TopGan Drone LLC

TopGan Drone LLC welcomes the proposed FAA legislation to regulate commercial drone usage especially within the agriculture sector. Specifically, we recognize the positive economic impact that it will have on farmers seeking to improve crop yield and reduce their expenditures. In the US, over 80% of farmers spend up to 75% more than needed on their annual purchase of chemicals to treat crops from diseases. Farmers have traditionally taken the conservative approach to treat the appearance of disease by applying fertilizers and pesticides uniformly cross an entire crop. Today, commercial operations using specialized unmanned aerial vehicles with mountable sensors and mapping technology could help reduce farmers expenditure on fungicides and pesticides by as much as 30%. This will save an average sized US farm $28K annually and has a potential savings of tens of billions of dollars nationally. Alternative technologies to commercial UAV areal crop inspection such as satellites or drip irrigation systems are either too expensive or capital intensive, often offering returns only after +10 years. As soon as the FAA creates industry regulations that permit commercial UAV operations for crop inspection, farmers will have a better solution to treat disease that has a more immediate return on their investment, at a more attractive price point, and will thus allow for better market penetration than existing technologies. Sincerely,