Chinese agricultural drones: How far can the most down-to-earth “black technology” fly?

Some people say that agricultural drones are a farming tool for new farmers and the most down-to-earth “black technology”; Some people say that agricultural drones are an excellent entry point for socialized services and a golden key to opening up smart and precision agriculture.
Starting from Henan in February, he traveled all the way north to Hebei and Shandong to apply medicine to wheat. In June and July, he returned to Liaoning to focus on hazelnut orchards. In August, he shifted to cotton fields in Xinjiang, and then went to orchards in the south. This is the cross regional operation roadmap of Liaoning young man Chen Song for a year.

From the Maike who used to travel around the world with a sickle to the agricultural machinist who drove a harvester, now there is a new group of cross regional operations in the army – pilots, who are equipped with drones for aerial operations.

In recent years, driven by the huge market demand, plant protection drones developed rapidly in China to solve the pain points of medication. According to data from the National Agricultural Technology Center, the number of plant protection drones in China was only about 4000 in 2016. By 2021, the number of plant protection drones operated by professional pest prevention and control service organizations alone had exceeded 120000, with an operating area exceeding 1.07 billion acres and over 200000 pilots active in the fields.

With the expansion of application scenarios, the functions of plant protection drones are no longer limited to pesticide spraying, and the industry’s term for them has also been replaced by “agricultural drones”. Some people say that agricultural drones are a farming tool for new farmers and the most down-to-earth “black technology”; Some people say that agricultural drones are an excellent entry point for socialized services and a golden key to opening up smart and precision agriculture. At the same time, “hundreds of billions
The reviews of the “blue ocean of the high-end market” and “cool and high paying new profession” have been repeatedly mentioned, and this industry has high expectations and unlimited imagination, with many halos added, but there has also been a lot of questioning.

China has become the country with the largest application area of agricultural drones in the world. According to several consecutive years of survey data, the effectiveness of aerial plant protection unified prevention and control has been improved by 10% to 20% compared to farmers’ self prevention, reducing pesticide use by 20% to 30%, and increasing pesticide utilization rate by more than 10%. “Guo Yongwang, a researcher at the National Agricultural Technology Center, introduced that thanks to technological progress, drones have achieved significant breakthroughs in intelligent flight control systems, spraying systems, drug loading, and other aspects, In addition, the development of pesticide formulations has achieved a perfect combination of “guns” and “bullets”, promoting the progress of low altitude and low dose pesticide application technology. The development of drones has played a positive role in pesticide reduction, cost saving and efficiency enhancement in agriculture, emergency relief, and ensuring food security, and has also promoted the process of agricultural modernization.

[1] Wang Tengfei. Chinese agricultural drones: How far can the most down-to-earth “black technology” fly? [N] Farmers’ Daily, June 24, 2022 (008)