In 2024, the low altitude economy will be included in the Government Work Report for the first time. Drones are one of the main carriers of low altitude economy applications and also the 'pioneers' of low altitude economy development. Agricultural drones are a highly mature field in low altitude economy development, "said Yin Shijun, former chief engineer of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, at a recent low altitude economy conference. Zigui County, Hubei Province, is a major agricultural county in mountainous areas. The use of agricultural drones to lift navel oranges and spray pesticides has become a standard practice for local fruit farmers. Winter is also the picking season of Zigui navel orange. Looking from the Loong Boat Square of Wangu Temple, Guizhou Town, Zigui County, the fruit trees are covered with heavy fruits. He Yichuan, the UAV operator of Zigui Honglai Agricultural Service Co., Ltd., skillfully operated the handle. The Dajiang T100 agricultural UAV lifted 85kg navel orange from the centralized receiving point, transported it to Loong Boat Square 300 meters away, and returned it to the recycling point in less than 50 seconds. In the past, it took about 40 minutes to manually transport one trip. According to Li Bo, Deputy Secretary of Zigui County Party Committee, based on an average yield of 5000 kilograms of navel oranges per mu, the comprehensive cost can be reduced by 250 yuan/mu through drone lifting. Taking the planting area of navel oranges in Zigui County as 400000 mu, the proportion of drone lifting in Zigui County accounts for 30%, with an average cost reduction of 250 yuan/mu. The drone lifting function alone can save 30 million yuan. At present, agricultural drones have evolved from their initial function of preventing and controlling fruit tree pests and diseases to their current multifunctional operations such as sowing, fertilizing, and lifting, and have fully penetrated into various fields such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishing, promoting the integrated development of modern agriculture and low altitude economy. The widespread application of agricultural drones, with their advantages of safety, reliability, efficiency, flexibility, and low cost, has changed the limitations of traditional general aviation aircraft operations that can only adapt to larger plots, must be implemented by professional teams, and have high costs, achieving higher applicability for both large and small plots. The number of agricultural drones is constantly increasing, and the volume of operations continues to grow. According to the "Statistical Report on Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operators and Cloud Systems Data (2023)" released in April 2024, there are nearly 3 billion valid data points for the operation of unmanned aerial vehicle cloud exchange systems, which translates to 4.12 million flight hours, an increase of 2.18 million hours from the previous year. Among them, multi rotor drones are the absolute mainstream, accounting for 99.7% of the total operating volume; From the perspective of operational management classification, agricultural drones have the highest operational volume, accounting for 98.27% of the total operational volume. In recent years, the development of agricultural drones has received multiple policy benefits. In June 2023, the State Council and the Central Military Commission announced the "Interim Regulations on the Management of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which focuses on improving the supervision rules of unmanned aerial vehicles and carries out full chain management of unmanned aerial vehicles from design, production to operation and use. In the Regulation, separate provisions are made for the scope and license requirements of agricultural drones, further lowering the threshold for operators and injecting new impetus into the development of agricultural drones. Subsequently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, market supervision departments, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China successively issued policies related to drones, ensuring the standardization of the entire process from product design, production to sales and use in the drone industry. Since 2014, the performance and quality standards of agricultural drone products have undergone promotion from the industry to the ministry and then to the national level. At the same time, the agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy has significantly increased the popularity of agricultural drones. According to the national agricultural machinery purchase subsidy system, 35631 plant protection drones will be included in the scope of national agricultural machinery subsidies in 2023. In 2024, policies to promote the high-quality development of agricultural drones will be implemented one after another, bringing a new atmosphere to the drone industry Cheng Zhongyi, an agricultural technology engineer at Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., believes that there may be two major trends in the development of agricultural drones in China. On the one hand, the overall cost of using agricultural drones will continue to decrease, and the unit price of transportation costs will decrease. On the other hand, the intelligence level of agricultural drones will continue to improve, and technologies such as LiDAR, visual recognition, AI, AR, etc. will be continuously integrated into agricultural drones, further promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement in agriculture. In response to the trend of technological innovation, Yin Shijun suggested strengthening the construction of relevant talent reserves. In recent years, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has increased training channels for agricultural drone pilots, giving more practitioners the opportunity to become pilots of agricultural drones. The next step is to make good use of resources such as drone colleges and drone majors in colleges and universities, and continuously cultivate and transport relevant talents. (New Society)