With the global population reaching 8.1 billion, the challenge of feeding the world has become increasingly urgent. The latest United Nations report on food security highlights that 735 million people currently face food scarcity, with climate change identified as the primary driver behind this crisis. Rising global temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and extreme events such as droughts and floods are disrupting agricultural production, harming crop yields, and degrading critical natural resources like soil and water.
Among these climate impacts, drought stands out as a particularly severe threat. Unlike localized damage from excess rainfall, droughts affect vast regions over extended periods, reducing water availability and causing significant, sustained drops in crop productivity. Regions across Africa, for instance, have experienced alarming food losses, especially in staple crops like wheat, due to prolonged dry spells.
In response to these pressing challenges, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) and Israel’s Volcani Institute have pioneered a novel drone-based approach to combat drought-induced agricultural losses. Led by Dr. Roy Sadeh, a Ph.D. candidate at HUJI’s Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, the team utilised cutting-edge drone technology to study stomatal conductance in wheat—an important biological trait linked to how plants regulate water loss and survive drought stress.
Traditionally, measuring stomatal conductance involved manual, leaf-clamping devices, a laborious and slow process limiting the scale of field assessments. Dr. Sadeh noted that their drone method replaces this with fast, non-invasive monitoring, allowing thousands of plants to be surveyed quickly and efficiently. The team deployed DJI Matrice Pro 600 drones equipped with hyperspectral and thermal cameras to capture high-resolution data over large wheat fields. By analysing the light reflected from crop canopies, they could detect subtle physiological changes reflecting water use efficiency and drought resilience.
The implications of this research are significant. By integrating drone imagery with genetic analysis, the team achieved a 28% improvement in estimating crop water use and fully mapped genetic markers related to drought tolerance. This breakthrough facilitates faster identification and breeding of wheat varieties better suited to withstand climate stress, a crucial advance given United Nations projections that food production must increase by 60% over the next 15 years to feed a growing population potentially reaching 9.6 billion.
This drone-enabled methodology is reportedly the first of its kind for stomatal conductance measurement, signalling a new frontier in precision agriculture. Dr. Sadeh emphasised that this approach not only accelerates breeding programmes but could prove pivotal in developing climate-resilient crops that ensure global food security amid escalating environmental threats.
The urgency of such innovations aligns with warnings from international bodies. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has repeatedly pointed to climate change’s mounting economic and environmental toll, particularly its damage to staples like maize and wheat, which underpin diets in many vulnerable regions. The Food and Agriculture Organization stresses that extreme weather events have already led to diminished harvests, lost farmer incomes, and soaring prices, contributing to worsening malnutrition worldwide.
Similarly, the World Bank flags the disproportionate impact on developing countries, where climate disruptions threaten both food access and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. These cumulative risks underscore the need for climate-smart agricultural investments and sustainable food systems focused on adaptability and resilience.
Moreover, analyses such as the Global Hunger Index highlight how climate change worsens food losses and waste along supply chains, exacerbating scarcity and inflation in affected countries. Advocacy groups call for stronger commitments to agricultural research and development to build food systems capable of producing safe, nutritious, and affordable food under changing climatic conditions.
In this landscape, drone technology stands out as a transformative tool. Its ability to rapidly and accurately assess plant health over vast areas introduces efficiencies in monitoring and breeding that could help neutralize some effects of climate pressures. The work of Dr. Sadeh and his collaborators marks a hopeful advance, demonstrating how innovation can empower agriculture to meet growing food demands despite environmental uncertainties.
As climate change continues to challenge food security worldwide, integrating smart technologies, such as drones, with genetics and data analytics represents a promising path. These developments offer not only hope for more climate-resilient crops but also a blueprint for sustainable farming systems tailored for the future.
Source: Noah Wire Services
