Flying drones are drawing tons of attention these days.
Popular weekly television dramas such as ‘Hawaii Five-O’ and ‘NCIS: LA’ have aired episodes in recent months with drones posing a threat as gun-toting, bomb-bearing, kill machines.
News headlines have drones crashing into the White House and being used to ferry drugs from Mexico into the United States.
The above brings the threat such drone technology might pose sharply into the minds of the general public.
On the other side of the equation sits sectors such as agriculture, which see the drones as a tool which could aid in everything from attacking individual weeds in a field, to creating better topographical maps of farm fields.
Drones are also exciting tech for farmers, offered Peter Gredig with AgNition Inc. at a meeting held in Canora, SK. in February.
“They have a big potential for agriculture … Everybody is excited about them,” he said, but again added they are at the ‘hype’ stage. “I still think the technology is ahead of the agronomy.”
The initial thought is to use the drone for aerial mapping of fields, but Gredig expects varied uses to be developed. He said one Saskatchewan designer has created a small spray tank, and using identifying tech it can hoover over a single weed and apply chemical.
Like many technologies, they can be used for good things in the right hands, and for bad in another’s hands.
With extremes in possibilities, governments are left in the no-man’s land in the middle trying to determine if they can deal with the potential threats and allow worthy development by establishing regulations.
As governments are apt to do, they either ignore the situation completely, or make bad policy when they do try to establish balance.
South of the 49th parallel the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States is trying its hand at creating a ruleset for flying drones.
Two of the draft rules have already been singled out for criticism by farmers.
The first is a requirement pilots remain in visual contact with their drones at all times.
The second is a height restriction which limits the crafts to flying no more than 500 feet above ground.
Farmers and drone operators say these constraints would limit a drone’s range and consequently its usefulness.
The above rules would indeed seem to put a definite crimp in the potential use of flying drones, not just for farmers, but the forestry sector, wildlife management, and even search and rescue.
That said we also live in a time where the public has a taste for greater control if they are perceived as being a deterrent to possible terrorist activities.
We only need to look to Ottawa to see that situation clearly. In January the Conservatives introduced Bill C-51, suggesting the Canadian Security Intelligence Service needs expanded powers to combat terrorist threats to Canada.
The opposition New Democrats, along with various security experts, academics, and privacy advocates have been quick to warn the new powers given to CSIS can be used to investigate a lot more than just terrorism. Under the proposed law, threats to Canada’s infrastructure, economic stability, and diplomatic relations, are all fair game for Canada’s spy agency.
Among the concerns are that CSIS would be given a larger mandate and expanded powers — including the ability to break the law or violate Charter rights, with judicial approval.
An overreaction to terrorism to be sure, but one which many in the public are swallowing as they react to fear.
How flying drones are mandated will fall into the same vein. Fear, rather than rational thinking, will be the overriding influence on regulations, since drones fit into the realm of terrorist tool.
And farmers may be left with a tool they cannot use effectively.
