Ag Spray Drones Are Just Taking Off, but a Ban on Chinese Tech Could Ground the Industry

By Cami Koons

Across the country, farmers and small entrepreneurs are adding drones to their fleet of tools for tasks such as spraying agricultural chemicals or spreading seeds for a cover crop. 

Today, the majority of the ag-drone market is made up of Chinese manufactured machinery, which some federal laws seek to outlaw, asserting national security fears. 

Those in the industry, however, wonder if the budding American ag-drone market is ready to fill the gaps in the event of a U.S. ban on Chinese drones — which could begin at the end of the year. 

How and Why Drones?

Drones have slowly integrated into the agricultural sector. The price tags and ability to go out and spray right after a rain make them attractive options for farmers who would otherwise risk getting a spray rig stuck in the mud, or wait on the local aerial sprayer to fit them in their schedules. 

Cory Maassen attended a spray drone workshop Tuesday in north-central Iowa with his father, who farms corn and soybeans in the western part of the state. The younger Maassen, who said he plans to take over the farm when his dad is ready, said he has been looking into drones as an option to add a supplementary revenue stream to the farm operation. 

The Maassen property is less than 1,000 acres, so Maassen said he figured adding a custom sprayer business could help build some longevity in the farm operation. 

“To have a different income stream would be nice as well,” Corey Maassen said. “It’s cheaper than buying new land, [and] it’s cheaper than buying a new sprayer.” 

Maassen’s plan is in line with a lot of spray drone operators. Some farmers buy a couple of drones for their property and make some cash spraying a neighbor’s field too. Others have built custom-spraying businesses with a fleet of drones.

A traditional ag sprayer, one driven in the field, could cost upward of half a million dollars. A new spray drone costs $25,000–$60,000, depending on size. There is a tradeoff in time, as a drone can spray a 20- to 30-foot swath at a time, compared with 120-foot booms that could come on a traditional sprayer. 

“This is a fraction of the cost,” Maassen said. “And if it holds up as well as what they’re saying it can, it pays for itself within a year or two.” 

Doug Dodd, a drone specialist in the region where the workshop was hosted, said the biggest reason a farmer should think about a drone is it gives them control over when they spray. 

Dodd said farmers also have the ability to tackle uneven terrains, seed a cover crop, and perform multiple applications. To him, ag-drone technology is akin to his grandfather’s generation adding tractors.  

“You know any farmers who … farm without a tractor?” Dodd said. “I really feel like if guys are apprehensive, they’re falling farther behind.”

Disruption to the Chinese Drone Market Could Be Imminent

Eric Ringer is the president of the American Spray Drone Coalition (ASDC) and vice president of partnerships for a spray-drone retailer and software company in eastern Iowa. The ASDC represents nearly 80% of the ag spray-drone market in the country and has opposed some legislation that would restrict the sale of Chinese drones in the U.S. Ringer said the nature of the spray-drone industry is the majority of the technology comes from China.

Last year, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which among many things, stipulated the Chinese-owned drone company DJI join the Federal Communication Commission’s “covered list” unless a federal agency determined the company posed no threat to national security. No agency begun reviewing the company. If none steps up by Dec. 23, DJI joins a slew of other Chinese companies on the covered list, and in essence is banned in the U.S. 

According to the ASDC, Chinese-made drones account for about 90% of the market in the U.S. As of 2024, Ringer said, it was estimated that around 80% of spray drone flights in the U.S. were done with DJI equipment. 

“The reality is that the best drones on the market right now are from China,” Ringer said. “We need to do better, as a nation, in building up good domestic alternatives — but that doesn’t happen magically by banning all drones from a certain country.” 

Ringer said the coalition advocates for consumer choice in the spray-drone space. He added the coalition supports legislation that can “curb dependency” on Chinese options without limiting options in the market. 

“We advocate for basic farmer choice,” Ringer said. “We want there to be lots of options on the market so that our farmers benefit from all the good things about competition in technology suppliers.” 

Ringer said more competition means downward pressure on price, and upward pressure on quality. 

According to data from the ASDC, spray drones treated more than 10.3 million acres in 2024, representing $215 million in rural revenue. That revenue came not from purchasing drones but from operators offering custom applications and other drone-provided services. 

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., penned a letter with other lawmakers urging the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to expedite a review of DJI and Autel to prevent the companies from defaulting to the covered list in December. No further action on this effort has been announced.

A DJI spokesperson emailed that the company has been “urging” the relevant agencies to conduct the congressional-required review, and said the removal of DJI from the American market would have “devastating ramifications” on the U.S. economy.

“We made clear then — as we do now — that we welcome the opportunity to participate in a rigorous, transparent, and fair audit,” the spokesperson said. “We believe our products can stand up to scrutiny because our security protections and data privacy controls are real and robust.” 

The spokesperson also said DJI has also received certifications and security audits from “industry experts and federal agencies.” 

According to the spokesperson, DJI products, which stretch beyond the agricultural sector, generate “more than $116 billion in economic activity” in the U.S. 

“America’s drone community deserves due process,” the statement said. “Today, thousands of farmers, first responders, small businesses, and others would be cut off from essential tools that enable them to operate safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively.” 

Opponents of the Chinese drones fear their surveillance- and data-gathering capabilities pose a national security threat. 

Ringer said if cybersecurity is a concern, then the focus should be on creating the same types of firewalls and security protections that are on foreign-made consumer electronics.

Ringer said U.S. options make up around 5% of all manufactured drones, not just ag drones. With such limited current capacity, he said legislation should urge U.S. drone manufacturers to focus on the “high sensitivity use cases” such as military drones and surveillance. 

The National Defense Authorization Act is not the only threat to Chinese-made drones. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has stopped certain shipments of DJI drones due to concerns of forced labor under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. In a company blog post, DJI said the claims were “entirely unfounded and categorically false.” 

In June, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved the Homeland Security budget for fiscal year 2026, which in part would stop CBP from admitting “aerosol-dispensing unmanned aircraft system(s) produced or manufactured in a foreign adversary country.” 

Ringer said this legislation, if approved by the House and Senate, would mean “our farmers are left hanging.” 

Another federal bill, which Ringer said was a “good way” to go about the issue, has a longer timeline for a Chinese drone ban, and it offers grants to domestic manufacturers as they ramp up production. 

“The thing that we risk if we cut off our supply of drones today is that the U.S. options are going to get rushed to market because there’s a huge vacuum there, and we’re going to deal with quality issues,” Ringer said. 

Ringer said the market has enough options that cutting off DJI won’t break it. But he added that he worries about the market impacts if all Chinese drones and components are banned. 

Texas-Based Ag-Drone Company Ready to Step In

Hylio is a Texas-based drone and software company that was born out of a group of college engineering students who saw the potential of ag-spray drones. Hylio represents 10%–15% of the U.S. spray-drone market.

Hylio CEO and cofounder Arthur Erickson said if DJI were banned in December, his company wouldn’t fill the gap immediately, “but it really wouldn’t take us long to catch up.” 

Part of that is because there are only a few thousand operators in the U.S. that use ag-spray drones. Erickson said Hylio can make about 2,000 drones a year but will be up to 5,000–6,000 annually once they reach full capacity, in three or four years. 

Erickson said he and his cofounders were not thinking about the geopolitical divide when they founded the company but as they realized the Chinese dominance, the American-made promise became more of the company’s “ethos.” 

“It’s not that we’re against China or even DJI,” Erickson said. “It shouldn’t be the only monopolistic option on the market. There should be a lot of different choices.” 

Erickson said banning all Chinese drones could be a “rip the Band-Aid off” method to force American drone companies to accelerate. This would increase demand for Hylio, but also encourage some of the younger U.S. manufacturers to become more competitive. 

“It’s not going to be existential if there’s a somewhat limited supply of these spray drones over the next two or three years, as these American companies scale up,” Erickson said. “(Farmers) are not going to go out of business just because they didn’t have spray drones for two or three years.” 

But, he said, some risks might come to other sectors of the drone market such as firefighters and police officers, who have used drones to locate missing people, as some agencies did following the recent flooding events in Texas.

Erickson said certain elements of Chinese owned drones worry him, including reported funding ties to the Chinese Communist Party and what he called anticompetitive business practices. 

“China’s doing what’s best for them, but we can’t just sit back and let them completely dominate this industry,” Erickson said. “… It would be an existential threat to let any single entity, Chinese or not, have that amount of control.” 

Erickson said the bottom line is “China is on the chopping block” and that it’s a “serious factor” for those purchasing drones to know that some Chinese models could be banned in a couple of months. 

Maassen, the prospective buyer, said he was considering purchasing a Hylio drone for that reason.

“DJI, XAG” another Chinese drone company “are going to be cheaper in the buyout — that’s the reality of it,” Maassen said. “Why would I want to buy that drone if I’m not going to be able to service it? It’s not exactly a smart plan on my part.” 

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: [email protected]. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.