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Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

I dont get it.

I dont farm rice or have experience in vietnam in particular. Yet in my experience, pesticide etc has always been done thru the already existing irrigation system with a pump.

Of course with advice from a technical person.

The irrigation system requires an upfront investment of course but you are already going to irrigate the plot so this is is a no brainer. Therefore unless the rice grows without any irrigation system, I dont see how drones could be any more cost effective.

I know rice is traditionally grown on flooded plains but that seems very risky - you are leaving your harvest in the hands of nature. Is Vietnam still growing rice subject to the whims of nature?

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I'm pretty sure the irrigation system is flooding the plot. You set up berms and then periodically flood the entire plot with water. This isn't subject to the whims of nature because the flooding is done intentionally by farmers.

Rice fields are flooded as a means of weed control, but flooded fields also generate a lot of methane. There are direct seeded crop variants coming that eliminate the need for flooding.

https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/rice-practices

> I dont farm rice

> I know rice is traditionally grown on flooded plains but that seems very risky

A recurring HN trope is people who don't know about a subject feel like they have to have an opinion on it anyway. Why do you believe it's very risky / in the hands of nature? Flooded plains (aka rice paddies) have been used for thousands of years; rice is a semiaquatic plant so it needs to be submerged, and paddies are designed to retain water to not be subject to the whims of nature.

Anyway, what alternative are you suggesting? Keep in mind it has to be scalable to feed billions and affordable.

History is also replete with droughts that killed millions of people

We are in 2025. We have plastics.

Anyway thats nit my question. My question was simple: how is is that continued, ongoing drone expense -into perpetutity- was cheaper than a one-time investment in irrigation system which can be used for water, pesticide, and even fertilizer?

> We are in 2025

Irrigation pipes have tiny holes which can be blocked by calcium deposit in hard water. You'll need filters, a lot of filters in order to operate them, and the filters needd to change for like every year or so, so it's not a one-time investment.

What you are missing is that as it grows most of the rice is not underwater. You need pesticides to protect what's above the water. Average height is about 4 feet (1.2 meters).

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