Reference News Network, August 20 report - According to the South China Morning Post website on August 17, David Brintz, vice chairman of the American Meat Export Federation, recently looked for drones to monitor his cattle on a ranch in Nebraska and found that only one brand provided an "affordable" solution, which is DJI from China.

DJI, headquartered in Shenzhen, has dominated the U.S. drone market and its products are rapidly capturing the U.S. agricultural sector as the company has launched solutions for crop planting, pesticide spraying, and livestock tracking.

Brintz said, "DJI's product development is quite fast."

He felt he had no choice. Chinese systems are not only much cheaper than American-made alternatives on the market, but often have more advanced features.

It's not just drones. Other cattle farmers in Nebraska said they also widely use Chinese technology and components in smart ear tags and control systems.

However, as Chinese equipment rapidly becomes popular in the U.S. agricultural sector, the U.S. government claims that certain products pose so-called "national security threats," including Chinese-produced drones.

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security has investigated the issue of U.S. market reliance on imported drones, aiming to pave the way for increasing tariffs and taking other trade protectionist measures.

Data shows that DJI drones hold a 90% share of the U.S. commercial drone market, with agriculture and other industries becoming new sources of revenue for the company.

The company's T100 agricultural drone was released last year, with a spreading capacity of 150 liters and paired with artificial intelligence flight algorithms.

DJI stated that users have full control over their data collection, storage, and transmission, and provided strong evidence to support the company's claims regarding data protection and security.

Andrew Collier, senior researcher at the Musawar-Rahman Center for Business and Government at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, believes it is unlikely that the U.S. will restrict the use of Chinese agricultural drones currently.

He said, "The threat to national security from the agricultural sector is not significant enough."

Collier said the U.S. government lacks sufficient evidence to prove that DJI's agricultural drones collect data from the United States and that this data could be sent back to China.

He also said the government might also be concerned about angering farmers, as many farmers live in states that tend to favor the Republican Party and are unwilling to use more expensive agricultural drones from other countries.

Any plan to decouple from the Chinese drone industry would be difficult to advance. According to a survey by German drone industry insights company, many drone component suppliers are Chinese companies, and other drone manufacturers around the world also heavily rely on components provided by Chinese suppliers.

(Translated by Pan Xiaoyan)

On April 15, staff members introduced exhibits at the DJI booth during the fifth China International Consumer Goods Fair. (Xinhua)

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