Flying over the farm: understanding drone adoption by Australian irrigators

Abstract

As part of a precision agricultural approach, drones have increasingly been employed within agriculture for more than a decade and are shown to provide many benefits. However, little research to date has been conducted on farmers’ adoption of drones. This study applies probit regression to analyse future plans of irrigators (n = 1000 in 2015–2016) in adopting drone technology in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. As at 2015–2016, it was found that only 4–8% of irrigators in various agricultural industries had adopted drone technology. However, the results suggested that up to one third of irrigation farmers stated that they planned to use drones in the following five years, with adoption more likely to occur when irrigators are able to achieve tangible benefits, such as labour and water savings. Human, financial and farm capital factors are found to be positively associated with future drone adoption, including higher education, larger farm size, greater application of irrigation water, being a certified organic operator, having a whole of farm plan and having a farm succession plan. However, financial stress from the bank was found to be an adoption barrier, as well as percentage of net farm income and off-farm income—beyond a certain level.