Drone maker XAG in drive to automate rice farming in China amid labour shortage, Covid-19

XAG, one of China’s largest makers of agricultural drones, expects its JetSeed direct seeding system to become more widely adopted

Competition with DJI in China remains heated, as the world’s biggest maker of commercial drones sharpens its focus on industrial applications

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An XAG drone, attached with the company’s own JetSeed granule system, spreads rice seeds at a farm in the Zengcheng District of Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province. Photo: Handout

Published: 6:00am, 29 May 2020Updated: 5:02pm, 29 May 2020

The winds of change are set to roar through the farmlands of China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of rice, as drones start to take over planting of the staple crop.

That push for automation has been initiated by agricultural drone maker XAG, formerly known as Xaircraft, which has applied its drone-based direct seeding system – called JetSeed – from the testing stage to commercial adoption on more than 650 million square metres of rice fields in 11 provinces across China since April last year, according to the company.

It expects more small rice farmers and large farm owners to automate, replacing manual seed planting, as a means to raise efficiency, while mitigating labour shortage and the threat of Covid-19.

“[Traditional] rice planting relies heavily on field workers to transplant rice seedlings by hand or machines slowly through the muddy paddy field,” Peng Bin, chief executive of XAG, said in an interview on Thursday. “Using drones won’t leave the paddies with potholes that usually waste water and fertiliser … It works just like spraying seeds into the paddies with a Dyson hairdryer.”

Peng Bin, co-founder and chief executive of agricultural drone maker XAG. Photo: Lea Li

The urgency of automating how China’s most important crop is planted came to a head early this year, when China’s economy was disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak.

When Covid-19 loomed over the spring planting season, Guangzhou-based XAG said it helped mobilise drones for use by various rice farmers, who had already been challenged by rural worker shortages, to directly seed their paddies. Direct seeding refers to the process of sowing seeds into the fields without nursery cultivation and transplantation, while cutting down on water use and preserving the soil.

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