At present, the wheat is in the booting stage, and the prevention and control of wheat head blight, aphids and other diseases and insect pests is particularly critical, and multiple drones are organized to carry out the prevention and control operations of wheat head blight. This year, we have managed 20,000 mu of wheat and have signed an order for plant protection of about 150,000 mu of wheat. An unmanned aerial vehicle can spray more than 500 mu of pesticides a day, compared to only about 10 mu of pesticides sprayed a day, which greatly improves the efficiency of plant protection.
In recent years, agricultural drones have accelerated their popularity in the field of agriculture, forestry and plant protection, and they have become the "new favorite" for farmers in field plant protection. According to the market monitoring of the China Agricultural Machinery Distribution Association, the annual sales of agricultural drones have grown from less than 1,000 in 2017 to 15,300 in 2020, an increase of 17 times in four years; the market size has expanded from 55 million yuan in 2017 to 2020 775 million yuan in the year, an increase of 14 times in four years. "From the current sales situation, this year's agricultural drone market sales will still have a good growth."
It is believed that the booming agricultural drone market is the result of the superposition of various factors. The first is policy support. In December 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting and Regulating the Development of the Civil UAV Manufacturing Industry". In 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Pilot Program of Subsidies for the Purchase of New Agricultural Machinery Products from 2018 to 2020 》; The provinces and cities that have entered the subsidy pilot program have clearly stated that they want to encourage the development and innovation of drones in the field of plant protection. The subsidy brands that have entered the local area have grown from 22 in 2017 to 69 in 2020. The second is terminal pull. Most users who buy agricultural drones are service organizations, and they organize professional plant protection flying teams to provide users with plant protection operations services. Agricultural drones have high operating efficiency and increased operating income, which has stimulated the rapid development of this market. Third, agricultural drones continue to expand their application functions, and their prices continue to fall. In addition to field crops such as rice, corn, wheat, and cotton, agricultural drones have gradually expanded to include fruits and vegetables such as grapes, citrus, and eggplant, as well as economic crops such as peanuts, oil sunflowers, rapeseed, and tea gardens. The function of agricultural drones extends from simple plant protection to operations such as planting and fertilizing.
Plant protection is currently the "short board" restricting the development of agricultural mechanization in my country. Compared with traditional plant protection machinery, agricultural drones are not restricted by terrain conditions and can enter paddy fields, hills, mountains and other places where plant protection machinery cannot enter to carry out efficient operations. In addition, agricultural drones have realized the separation of humans and pesticides, ensuring the safety of operators, effectively reducing the use of pesticides and water consumption, and are significantly better than manual spraying in terms of safety, environmental protection, prevention and control effects, and costs.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly proposes to promote the digital transformation of industries and accelerate the development of smart agriculture. "During field operations, agricultural drones will automatically record data such as pesticide spraying, fertilization, sowing amount, geographic location, and operating time, to provide data support for the development of smart agriculture, and provide forecasts and guidance for agricultural producers. From this perspective, agricultural drones are the key to smart agriculture."