do get a safety briefing, says Cristian Szilagyi, sales director at Riagro, though he either didn't know or wasn't keen to share more details about the farmer involved in the mishap.

Szilagyi walked us through what one of these drones can actually do: it carries up to 150 liters of herbicide, which it sprays across up to 10 hectares in a flight window of just 7-8 minutes. Leaving aside the cost of the chemicals themselves, this method can slash spraying costs by up to 70% when handled by a well-trained operator, the sales rep claims.

With the drone itself running €20,000-23,000, and total costs – training included – reaching up to €40,000, the economics make sense for operations spanning dozens of hectares of potatoes, blueberries, or vineyards, hundreds of hectares of row crops, or for agricultural service providers. "We've got a client who bought one this year and has already recouped the investment. He had the right connections, this only works if you've got prior market access," Szilagyi says.

The other danger with drones this size comes down to the rotor blades, according to Marcel Ardelean, founder of Rural Plant, who showed off what he claims is the largest agricultural drone currently on the market: the Vector AGR 180. Each of its four rotors puts out 4.8 kW – enough to carry a 200 kg payload, meaning, in a worst-case rescue scenario, a victim plus their rescuer, and in day-to-day use, enough chemical payload to cover 20 hectares per flight. The drone alone costs €30,000, and starting next year it'll be joined by a bigger sibling with a 300-kilogram payload capacity. These drones fly autonomously along a pre-set spraying route but can be switched to manual control when needed; current models don't yet run on artificial intelligence.

"It's not exactly safe," Ardelean admits, sounding skeptical about AI adoption in the field, even as he considers it inevitable.

These two drone suppliers– alongside a handful of companies showcasing autonomous tractors – epresented the "tech frontier" at this year's Indagra fair, standing out among the hundreds of exhibitors who showed up with little more than slightly updated versions of the same old farm equipment. The overall lineup reflects a market still dragging its feet on tech adoption. "Romanian farms have hit roughly 19% digitalization," says agronomist Andrei Chiriac, head of the Agrinnovator think tank. Across the EU, that figure sits closer to 60%.

Chiriac made the remark at Indagra as well, during the Agri4future conference hosted by the Romanian Farmers' Club (CFRO), the organization behind his think tank. CFRO itself is an industry association launched by agribusiness company Agricover.

The hesitation, says Hannelore Valkanov, CEO of Syswin Solutions, boils down to the fact that plenty of tech solutions simply don't deliver on their promises.

"Nobody wants to invest in technology just for the sake of going high-tech. What they're looking at is the chance to cut costs and boost output," Valkanov explains.

Farmer Marin Iordache is even blunter about it, describing exactly how money can go down the drain.

"Digitalization comes with strings attached. I invested in digital tech, in software and hardware, ten years ago, on some Italian seed drills. Know how much it costs me now just to update the calibration and pricing? More than what I paid for the drills in the first place. Tread carefully," Iordache warns.

And yet, it turns out cutting-edge tech doesn't always need a microchip to work its magic. Stefan Lajsic came all the way from Subotica, a city in Serbia's Vojvodina region, to show us how to distill plum brandy more efficiently. His largest still – looking like something straight out of a Jules Verne cyberpunk fever dream – can churn out a 50-liter batch every four hours. Over a standard work week, that adds up to more than two tons of spirits a month. Running three shifts pushes output as high as 9,000 liters: slivovitz, palinka, whiskey, rum, cognac – you name the spirit, this still can produce it.

"The beauty of this system is you get to choose from eight different distillation modes," Lajsic says, before rattling off every possible combination like it's second nature. The top-of-the-line setup costs €43,500, and once you factor in all the necessary add-ons, the total investment can easily double that, not counting the building to house it. How long until it pays for itself? The engineer won't be pinned down to a number. It all hinges on what you're distilling and whether you've got buyers lined up—but if you're not chasing top-shelf quality, and not willing to let the spirit age in barrels for another five years, then honestly, what's the point of all that engineering?

This article will be updated throughout the Indagra fair.