Agricultural drones market to turn into a billion-dollar industry by 2024, Precision farming demand to drive the growth

The developments in Agricultural Drones Market is set to change the business landscape of agriculture and enable ultra-precision farming. The agricultural sector is likely to witness a major transformation in its value chain, as the robotic technology is set to enter into different aspects of farming. Rising deployment of this advanced technology is most probable to change the future of agrochemicals business and modify the designs of agricultural machinery. This has significantly impacted the market dynamics of the global agricultural drones industry.

Farmers, all over the globe, are gradually adopting the drone technology to obtain better yields and improve their efficiency by effective use of the land, water, and fertilizers. This technology is assisting farmers in analyzing soil and crop data by taking pictures of their fields. The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) in agricultural drones market are the popular drones, which are incorporated with thermal cameras to provide better vision to the farmers. These images help agronomists in decision making and better monitoring of plantation. With the addition of GIS, GPS and sensor technology, the hybrid UAVs are poised to better assist the farmers by providing enhanced maneuvering information.

Drones to bring data analytics into farming:

The agricultural drones have gained maximum leverage from the Internet of Things, arguably making agricultural industry much more advanced than ever before. The IoT is now set to drive the future of farming to the next level. High-tech and smart farming are no more things of the past, thanks to sensors and agricultural drones. Software solutions are in a way helping farmers by delivering real-time data for boosting yields. Furthermore, all of these technologies including satellite farming and agricultural drones are helping precision farming market to stimulate over the coming years.


U.S. to be major revenue contributor:

Not surprisingly, agricultural drones market has substantially commercialized over the recent years. U.S. agricultural drones market is set to observe significant gains over the coming seven years, having accounted for 30% of the overall industry share in 2016. A notable increase in the deployment of UAVs in the region for improving crop productivity and field mapping has provided a major spur to agricultural drones market. The field mapping application accounted to be the leading segment in the overall agricultural drones market.

Crop scouting application within the agricultural drones industry is also assisting the farmers in achieving perfection and accuracy in fertilizer and pesticides spraying. These drones use the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which detects plants under pressure with the help of various infra-red sensors. It is also used in differentiating the bare soil from grass or forest. Moreover, the UAVs mounted with LiDAR photogrammetry imaging applications helps in building topographic maps and providing an aerial view of the field.

The digital agriculture brought by these drones and robots is charting a path for next-gen agricultural industrialization. As per the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, by 2050, the world will need to produce 70% more food than it did in 2006 to feed the ever-growing population of the Earth. To meet this demand-supply mismatch, farmers and many agricultural companies are turning to invest more into such technologies, which in turn is driving the agricultural drones industry share considerably. The government entities of many countries are likely to encourage and take initiatives regarding the use of such technologies in precision farming. According to the forecasts the global shipment in agricultural drones market to exceed 200 thousand units by 2024, growing at a rate of 13% over the period of 2017-2024.

PrecisionHawk, AeroVironment, DJI, GoPro, DroneDeploy, and Trimble Navigation are some of the key players in agricultural drones industry.