What changed
Chinese-designed agricultural drones are now being used on Chilean farms for mapping, spraying, seeding and fertilizing. In the Buin area near Santiago, one drone can cover 20 hectares in an hour, while a tractor operator covers 10 hectares in a full day.
The shift is also creating new income. A 15-hectare farm run by Luis and Joaquín Cám added crop-spraying services after buying a drone, while Duoc UC has trained students in automated agricultural operations since a 2021 partnership. Graduates may qualify for aviation-work licences from Chile’s civil aviation authority.
Why it matters
The drone is changing more than the machine in the field. It turns a small farm into a service business.
Luis says the technology saves time and water, reduces pesticide use and avoids the danger of driving a tractor into the wind while spraying. His son says orders from neighbouring farms now make spraying their main source of income. That is a meaningful change in a country stretching 4,352 kilometres from north to south, where difficult terrain can make farm work costly and labour is limited.
The training pipeline matters just as much as the equipment. Students are learning a regulated skill that can lead to paid work, equipment ownership and new customers. The technology is therefore arriving with a route into local expertise, rather than remaining something operated only by outside suppliers.
The informed speculation is that this model could spread where farms face similar pressure from terrain, water use and labour costs. Whether it works beyond the farms and training programme described here will depend on adoption and commercial viability that have not yet been quantified.
Comments
No comments yet.