UAV flying defense, a new battlefield for new farmers

Digital agriculture, precision agriculture and intelligent agriculture are moving from ideal to reality step by step.

Recently, the fifth episode of the large-scale industrial documentary "Cornerstone of a Powerful Country" jointly created by the Central Radio and Television General Station and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was broadcast on CCTV's financial channel, which showed the strength of scientific and technological innovation in the field of smart agriculture and the story of empowering rural youth to start businesses by dreaming.

how to make young people willingly engage in agricultural production? How to make agriculture regain its competitiveness? Promoting the redistribution of agricultural value chain through unmanned technology is at least one of the current efforts of the industry.

UAV flying defense is an important variable that technology empowers traditional agriculture.

UAV flight defense can not only realize the separation of man-machine and medicine, but also avoid the harm of pesticides to human body, and greatly improve the efficiency through fully autonomous operation. At present, drones have penetrated into all aspects of crop sowing, fertilization, pesticide application, etc., and the scope of operation has also extended from low crops in the field to high-stalk crops and cash crops.

what is the current situation of UAV's plant protection and flight defense, what are the new development trends and trends in the near future, and what are the shortcomings at present? What will it mean for the future of smart agriculture in China?

Tanker contacted relevant experts, plant protection teams and important manufacturers in the industry to get a glimpse of the important boosting role of intelligent products represented by drones in the process of agricultural industrialization and digital landing in the context of rural revitalization.

in the application of UAV industry, plant protection and flight defense is undoubtedly the best developed field so far. According to the data of Prospective Industry Research Institute, in 22, agricultural and forestry plant protection drones accounted for the largest proportion in China's civil drone market, reaching 42%, which was much higher than that of drones in power inspection, logistics and transportation, and security.

"Agricultural plant protection is one of the biggest problems in agricultural production, because the pesticide application is in the high temperature season of agricultural production, and the aging of agricultural employees in China, as well as the poisoning risk caused by unreasonable use of pesticides. In the future, it is its main development direction to replace manual operation with spray robots, realize the separation of man and machine, separate people from medicine and improve efficiency." Professor He Xiongkui, Dean of the UAV System Research Institute of China Agricultural University and Director of the Research Center of Medicine Machinery and Application Technology of China Agricultural University, told Tanker.

At present, the rapid development of plant protection and flying defense is also closely following the development trend of agriculture. In addition to the good adaptability of the plant protection drone to various terrains, the drone's "man-machine separation, human-medicine separation" can not crush the ground, contact with crops and cause no damage, which are the advantages of the drone and one of the important reasons why it attracts young people to return to their hometowns to farm.

Wang Bingnan, who was born in 196, has been working in Xinjiang for many years. He thinks that plant protection by unmanned aerial vehicles can obviously give young people extra points for farming. "Now many farmers don't want to fight drugs manually, and they like to use drones more and more, even if it is only three or five acres."

Wang Bingnan used to be a teacher and a disciplining cadre, and later he began to engage in agricultural materials. In 213, when he went to Korla, where cotton was planted in a large area, he found that people died of pesticide poisoning every year. After understanding the relevant situation, he made a market survey with his friends and found that the business of using drones instead of manpower to fight pesticides has development prospects. After that, he set up a company with his friends, taking plant protection as the starting point and taking into account the business of selling pesticide and fertilizer seeds.

"The emergence of intelligent agricultural production tools such as agricultural drones has gradually changed the production mode of' facing the loess and facing the sky' in traditional agricultural management, and replaced the traditional dangerous and complicated manual labor with high-tech equipment, so that farmers no longer have to worry about the hard work of farming." Gong Zhuoqin, co-founder of Extreme Flying Technology, told Tanker.

In his view, with the popularization and application of intelligent equipment such as agricultural drones, emerging jobs such as drone flying hands and drone teachers have emerged in rural areas, bringing more brand-new and decent career choices to rural young people and making them willing to stay in the countryside. More importantly, as the product technology becomes more intelligent and the threshold for use is lowered, more and more older farmers are beginning to use agricultural drones for their operations, driven by young people.

"As far as I know, the age span of people using agricultural drones now ranges from young people in their twenties to old farmers in their sixties." Gong Yuqin said.

Recently, CCTV's large-scale industrial documentary "The Cornerstone of a Powerful Country" reported the stories of those young people who returned to their hometowns. One of the protagonists, Yan Wenjiong, was born in 1996. After retiring and returning to his hometown, he joined the UAV plant protection industry. This year, he led the team to win a million-acre wheat control order from the local county government through socialized bidding.

Because he has to finish the task within one week, he has to dispatch more than 2 agricultural drones to work at the same time every day to complete the plant protection task of 1, mu.

"During the period of wheat unified prevention and control, there are more than 1 new farmers like Yan Wenjiong in Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi and other wheat areas. They dispatch tens of thousands of agricultural drones around the clock, connecting tens of thousands of flying hands and farmers to guard the safety of the' China Granary'." Gong Yuqin said.

Figure/Yan Wenjiong's plant protection work

Strengthening the support of agricultural science and technology and equipment, building smart agriculture and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization are also the meanings of the 14 th Five-Year Plan.

in 221, the No.1 Document of the Central Committee put forward the new goal of "strengthening the support of modern agricultural science and technology and material equipment", improving the independent research and development ability of agricultural machinery and equipment, supporting the research and development and manufacturing of high-end intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment in hilly and mountainous areas, increasing the purchase subsidy and carrying out agricultural machinery operation subsidies.

"There are nearly 2 billion mu of cultivated land in China. Although the comprehensive mechanization rate of farming and harvesting exceeds 7%, there are still weak links, industries and regions, such as plant protection for small and medium-sized fields and mountain orchards." Fan Wenze, director of agricultural marketing in DJI, told Tanker.

he believes that compared with ground machinery, agricultural unmanned aerial vehicles have the advantages of high efficiency, strong terrain adaptability and high intelligence. The popularity of drones, especially in areas with weak mechanization, can improve the overall mechanization and automation level of agricultural "planting management".

In the view of Ye Wencheng, secretary general of the Central Plains Plant Protection Alliance, the lack of attraction of traditional agriculture to young people has always been an important problem that hinders agricultural development. Ye Wencheng believes that the key to "rural revitalization" is "talent revitalization", but only intelligent equipment such as drones can attract talents to return and make young people have enthusiasm for farming? Not really.

"As we all know, Beishangguang or big cities are particularly attractive, and everyone is very enthusiastic about these cities, but what attracts everyone is never the high-rise buildings in the cities, but the development opportunities in the cities, where you can earn money. Following this line of thinking, in the future, if rural areas want to attract young people, they should also rely on development opportunities, so that everyone can see that they can earn money by doing agriculture. " Ye Wencheng said.

In his view, although there is a lot of space and opportunities for agriculture, rural revitalization has just begun. "We are just a group of people closest to opportunities, but we should learn to find and discover opportunities."

Today, the plant protection drone has tilted from the high price threshold to the cost price, the industry threshold has been continuously lowered, and the industry giants have gradually become clear. DJI and Feifei have become the "double giants" of drone plant protection.

Fan Wenze, director of agricultural market in DJI, introduced that by September 29th, 221, the annual working area of plant protection machines in DJI had exceeded 1 billion mu, with a growth rate of over 9%. The achievement of this data indicates that UAV will be popularized not only in the northern field, but also in the small and medium-sized fields in the south, which is the general situation of spraying application of DJI plant protection machine.

Figure/DJI Plant Protection Machine Operation Site

In terms of sowing and fruit tree application, there are also many traces of DJI UAV.

"This year, with the maturity of UAV solid seeding technology, fertilizer seeding has achieved breakthroughs in Heilongjiang, Jiangsu and other regions. It is not only efficient, but also more uniform. " Fan Wenze said that the rice planting area in China alone is 45 million mu, and with the introduction of a series of technologies, it will enter a period of rapid popularization in the broadcasting application market.

At present, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) seeding operation in Heilongjiang has exceeded 6 million mu times, but in other planting areas in China, UAV fertilizer seeding is still in the initial stage of development.

DJI agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle in map/operation

In the application of fruit trees, according to the data provided by DJI agriculture, the planting area of fruit trees in China is about 2 million mu, and the average annual operation scale will exceed 1.7 billion mu, which is a huge market.

"This year, with the improvement of spraying effect and the optimization of operation process, fruit tree flying defense has also been applied on a large scale in Hainan, Guangxi, Jiangxi and other regions. Especially in Hainan, drones not only helped local mango orchards to realize fully automatic operation, reduce manual dependence, but also achieved 3% pesticide reduction. With the implementation of a series of technical applications for orchard scenes, this market will continue to enter the popularization period. " Fan Wenze said.

Figure/UAV dispensing site

According to "Visitor Tanker", plant protection operation involves many professional problems. For example, different crops will have different spraying methods of chemicals, and flying hands may affect the effect of the operation if they are not professional.

"China has a vast territory and abundant resources. Different crops are planted in different provinces according to local conditions, and the growth habits and management requirements of different crops are also different. This is an objective situation." Gong Yuqin said that the intelligent and unmanned agricultural science and technology products and technologies developed and innovated by Feifei focus on the pain points of "cultivation and management" of different crops. These objectively existing agricultural production pain points are also extremely flying market opportunities.

Figure/Flying UAV works in cotton fields

Cotton, as one of the largest cash crops in China, is also the starting point for flying into agriculture. In 213, the Feifei team found in Xinjiang that agricultural drones can effectively play a significant role in cotton pest control, weeding and chemical adjustment, and have broad market demand.

Therefore, since the technology was verified on cotton, Feifei has been deeply involved in different pain points and scenarios of production management of rice, corn and wheat, including sowing, fertilizing and pesticide spraying, etc., and realized the replacement of intelligent tools for different working scenarios through the functional modular design of products.

"There is also a' smile curve' in the agricultural value chain. The pre-production supply system and the post-production sales and processing system at both ends are of higher value, while the middle production system in the middle is a low-value depression." Gong Yuqin said.

with the general increase of international food prices, the state has increased its policy support for seed industry and agriculture, and seed companies in the upper reaches of the agricultural industrial chain have occupied high value. In the marketing and brand link located in the downstream of the industrial chain, because people's consumption mode has changed from pure material consumption to cultural consumption, the market competition of agricultural products has also changed from price competition, quality competition and service competition to brand competition, and the added value has also increased significantly.

However, the agricultural planting and breeding links in the middle reaches are still facing the dilemma of low scientific and technological content, insufficient deep processing and low product quality, becoming the lowest added value part of the whole value chain and at the bottom of the "smile curve".

At present, with more and more agricultural science and technology products and technologies landing, on the one hand, it improves production efficiency and can replace heavy and repetitive work in production links, reducing the cost of employing people; on the other hand, because advanced technology brings more accurate management, it effectively saves hard costs such as agricultural input, and the increase of hatchbacks reduces the overall cost of the middle reaches, and these reduced costs directly increase the income of farmers.

Figure/Extreme Flying Twin-rotor Plant Protection Machine V4

It can be said that thanks to the large-scale use of new technologies in the agricultural field, the whole agricultural value chain will be more balanced, and at the same time, because of the reduction of production costs, it will also help China's agriculture to enhance its competitiveness in the world.

objectively speaking, as an important embodiment of smart agriculture, UAV flying defense is not only helpful to the management of agriculture, but also reshaping the value chain of agriculture. So, in the eyes of these front-line operators and practitioners, what do you think of the current situation of flying defense and plant protection industry?

Figure/UAV Plant Protection Operation

In Ye Wencheng's view, the UAV flying defense industry has begun to take shape, and the development of plant protection teams can be divided into the following four modes:

The first mode is the traditional mode of "earning service fees by cross-regional operations". Among them, experienced practitioners are familiar with the market and have relatively stable customer resources and stable development; Novices in the industry tend to be too optimistic, can't accept the cruelty of reality, get in fast, get out fast, and more people lose money and run away.

the second mode is "taking root in the local market". Among them, some people have passed the painful period of transformation and gradually survived steadily; Others are in a painful period of transition, but if they stick to their teeth, they may gain something in the coming year.

the third mode is "transformation and agricultural cooperation". This is a compromise choice, but attachment to others cannot maintain long-term stability.

the fourth mode is "original agricultural distributors actively increase plant protection business". "This kind of team is relatively closed and independent, and it is not well known to everyone, but this kind of team that takes root in the local area should focus on learning. After all, they have been deeply cultivated in the agricultural resources industry for many years, and their knowledge of plant protection is relatively solid, and their thinking is relatively open. Being able to embrace new things actively will be an important force in the future flight defense plant protection market." Ye Wencheng said.

however, he thinks that the development of UAV plant protection is not very mature from the perspective of the industry as a whole. "Up to now, we can still see a lot of flying hands who can't recognize all the drug names, and they don't know anything about crop management. Therefore, compared with the iterative progress of equipment, the improvement of the professional level of practitioners is seriously lagging behind, which is why it is worth learning from the original agricultural distributors to transform into flying defense and plant protection or introduce flying defense and plant protection business."

Photo/drone spraying pesticides on the forest

Flying defense and plant protection is a very seasonal business, so everyone migrates by "water plants"-wherever there is work, cross-regional operation is still the main operation mode of most plant protection teams.

However, a small number of teams have "landed" at present-they have begun to get rid of the dependence on flying defense fees or cross-regional operations, actively choose to take root in the local market, have stable customer resources and involve more agricultural machinery services and agricultural materials sales, which is also the development model that Ye Wencheng's alliance has been vigorously promoting in the past two years.

At present, there are about 2 flying hands in the Central Plains Flying Defense and Plant Protection Alliance.