In mid-July, State Secretary Magnus Brunner took the time to convince himself of the efficiency of our RWA drone service. At the invitation of Executive Board Director Christoph Metzker, he came to the RWA Campus in Korneuburg to get a detailed picture of what we have to offer and then joined representatives of the media to experience a drone live in action on a nearby field.

The background to the visit was the fact that one of Brunner’s functions as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology is to regulate drone flights in Austria. RWA was one of the first Austrian companies to offer a professional drone service when it launched its own service – and presented the first agricultural drone pilot, Claudia Mittermayr – several years ago.

During the visit, Claudia provided information about the range of applications offered to farmers by RWA’s drones. For example, Trichogramma – parasitic wasps – can be spread across an area of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 hectares every season in order to control the corn borer. During the visit, Claudia demonstrated exactly how this works. She flew the drone over a nearby cornfield, distributing balls filled with Trichogramma (although the balls used for testing purposes naturally didn’t contain any of the parasitic wasps).

State Secretary Brunner was impressed and emphasised that drones are becoming increasingly popular. “There are numerous areas in which drones can be used, such as the application of beneficial insects as presented here by RWA,” he said. “We’re investing four million euros in a research, development and validation environment for the testing of civil drone applications, which we are creating and promoting together with the innovation laboratory Airlabs GmbH, and we are seeing a huge increase in registrations and applications for the new drone driving licence. There are currently around 23,000 registrations and around 34,000 drone driving licences have been issued.”

The visit of State Secretary Brunner was not only a great pleasure and a sign of appreciation for our work, but also an important milestone as we work to ensure that the environmentally friendly application of beneficial insects can continue.

Photo (c) Elias Pargan