05/07/2026
For decades, traditional oil palm spraying has looked almost the same.
Workers move row by row through the field, carrying heavy knapsack sprayers on their backs. Each tank usually holds around 20 litres at most. For one hectare of oil palm, spraying can require roughly 240 litres of spray solution. That means repeated refilling, long working hours, and a lot of physical effort under the sun or rain.
This is where drone spraying plays an important role.
Instead of carrying weight on their backs, farmers and estate teams can now operate agricultural drones designed to support spraying, spreading, and field operations. One example is the MIST Drone by Aonic.
Compared to the traditional knapsack method, the difference is clear. A knapsack sprayer may hold around 20 litres, while the MIST Drone can carry up to 50 litres, more than double what a person would usually carry manually. This reduces the need for workers to move through difficult terrain with heavy loads on their backs.
For Malaysia, this shift matters.
Our agriculture industry cannot depend only on traditional labour-intensive methods forever. Labour shortages, rising operational expectations, safety concerns and the need for better efficiency are already pushing the industry to evolve. If we want young Malaysians to enter agriculture, we need to show them that the industry is moving forward.
And in that future, the next generation of Malaysian farmers may never need to carry a backpack sprayer again.
