The economic effects of unmanned aerial vehicles in pesticide application: evidence from Chinese grain farmers

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a recent innovation in precision agriculture technology. They are being used in a wide range of agricultural practices, whereby pesticide application is one of the most common uses of UAVs in China’s agriculture. However, the economic effects of UAVs in pesticide application have not been sufficiently investigated. To address the gap, this paper used propensity score matching to evaluate the economic effects of UAV adoption on outcome variables including revenue, pesticide costs, time spent on pesticide application, and pesticide application frequency based on a dataset covering over 2000 grain farmers across 11 provinces of China. Furthermore, generalized propensity score matching was used to evaluate the heterogeneity of outcome variables arising from differing UAV adoption intensities. The empirical results show that adoption of UAV increased revenue by approximately 434–488 dollars per hectare and reduced the time spent on pesticide application in the range of 14.4–15.8 h per hectare. Depending on the area with use of UAVs for pesticide spraying, UAV adoption has heterogeneous impacts on grain farmers’ revenue and the time spent on pesticide application. In terms of marginal revenue and marginal time spent on pesticide application, the optimal area with use of UAVs for pesticide spraying is estimated to be 20 hectares of arable land.

Peculiarities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Use in Crop Production in Russia: A Review

“…The study shows that UAVs are particularly effective in cultivating crop edges near roads, ravines, or technical buildings. This is supported by reference [93], which also confirms the effectiveness of UAVs in cultivating fields in mountainous areas. The cost of treating crops with agrochemicals, such as pesticides and mineral fertilizers, using UAVs is influenced by the technical characteristics of the flight.…”

“…Therefore, increasing the length of the UAV route also increases the cost of treatment. In addition, the analysis of Figure 6b shows a lower limit for the field length, which is 200 m. As stated in the paper [93], the site area must be larger than 2 hectares.…”

“…Renting UAVs from specialized companies is a viable option for using them without incurring additional capital investment. This approach has already been successfully implemented on small farms in China [93].…”

Automation’s Impact on Agriculture: Opportunities, Challenges, and Economic Effects

“…This health crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of numerous industries to disruptions caused by disease outbreaks and lockdowns. Consequently, some businesses, including agriculture, have sought to enhance their reliance on robotics and automation to mitigate such risks and ensure uninterrupted operation [3,8,68]. It should be noted that the proportion of mechanization varies significantly across different industries and fields.…”

“…The agricultural workforce might struggle to meet the demands of labor-intensive tasks. This transition in demographics could lead to a shift toward a more knowledge-based workforce, encompassing roles related to technology development, data analysis, precision agriculture, and the management of automated systems [4][5][6][7][8].…”