Chen Xiaochun

    654789759@qq.com

    DJI, a global leader in developing and manufacturing innovative drone and camera technology for commercial and recreational use, is now focusing its commercial use on five sectors, namely, agriculture, energy, public safety, media & creativity and building & infrastructure.

    More than 40 people from different fields such as logistics and sensor technology, and even consulate generals in Guangzhou, joined the DJI headquarters showroom visit and presentation on drone technology Thursday, organized by the European Chamber South China Chapter.

    “The central theme behind everything is its precision. You can maximize yields and reduce input by making more intelligent decisions,” said David Benowitz, a program manager on the Enterprise Team at DJI. “In the past, farmers would look at his field and spray a fixed level of nitrogen across the whole field because he didn’t know which part needs nitrogen. Nitrogen can get quite expensive and it doesn’t really make sense.”

    Remote sensing can map the field with a 2-D thermal map or 3-D visual map, which can show by the temperature which areas are getting more light and which areas look healthier, thus allowing farmers to understand which areas need to be sprayed.

    “Now that I have a better sense of what demand is needed on my farm, I can react to that more intelligently. Instead of spraying the whole thing, I now know what needs to be sprayed and I can spray in a localized way,” said Benowitz.

    “The agriculture drones segment is projected to account for up to 80 percent of the quickly developing commercial drone market,” said Jessica Chung, a senior consultant with Ipsos Business Consulting who oversees the commercial drones’ market intelligence analysis across Asia.

    According to AgFunderNews, the investment momentum in agriculture drones only surged in the past three years and grew by over 340 percent between 2013 and 2015.

    Chung said that China dominates in civilian drone aircraft hardware manufacturing, whereas North American and European firms lead in software development and integrated products.

    The U.S. and Japan were the two early adopters of aerial agriculture tools. Both countries have the highest adoption rates of agriculture aircraft use, at 40 percent and 70 percent respectively, with very different underlying reasons for adoption. While in China, the adoption of aerial agriculture tools is less than 2 percent.

    Aerial agriculture tools can be used for crop dusting, irrigation and crop protection.