Agricultural drones fly to 50 countries and regions worldwide with Jifei Technology's smart agricultural products

In the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, 62 year old farmer Li Chengyuan has been farming for over 40 years, taking care of his 7-hectare paddy fields every day. Previously, he only had a few temporary workers, and the sowing time and quality were difficult to guarantee; Now, he has a stable "new partner" - agricultural drones, which have higher seeding efficiency and lower costs.

As one of the earliest farmers in Vietnam to use unmanned rice systems, Le Thanh Yuan's drone comes from Guangdong and was independently developed by Jifei Technology. Nowadays, not only in Vietnam, but also in many countries such as Switzerland, Canada, the UK, Japan, Cambodia, Brazil, Ecuador, etc., many "new farmers" are using these "Guangdong made" agricultural drones.

According to data recently released by Jifei Technology, its overseas business grew by 260% year-on-year from January to June this year, with a surge in demand for Jifei Technology's intelligent agricultural equipment in Latin America and Southeast Asia, with year-on-year growth rates of 382% and 279%, respectively.

The demand in Latin America and Southeast Asia markets has surged

Whenever the peak season for rice cultivation arrives, Li Chengyuan always worries about hiring workers. I made an agreement with the workers to sow in the morning, but they only came in the afternoon. By then, the seeds had already sprouted, and the tender shoots were easily broken during the sowing process, leading to a decrease in production, "Li Chengyuan admitted.

Currently, Vietnam is facing a shortage of agricultural labor and rising production costs. According to World Bank statistics, the proportion of agricultural workers in Vietnam has decreased from 49% in 2010 to 36% in 2020. Compared to three years ago, the price of farm workers has risen by as much as 40%.

The cost of hiring workers is often higher than one's final income, and new technologies must be found to solve this problem, "said Li Chengyuan. It was not until last year that he first encountered agricultural drones from a Vietnamese partner of Jifei Technology and found that using drones for operations can not only reduce the burden but also improve work efficiency.

At present, Li Chengyuan has fully utilized the Jifei drone for pesticide application, fertilization, and sowing, and has also hired a local team of young "pilots" to carry out operations. On a one hectare paddy field, using drones to sow only requires 120 kilograms of seeds, but to achieve the same yield, workers need to use 150 to 200 kilograms for sowing, "said Li Chengyuan.

Nowadays, more and more farmers around the world are using drones produced in Guangdong, hoping to introduce new production tools to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and promote sustainable agricultural development. Du Korsha, the first female agricultural drone pilot in Battambang Province, Cambodia, has been working towards this wish for over two years. In October 2020, when the COVID-19 spread in Cambodia, she purchased a polar UAV to provide crop spraying services for local farmers. Now, she has organized two plant protection service teams with a total of seven "pilots", serving hundreds of farmers and covering an area of over 10000 acres.

According to data recently released by Jifei Technology, its overseas business grew by 260% year-on-year from January to June this year, with a surge in demand for Jifei Technology's intelligent agricultural equipment in Latin America and Southeast Asia, with year-on-year growth rates of 382% and 279%, respectively. In Vietnam, where business volume is growing rapidly, many users have reported that compared to traditional planting methods, drones are four times more efficient than manual spraying and increase production by 14%, "said Cao Nan, Director of Jifei Technology's Overseas Business Department.

Accelerate entry into developed country markets

At the beginning of this year, after a series of strict technical tests such as drift effect, automatic navigation, nozzle calibration, and lateral distribution, the Jifei V40 and P40 agricultural drones officially became spray equipment certified by the Swiss Federal Office of Agriculture and were approved to carry out pesticide and fertilizer plant protection operations in Switzerland.

Switzerland is the first country in Europe to allow the use of drones to spray crops, and has developed a relatively complete process for legalizing the operation of agricultural drones. The drone from Jifei has been approved for use in Switzerland, which is a "shot in the arm" for enterprise innovation and development.

Not only drones, but our unmanned vehicles are also widely welcomed by developed countries. In Europe, our unmanned vehicles cooperate with well-known local research institutions and universities to integrate the concept of precision agriculture into local orchard planting. Cao Nan said that these high-tech products are entering more markets and entering the high-end links of the industry chain in various forms.

In Canada, Jifei's distributors have launched two 3-year cooperation projects with the University of Guelph in Canada. On the one hand, agricultural drones are used to sow soil covered crop seeds in farmland after autumn harvest, improving soil quality and controlling overwintering weeds; On the other hand, drones are used to apply nitrogen fertilizer to overwintering corn in autumn, allowing crops to store nutrients for the winter.

In the UK, Burton College has introduced the Jifei Agricultural Autonomous Vehicle for research in precision agriculture and provided equipment training on its demonstration farms, offering modern agricultural education to British farmers and agricultural students.

In Japan, the city of Ozawa has introduced the Jifei R150 agricultural unmanned vehicle for watermelon field operations, achieving fully autonomous and precise spraying to address the problem of low spraying efficiency caused by labor shortages and inconvenient passage between ridges in the fields. At the same time, the R150 unmanned vehicle also entered the Sunshine Grape Plantation in Oihuaze City to conduct technical tests on preventing and controlling grape diseases.

Research and development is in Guangzhou, manufacturing is in Dongguan, and users are worldwide

Since the beginning of this year, despite the global pandemic and ongoing international trade disputes, Jifei Technology's overseas business has maintained high-speed growth. Relying on a strong distribution system, Jifei Technology has achieved business layout on five continents worldwide, selling smart agricultural products such as agricultural drones and agricultural unmanned vehicles to 50 countries and regions.

This is the result of years of dedicated product research and development by the enterprise. We have spent 5 years on product sales in 50 countries and regions around the world. The first 3 years were spent on validation, and it was only in the last 2 years that we truly achieved results, "said Gong Chaqin, co-founder of Jifei Technology.

Our R&D center is in Guangzhou, our manufacturing center is in Dongguan, and our user market is global. "In Cao Nan's view, the strong supply chain and market advantages accumulated by the Pearl River Delta over the past few decades of reform and opening up are the strong foundation for enterprises to conduct product research and development, innovation, and production. Every new module design and new mold production can quickly locate suppliers and partners. At the same time, relying on the vast and abundant market in China, enterprises can find very diversified agricultural application scenarios. Products can be maturely applied before export and quickly enter the market after export.

In order to cope with the diverse agricultural environments and demands of overseas countries, Jifei Technology has adopted a differentiated strategy. Among them, in regions dominated by field crops such as Vietnam and Brazil, Jifei Technology has rapidly replicated mature practices in domestic field crops such as rice, wheat, corn, and cotton, achieving high-speed business growth; In developed countries such as Switzerland, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany, a "top-down" approach is chosen, where local technical testing and certification are first conducted before commercial operation.

In the view of the Jifei team, smart agricultural equipment such as agricultural drones and unmanned vehicles are still in the early stages of popularization overseas, and there is huge growth potential in the future market. With the increasing innovation of enterprise products, technological strength, and operational system, it is expected to continue to maintain its growth momentum in the future, promoting the better "flying" of "Guangdong made" agricultural drones and unmanned vehicles to the world.