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Drone In Agriculture
A drone is a flying robot that can be remotely controlled from a certain distance. It can also reach autonomously designed destinations if equipped with sensors and a GPS. Drones play a crucial role in many fields such as rescue, surveillance, traffic, and weather monitoring.
In agriculture, drones have revolutionized farming by drastically reducing the costs of farming and significantly increasing efficiency. Drones allow farmers to consistently monitor crops as well as livestock and tackle the problem immediately. Besides that, drones can be used to map or survey crops. Farmers can use drones incorporated with specific software to draw the map of the area and the drone can automatically fly around the paths to conduct different tasks.
Industry Opportunities
1. Farm Labor Shortage
Workforce in the farming industry have low education requirements and lower salaries compared to other industries. Consequently, this has reduced the employment of labor in the industry which generally drives the drones market. Many farmers now seek drones as a replacement of labor to cut costs and increase efficiency. They invest in technology-alternatives to face shortage of labors in the market.
2. High Crop Losses Due to Climate Change
According to a research conducted by experts in the field, the crop yield has declined due to climate warming in many areas in the United States as well as in many Asian countries. Although this is a disaster for farming industry, it also provides opportunity for drones to enter the industry to increase productivity. To ensure there is a sustainable food supply, many countries encourage farmers to adapt drones in their farming to increase crop yield.
Industry Challenges
Drone is a technology that requires a deep understanding of software principles and, furthermore, learning how to control the drone is anything but straightforward. Since many farmers in the farming industry have low education qualification, there may be a lack of incentives to use them in farming. In addition, drones tend to have high fixed costs. Hence, it is a real challenge for companies to figure out how to convince the farmers to purchase these products and simplify them to ensure a consumer growth.
Industry Forecast
The global agriculture drone market is expected to be worth U.S 5.7 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR 35.9% in the forecasted period. There are a few reasons behind the forecasted growth. To begin with, there is an increase in venture funding for the development of agriculture drones. Secondly, U.S regulation is getting softer of the use of agriculture drones, which creates wide growth opportunities for the agriculture drone market. These drivers are the reason for the high forecasted growth of this industry.
Summary
Agriculture drone industry is expected to have a remarkable growth over the next 5 years.
Although the demand of the agriculture drone in many regions is increasing, it still faces some problems in farmer’s incentive to use the technology.