When David Bruntz, vice-president of the US Meat Export Federation, recently began looking for drones to monitor the cattle on his Nebraska ranch, he found that only one brand offered a “reasonably priced” solution: the Chinese tech giant DJI.
The Shenzhen-based company already dominates the US drone market, and its products are now rapidly being adopted across the agricultural sector as the firm rolls out specialised solutions for sowing fields, spraying crops and tracking livestock.
“It’s moving rather fast,” Bruntz said.
Like many farmers in the state, Bruntz is not thrilled to be relying on Chinese technology. He worries about the potential for supply chain disruptions of the kind that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, when “we couldn’t get enough chips to put in our vehicles and things like that”.
But for now, he feels he has little other choice. The Chinese systems are not only far cheaper than American-made alternatives on the market; they often also have more advanced capabilities.
“They definitely have the advantage in a lot of technical areas,” he said. “The remedy would be to develop our own products in the US.”
It is not only drones. Other cattle farmers in Nebraska who spoke with the Post said the smart ear tags and control systems they used also contained “widespread” Chinese tech and components.
Nebraska is one of several US states to have tightened restrictions on foreign land ownership in recent years over security concerns. In July, the US Agriculture Department announced plans for a nationwide crackdown on Chinese ownership of American farmland.
Meanwhile, the US Bureau of Industry and Security
has launched an investigation into America’s reliance on imported drones – an industry where China is dominant – in a move that could pave the way for tariffs and other protectionist measures.
A defence bill passed by the US Congress in December also included a clause prohibiting DJI and other Chinese drone makers from selling products in America if a review finds they pose an “unacceptable” security risk.
DJI has a 90 per cent share in the US commercial drone market, according to the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and the company is increasingly targeting agriculture and other industrial uses as new income streams.
The firm’s latest agricultural octocopter – the Agras T100, released last year – is equipped with a 100-litre tank and artificial intelligence flight algorithms to guide the drone when spraying fertiliser and pesticides.
China’s drone industry continues to advance at a rapid rate. In July, one company made headlines when a swarm of its drones airlifted 180 tonnes of steel and concrete to the top of a mountain in the southwestern Yunnan province, where a solar power facility was being built.
But DJI and other Chinese tech companies continue to face data security concerns as they expand globally. That is especially true in the US, where DJI spent US$1.6 million on lobbying efforts in 2023 alone, according to lobbying tracker OpenSecrets.
DJI has insisted that users have full control over how their data is collected, stored and transmitted, making robust efforts to validate its data protection and security claims. The company has branded allegations against it by some US politicians as “baseless and xenophobic fear”.
Andrew Collier, a senior fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government, said that the US was unlikely to restrict the use of Chinese agricultural drones for now.
“There’s not enough of a security threat from the agricultural sector,” he said.
The US administration currently lacks the bandwidth to figure out whether DJI’s agricultural-use drones were gathering US data that might be sent back to China, according to Collier.
It might also be wary of upsetting farmers, many of whom live in Republican-leaning states and are unwilling to switch to more expensive solutions from other countries, he added.
However, Washington’s attitude might change if Chinese drones continue to develop and incorporate more AI functions, according to Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusok Ishak Institute in Singapore.
“They want to try and retain their leadership in that area,” he said, referring to the AI industry.
Any decoupling from China’s drone industry would be hard to implement. In 2024, China exported 3.72 million drones worth a combined US$2.1 billion, according to Chinese customs data.
Chinese firms are also dominant suppliers of a number of drone components, with some foreign manufacturers relying heavily on Chinese suppliers for parts, according to market research firm Drone Industry Insights.
Back in Nebraska, Bruntz said switching to US-made drones and other agritech gear would be “not easy, not cost-effective” for local farmers.
“We have to be competitive in the markets if we’re going to sell products,” he said.