In recent years, agricultural digital transformation in African countries has been accelerating, and agricultural drones, as an important carrier of smart agriculture, have been widely promoted and applied, bringing profound changes to local agricultural production. In KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, Fountains Hill Estate has adopted agricultural drones produced by China's XAG, which can spray pesticides precisely 3 meters above the sugarcane fields. This 2,250-hectare farm has long been plagued by sugarcane borer pests, and traditional manual pesticide spraying is inefficient and wasteful. Deon Burger, the agricultural manager of the estate, said that Chinese drones have completely revolutionized their production methods. The advantage of drone operations lies in high efficiency: manually spraying 40 hectares of sugarcane fields requires 30 to 40 people to work for a whole day, while using drones can be completed by only three people, and the daily operation volume of a single drone can reach up to 170 hectares in flat areas. Since entering the South African market in 2020, XAG drones have served more than 66,667 hectares of farmland and have gradually expanded to other African countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia and Ghana, helping local farmers improve production efficiency and reduce planting costs. In addition, in Ethiopian coffee plantations, drones equipped with multispectral lenses regularly monitor crop growth and soil conditions, generating precise fertilization and irrigation plans, which has increased coffee yield by nearly 20% and reduced pest and disease incidence by 30%.
