Japan became the preferred country for China's plant protection drone companies to open up overseas markets

[ China Agricultural Machinery Industry News ] In recent years, China's plant protection drone companies have developed very rapidly. With the increasingly fierce competition in the domestic market, many companies have begun to actively go abroad and open up new development space. Due to aging and other reasons, the agricultural population has dropped sharply, and the demand for intelligent products such as plant protection drones has become large, making it a country where Chinese companies are moving overseas.

Japanese agriculture is highly mechanized and agricultural technology is developed, but it also faces the problem of decreasing practitioners year by year. According to data released by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the agricultural population in Japan fell below 2 million this year, a 60% decrease compared with 1990, and the population supporting agricultural production will further decrease in the future.

The main reason for the sharp decline in the agricultural population in Japan is the aging of the population. The average age of the Japanese agricultural population has reached 67 years old. With the increase of age, many farmers have to give up farming. In addition, the difficult working environment, the absence of a fixed rest day, and the instability of income have made young Japanese people far away from agricultural production.

The decline of the agricultural population is only one of the difficulties faced by Japanese agriculture. The shrinking of cultivated land is also plaguing Japanese agriculture. In 2015, the area of ​​cultivated land in Japan was 4.496 million hectares, a decrease of 0.5% from the same period of the previous year.

Therefore, in order to solve the above problems, the application of plant protection drones in the agricultural field in Japan has a long history, and the relevant market development has been quite mature. According to a report by SeedPlanning, a market research company in Tokyo, the plant protection drone market in Japan is expected to continue its rapid growth, from 1.2 billion yen in 2016 to 20 billion yen in 2022.

China Plant Protection UAV Enterprise Expands Overseas Market Japan Becomes

Faced with the huge impact of imported agricultural products and the problem of rural aging, Japanese agriculture urgently needs more intelligent and easy-to-operate plant protection equipment to improve production efficiency and solve the problem of labor loss and scarcity of high-tech agricultural personnel.

Therefore, in the process of China's plant protection drone companies moving towards internationalization, Japan, with its mature market and great development potential, has become. At present, the company of Pioneer Technology, one of the leading companies in the domestic plant protection drone industry, has begun to explore the Japanese market, and recently released the P20 plant protection drone system in Japan.

"The flying company is an agricultural technology company with international vision. We have chosen to launch related equipment in countries with high penetration rate of plant protection drones. We hope to quickly test the technology of flying," said Gong Yuqin, co-founder of Extreme Flying Technology. And the concept. By reducing the use threshold of drones, more people can benefit from automated, intelligent plant protection equipment."

Facing fierce competition from Chinese companies, Yamaha strengthens response

Japan's Yamaha's share of the spray pesticide market accounts for 42.5% of Japan's rice planting area. Its unmanned agricultural helicopters are used in Korea, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand, and are the giants of the Japanese plant protection drone market.

Faced with the increasing pressure from emerging competitors such as China's plant protection drone companies, Yamaha has to innovate faster to remain competitive in the country and other overseas markets. Not long ago, Yamaha introduced a FAZERR multi-motor drone that can spray 4 hectares of farmland per shift, and due to its sophisticated flight control system, it can redistribute different payloads for different missions.

In addition, Yamaha also revealed that the YMR-01 multi-motor drone will be exhibited at the next Japan Agricultural Expo. The aircraft will feature a new lightweight carbon fiber fuselage that provides farmers with a more cost-effective, dedicated solution. The launch of the YMR-01 multi-function drone has not only focused on the Japanese market, but has been vying for the world's drone market with important competitors such as China's Dajiang.

Japan's agricultural drone development still has obstacles to automation

According to the guidelines of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, in the case of spraying pesticides with drones, drone workers and technical support personnel must be monitored together on site to monitor that drones will not spray pesticides outside the farmland. Therefore, there is still much room for improvement in the automation and intelligence level of the Japanese plant protection drone.

The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture will hold an expert group meeting early next year to discuss how to ensure the safety of drones, and then plan to decide whether to allow fully automatic pesticide spraying during the fiscal year of the department.

At present, China's plant protection drone products have great advantages in terms of intelligence level. At the same time, due to the use of electric drive, it is also more economical, environmentally friendly and easy to maintain. This is also the advantage of China's related enterprises to go out and compete globally.