Drones World Editor Kartikeya in conversation with Mr. Jack Wrangham, Founder & CEO of Drone Ag Limited.
Drones World (DW): What specific requirement in the ENAC SORA process was the most challenging to meet, and does this create a blueprint for other EU authorities?
Jack Wrangham (JW): The most demanding aspect was designing and proving multiple, layered redundancies and failsafes across the entire system to ENAC’s stringent standards. Successfully navigating this has given us a robust, transferable framework. We are actively applying the lessons and the blueprint to other national authorities within the EU right now.
DW: How does this “drone-in-a-box” service model change your revenue structure and customer relationships compared to selling hardware/software?
JW: It fundamentally solidifies our identity as a software and operations company. The “drone-in-a-box” model allows us to service a vastly greater number of sites across the EU at scale, without the need for a proportionally larger organizational structure. Our relationship evolves from a transactional sale to an ongoing service partnership centered on guaranteed data delivery.
DW: What is the next, more complex agronomic insight your AI is being trained to deliver from this sub-millimeter imagery?
JW: We’re moving beyond simple plant counts to quantifying subtle visual indicators. This includes detecting early-stage disease signatures—like specific fungal spots or rust on a leaf—and identifying problematic weed species at their earliest germination. It also extends to building more accurate yield prediction models based on late-season canopy details and diagnosing specific types of crop stress from nuanced variations in colour and structure within the canopy.
DW: How does your system integrate with rather than replace the agronomist’s role in crop management?
JW: We see it as a force multiplier for a profession facing a generational skills deficit. Skippy enables agronomists to apply their expertise more effectively. Senior agronomists can remotely access high-quality field data from a central hub, whether collected by autonomous base stations or by roaming pilots. This allows them to triage their physical visits, prioritizing farms under high pest or disease pressure while maintaining oversight of their entire portfolio. It’s about elevating their role, not replacing it, and enabling one agronomist to cover more ground with the same standard of care.
DW: What is the biggest logistical challenge in scaling from research sites to thousands of diverse commercial farms?
JW: Operational planning and site analysis, while straightforward, are time-consuming. Automating this pipeline is the key to unlocking true scalability. Our focus is on building a resilient system that functions reliably across countless unique scenarios with minimal human oversight. We have the core backbone; scaling without a massive team expansion is crucial.
DW: Beyond regulatory first-mover advantage, what part of your technology stack is most defensible against competitors?
JW: Our end-to-end automation pipeline—from site setup and autonomous flight to data transfer, AI processing, and client delivery—is our core defensible advantage. It ensures robust, consistent data provision entirely without manual intervention, creating a significant barrier to entry based on operational excellence and reliability.
DW: What single metric will define success for your broadacre expansion in 2026?
JW: Our primary metric is quality-assured BVLOS flights completed. It’s more than just a count; it’s a measure of resilience and usefulness. For each flight, we assess: Was the full planned dataset captured, uploaded, processed, and delivered? How were any safety concerns mitigated? Is the desired frequency and data quality being achieved? This allows us to monitor system performance directly against real-world client satisfaction. Our ultimate aim is to make farming easier—reducing labour for monitoring and enabling more precise input application—so that farms of all scales can produce more food, more efficiently.
