High costs are apparently keeping many ag retailers from adding drone pesticide spraying, fertilizer applications, cover crop seeding and field imagery to their lineup of services offered to farmers.

Data from the 2024 precision agriculture dealership survey conducted by CropLife magazine and Purdue University shows only 27% of ag retailers are currently offering drone services. Another 25% of ag retailers are contracting this work to other companies.

Among those ag retailers offering drone services, the typical dealer has two drone crews, with each crew having two workers operating one or two drones.

These dealers indicated that setting up a drone crew can be expensive. The cost for equipping, licensing and training a crew averages nearly $62,000 for an ag retailer. Plus, it costs around $13,000 per month for a drone crew based on wages, fuel, repairs, maintenance, insurance and other variable costs.

While this year’s precision ag survey did not ask ag retailers for data on the overall profitability of drone operations, it did ask for financial data for doing drone or UAV field scouting imagery. Among the 27% of ag retailers offering this service, only 9% of ag retailers providing this service indicated it was profitable. Another 46% of ag retailers were breaking even, 36% were not breaking even and 9% didn’t know whether this service was profitable or not.

Data from the 16th annual 2024 No-Till Farmer Operational Benchmark Study indicates 3% of farmers are using drones on a portion of the average of 493 acres of cover crops seeded on their farms each year.

If you have a desire to add drone applications to your operation, it looks like the best option may be to invest in the equipment yourself rather than relying on local ag retailers for this work. But within the next 3 years, 51% of ag retailers anticipate gearing up to offer drone applications.