A new research report by Meticulous Research predicts that droens in agriculture will be worth more than $5 Billion by 2025.

Agriculture has been a major sector for the commercial drone industry for several years. Now, new sensors and technology have made the value proposition for drones in agriculture even clearer.  Easier to use hardware, integrated sensors, AI-driven processing, and new applications have expanded their use significantly.

“Drones in agriculture can ignite a big change in improving the efficiency of agriculture,” says a Meticulous Research press release. “… These drones are used for soil and field analysis, crop monitoring, irrigation, crop spraying, crop field mapping, crop health assessment, and livestock monitoring among others. The use of these drones is a cheap and economical way to manage farming, which helps to accomplish once time-consuming and difficult tasks, all while dipping costs across the board.”

“For instance, agriculture drones can spray 40-60% faster than manual spraying with saving 30-50% in chemicals. In addition, drones are also able to conserve up to 90% of water usage for agriculture.”

The report says that drone in agriculture are expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.1% from 2019 to 2025 to reach $5.19 billion by 2025. While there are some limiting factors in technology and regulations: “growing population and rising pressure on the global food supply, increase in venture funding for development of agriculture drones, growing e-agriculture or information and communication technologies (ICTs) in agriculture, rising automation in agriculture, growing emphasis on enhancing agriculture efficiency, and rising need for water conservation across the globe,” are contributing to the  fast growth of the market, says Meticulous Research

Software and Data Analysis

Hardware and software are both growing in the agricultural market.  Among varieties of hardware: “Rotary blade commanded the largest share of the overall agriculture drone hardware market in 2019, owing to its greater maneuverability and compact design, easy to use nature, higher payload capacity, and comparatively lower price than the other types of drones.”  The majority of the growth in the segment, however, can be attributed to software.  Better data analysis in precision agriculture has improved the return on investment for drones in agriculture significantly.

Irrigation is the Fastest Growing Segment

Precision agriculture applications like weed detection, plant counting, and crop health monitoring were the biggest part of the sector in 2019, says the report.  But the application expected to grow fastest over the next 5 years is irrigation. “The fast growth of this market is mainly attributed to growing global demand for drones in water and drought management. Drones with thermal cameras can detect leaks from the water distribution systems of a cultivated field, which helps to take corrective actions in order to avoid the water loss.”