Agriculture Drone Market (Type - Fixed-Wing, Multi-Rotor and Hybrid; Application - Spraying, Crop Scouting, Field Mapping, Variable Rate, and Crop Monitoring) -Future Scenario

Drones, better known as unmanned aerial vehicle is the aircraft without the human pilot. It has been into existence for long time and are used in various industry including mining, construction, military and agriculture. The agriculture use of drones have recently gained traction after the world started witnessing the tremendous growth in population leading towards the growing demand for food. However, use of such UAV for precision agriculture has been in use since 1990s in some part of Asia-pacific, North America and Europe. These UAV were largely used for spraying pesticides, crops in farm area and are still being used for the same purpose in many parts of the world. The agriculture drone market is therefore the most attractive market that is expected to change the way farming was earlier done.

Manufacturers of agriculture drones are continuously innovating agri-drones in terms of the functionality to stay ahead of the intensifying competition. Companies are actively developing advanced product varieties such as quadcopter drones that can efficiently cater to farmers need. Moreover, leading players in agriculture drones market are collaborating with software providers and small vendors to bring easy-to-use and advanced drone packages. Some of the leading vendors in the market are Agribotix LLC, Delair Technologies Inc., Honeycomb Corporation, Precision Hawk, Drone AG, Ag Eagle Aerial Systems, Parrot SA, Aerovironment Inc., DJI Innovate, Yamaha Corporation, Sentera LLC., and Ideaforge India Private Ltd.

North America to Remain Highly Promising in Near Future

In 2016, a vast majority of the global revenue was held by the fixed-wing drone segment, followed by the multi-rotor drone variety. Deployment of hybrid drones is still limited to very large farms and is not expected to gain notable momentum in coming two to three years. This is largely owing to the fact that the overall agriculture drone market is still at nascent stage and farmers are still in the preliminary stages of receiving education about drone operations and their usability. Thus, unless farmers start completely acknowledging the vast capabilities and benefits of drones, hybrid drone are likely to find limited use in precision agriculture.

Geographically, North America dominated the agriculture drone market in 2016, and is expected to remain the dominant regional market over the reports forecast period as well. In North America, the U.S is anticipated to drive the growth of agriculture drone market. The deployment of different type of drones is rising at a rapid pace in U.S. farms. Moreover, the country has also witnessed huge surge in drone manufacturers who are integrating analytics software with drones for better result.

Rising Demand to Increase Agricultural Production in Emerging Economies to Compel Adoption of Agriculture Drones

The excellent growth prospects of the global agriculture drone market can be attributed to the growing demand for aerial spraying and the need to increase farm productivity across a number of regional markets. Demand for surplus farm productivity is especially pressing in emerging economies that depend on imports to support the food requirements of their population. Demand for drone technology is expected to increase in the coming years as countries across the globe become increasingly aware about the technology and are ready to adopt UAVs in farms for a number of applications.

The rising number of technologically advanced, innovative, and low-cost products in the market are also contributing to the promising growth prospects of the global agriculture drone market. In Asia Pacific, fast-paced research and development activities in the field of robotics will lead to the promising development of the agriculture drone market.