TROY, Ohio — The topic at most 8th Congressional District Farm Forums in Ohio, hosted by Rep. John Boehner, deals with laws affecting Ohio’s farmers. This Boehner-led forum normally invites experts in the agricultural industry to speak to the public about ongoing issues and concerns.

This time, however, the 26th annual Farm Forum held last week at Troy Elementary School in Troy, Ohio, departed from the norm and headed in a very high-tech direction. Boehner and his four-person panel addressed the rapidly changing technology in agriculture computer systems, NASA data and its role on the farm and what the role of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) will be playing in modern agriculture practices.

A key topic at this year’s gathering was today’s farmer and how he or she may be impacted by the use of UAS, or drones. The Forum was titled The Impact of New Technology of Agriculture.

“Today’s panel and today’s discussion was something none of us would have thought about if you go back to the first Farm Forum,” Boehner said.

“The idea of using drones in the farm fields were not even on people’s minds 20 years ago, but nowadays we’re going to continue to see research dollars into land grants at universities where a lot of our research is done.”

The keynote speaker at this year’s Farm Forum was Steve Phipps, chairman of Woolpert Inc. Phipps spoke about the future use of UAS technology in precision agriculture.

“Technology on the farm could produce data for more environmentally friendly field applications with the use of field drones and UAS,” Phipps said. “Advanced technology could also assist in more precision spraying technology and spot treatments in only the areas needed to make farm operations more efficient and produce higher yields.”

According to Phipps, technology can be viewed as an equalizer for all sizes of businesses and farms.

“Advanced technology in agriculture could serve several sectors of Ohio industry from aviation manufacturing, engineering to higher education as students learn to integrate computer code into farm practices,” Phipps said.

Woolpert Inc. received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly its UAS commercially in Ohio and in Mississippi in December 2014. Woolpert Inc. is one of the first companies in the United States to have been granted a part 333 exemption from the FAA to conduct commercial operations using UAS.

Phipps’ Dayton-based company spe-cializes in aerial mapping technology and is exploring data applications using UAS to collect data for damage assessment and emergency response to surveying and mapping energy transportation corridors, construction monitoring, environmental studies and precision agriculture.

Phipps told the audience of more than 300 that the FAA has drafted proposed rules on flying small unmanned aerial vehicles commercially in the nation’s airspace. The regulations would apply to drones less than 55 pounds that fly below 500 feet. The rules are under public review and may be in place within two years. According to Phipps, farmers who want to use UAS on their farms have until April 24 to express their opinion on the rules.

All four members of the panel at this year’s meeting supported the need for drone use in agriculture. Ryan Smith of the Ohio/Indiana UAS Center raised awareness about “micro data,” telling the audience about exact resolutions within centimeters, “to where you can see a fly on a leaf,” Smith said.

Dr. Michael Freilich, Earth Science Division Director at NASA Science Mission Directorate, provided an update on the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission at NASA. “This project will read global moisture levels of the soil at five centimeters depth, which is certainly a much larger version of data collected by UAS for crop inspection,” Freilich said.

Brian Walkins of Cropzilla addressed the need to collect data “year over year” and suggested that such information-rich data will be used in the future to automate more processes for farmers and aid in creating a “farming master plan.”

The other panelist was Jim Shertzer, FARMserver Lead at Beck’s Hybrids, as well as moderator Jim Zehringer, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“Our panelists have spoken about the vision for the future, one that includes drones that can capture data and provide geographical information that can turn that data into field prescriptions for precision planting machines that will go out and orient those seeds in optimal locations,” Phipps said.

Then Phipps turned toward Boehner, the House Speaker, asking him to help push for research and development pertaining to drones, which Phipps says will only benefit those in the agricultural community.

“We need you to continue to put pressure on the FAA to let commercial operations fly UASs like you heard today,” Phipps said. “We need research and development, and federal dollars, for the agri-areas. We need technology transferred into two- and four-year degrees that you talked about. We need research and development transfers to the private sector. All this will help those in the rural community.”