Farming by Drone

The most widely deployed agricultural robot in the world is a Chinese drone, and it is busiest in the fields of the developing world. By mid-2024, DJI Agriculture’s drones had cumulatively treated more than 500 million hectares of farmland, an area larger than the entire European Union.^[1]

The fleet is enormous and growing. By the end of 2024 roughly 400,000 DJI agricultural drones were in operation, up about 90% from 2020, across 100 countries and 300 crop types, and DJI held more than 40% of the global agricultural-drone market in 2025.^[2][3] Cumulative sales passed 700,000 units by mid-2026, a more-than-fivefold rise in five years, with about 30% exported.^[3]

Chinese drones have already sprayed 500 million hectares of the planet’s farmland, and DJI, barred from parts of US airspace, quietly leads the fields feeding emerging markets.

A quiet category win

Agricultural drones are a template for how Chinese hardware takes a global category: a clear labour-and-input-cost advantage, a dense domestic proving ground, then export into markets with the same economics. DJI’s main rival, XAG, already sells in more than 60 countries.^[4] The next wave, analysts and the companies agree, is emerging Asia and Latin America, where spraying by drone undercuts both manual labour and crewed aircraft.^[3]

Agricultural drones are a clean template for how a Chinese hardware category goes global: a decisive labour-and-input-cost advantage, a vast domestic market to drive down the learning curve, then export into economies with the same underlying economics. The developing-world tilt is the important part, spraying by drone undercuts both manual labour and crewed aircraft precisely where labour is cheap and mechanisation is thin, which is why the next wave runs through emerging Asia and Latin America. The durable value gathers not in the aircraft but in the recurring layer around it: agronomy software, spraying-as-a-service and the distribution that puts a drone in a smallholder’s hands.

What we do with this

This is precision agriculture arriving as a service, not a science project, and China owns the hardware layer. The durable value gathers around the recurring pieces — agronomy software, spraying-as-a-service, data, and the distribution networks that put drones in the hands of smallholders. We look past the aircraft to the operating models monetising the 500-million-hectare installed base, and to the sensor and autonomy suppliers riding the same curve.