A NEW white paper on the agricultural drone industry, covering 2025–2026, was released in Beijing, underscoring the sector’s rapid global expansion and its deepening integration into modern farming practices.

Co-published by the Farmers’ Daily and DJI Agriculture, the report reviews international developments over the past year, including regulatory shifts, emerging applications, pilot training programs, and safety standards.

The release follows this year’s No. 1 Central Document — the annual flagship policy statement on rural affairs — which for the first time explicitly called for integrating artificial intelligence into agricultural development and expanding the use of drones, the Internet of Things, and robotics.

According to the organizers, China has become the world’s largest market for agricultural drone applications, with new use cases continuously emerging across the production chain.

While initially deployed primarily for crop protection and spraying, agricultural drones now perform a widening array of tasks, including seed broadcasting, field monitoring, mountain transport, and aquaculture management. The white paper notes that drones have become a critical bridge between China’s emerging low-altitude economy and its agricultural modernization push.

As of June 30, DJI Agriculture’s global fleet surpassed 700,000 units, operating across more than 100 countries and regions. The company has expanded its service network to over 3,500 maintenance centers and certified more than 7,000 training instructors, while over 700,000 licensed drone operators have been trained worldwide.

The white paper also estimates that cumulative drone operations have saved approximately 480 million metric tons of water and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 61.32 million metric tons, thanks to more efficient agricultural practices.

Reflecting the industry’s swift evolution, the 2025–2026 edition includes a dedicated chapter on flight safety for the first time, summarizing environment-specific safety requirements and offering enhanced recommendations on flight procedures and risk management.(SD-Agencies)