From sheep herding to pest control, and even crop spraying, drones could play an increasing role in the future.

Workshops have been held in Pukeawa, South Otago, to show farmers some of the options that could help them on the paddock.

Some drones linked with GPS can map challenging terrains, such as paddocks with rocks or dense bush.

Bill Paterson from Aerial Agri Solutionz has been using the technology for around six months.

"It takes a series of photos, depending on how high you send it will determine how many it takes, then all those photos get stitched together and then we use the spray drone to follow the lines that we make of that picture," says Paterson.

He says drones can also be used for both precision spraying and seeding.

"It's got a variable nozzle on it so it's just dropping the spray straight down onto a spinner, and that spinner we can adjust the RPM (rotations per minute) and it'll give us a really accurate droplet size we can go anywhere from rain to really fine mist that you can hardly see."

This precise control helps prevents spray from drifting into waterways, or unintentionally cross-spraying other crop types.

The drone field days were set up by local water care group South Otago River Care (OSRC) with the help of $1.8m in funding from the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) over three years as part of its Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures Fund.

OSRC's Rebecca Begg is a big driver of the project.

'We went to out catchment groups and were asking them what innovation would they like to see, and drones kept coming up," says Begg.

She believes it's a vital opportunity for workers to ask questions, get advice, and talk through innovative ideas with others in the sector.

"Farmers love talking to other farmers and that's where they get their good ideas from," she says.

"They love looking to see what's happening over the fence.

"So if we can get the drone technology to be something that's a bit more normal, and a little bit more visible, then I think there'll be a lot more trust in it as an innovation that you can use."

But the technology isn't just for farmers.

The demonstration days saw interested attendees from police search and rescue, regional councils, forestry groups and the Department of Conservation.

Department of Conservation (DOC) threats adviser Keith Briden says drones could be incredibly useful for pest control.

"We're doing quite a bit more work with [wallabies] now, they've been spreading and we want to... make New Zealand wallaby free in the future and we're going to need tools like drones," he says.

"Wallabies are a nocturnal animal, they're very hard to see during the day, they hide in the scrub and pine tussocks."

A solution, he says, is to fit a drone with a thermal camera.

"At night time you can fly it fairly high and spot the wallabies."

He says DOC is even looking at developing drones that can detect wilding pines using artificial intelligence, developing techniques that would be safer and more efficient than traditional practices.

"Some contractors can use a drone to fly an area before they go in and start their work and they can see what the hazards might be."

Organisers hope more regions around the country will hold similar demonstration days, providing more businesses with the opportunities offered by the technology.