A vast service network of drones is set to be established by China’s largest commercial drone maker DJI to expand the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for agriculture use, the company announced on Monday, March 21.
China Daily reported that around 10,000 people across the country will be trained by the Shenzhen-based company to operate the drones, while about 100 after-sales service centers will also be set up. The company also plans to provide subsidies to up to 10,000 people to help them start business in farm drones.
"The agricultural drone could load 10 kilograms of pesticides and spray an area of up to four hectares per hour," Cao Nan, the sales director of DJI, said. "Its work efficiency can reach more than 40 times of a human and it will also solve the shortage of workers in rural areas."
MG-1, the company's first farm drone, was launched in November.
"Unlike other drones, used in aerial photography, the farm drone needs specialized sales and after-sales service support," Wang Fan, the company's public relations officer, said, adding that the service network will also provide assembly, test flights and machine maintenance.
The demand for agricultural drones in on the rise and currently, there are no more than 4,000 of it at present, He Xiongkui, a professor at the Center of Crop Protection Equipment and Spraying Technology at China Agricultural University, said. He added that the quality of drones also differs and more often, there is no after-sale service system.
According to industry statistics, there is a huge potential for growth in the use of agricultural drone in China where the penetration rate is only 3 percent, compared with 50 percent in Japan and in the U.S.
As the demand for advanced farming devices grow with the modernization of agriculture, the Chinese government has issued policies to encourage the use of modern agricultural machinery as well as subsidies for the use of drones in agriculture.
"The country's regulation on consumer-specific drones is strict and the risk is relatively high, so it is an inevitable trend more industry-specific drones will appear in the future," She Shuanglin, a researcher at Analysys International, said.
Drones are also used in traffic administration and disaster surveillance, the report said.