Chen Fei, a 25-year-old young man is driving on the wide highway of Korla, a city in southern Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. As the marketing manager of Xaircraft, a leading company in agricultural drones, he is in a hurry to get to the farming lands in Hejing County to shoot some nice video footage for promotion purpose. That's why he’s a little impatient when the third time a policeman stopped his car for security check. Police officer number in Xinjiang has been increasing ever since the riot took place in Urumqi in 2009 and so has their salary. But Chen Fei doesn’t envy that at all.

"Yes, they enjoy a good welfare now, but what can these young people learn from doing security checks? In my view, having a job in agriculture drone company is way more promising." He said with a confident smile.

Chen Fei is one of the thousands of Chinese millennial working in drone companies that offer pesticide-spraying services to farmers. He and his colleagues - drone operators, technicians or salespeople – are witnessing the first booming of this new market.

Agricultural drone is without doubt the most favored target of the global capital market in 2016. Industry analyst iResearch notes that investments in drone companies have boomed from 65 million yuan (US$9.4 million) in 2013 to 1.7 billion yuan in 2015. China, with 5 of the world’s top 11 venture capital funded drone companies and the 4th largest arable land size in the world, has become a hot land for companies and investors. According to various industry estimates, a quarter of some 400-strong drone manufacturers in China are making drones for agricultural use. In March, a drone company named Changfeng from Shenzhen raised more than 17 million yuan within 24 hours, setting a record for the fund raising platform 36Kr.

The huge potential of the market is attracting the practical thinking young Chinese into the industry. In front of Chen Fei’s camera, one of the drone operators was hesitating over the question: “Why did you join this company?” “Just speak from your heart.” Chen Fei encouraged. He thought for a second and said: “The biggest reason is to make money and give my parents a good life.”

However, before the drone market’s takeoff, no young people in China would consider agriculture an industry with high payback. According to government statistics, in 2012 the average annual income for each farmer in the country is 7916.6yuan, while American farmers made roughly 400 thousand yuan per year. Farmers have always been regarded as the most hard working people with the lowest income. Some of the drone operators from farmers’ families are most impressed with this. “I’ve watched my parents spraying pesticides in the field. Carrying a 15 Liter container on the back, they had to walk back and forth in the field all day long, and put up with that smell!” Recalled Lu, an operator team leader, “Since I was a kid, I’ve decided that I would never become a farmer.”

By the middle of 2016, manual sprayer still accounts for more than 98% of crop protection tools, and annual sales of agricultural drones are roughly 1000 only in the whole country. One of the biggest barriers for drone promotion is the small farmland size and low land transfer rate. Agricultural drones, as well as most modernized agricultural machines, work better in big lands, as short flying routes with more turning points would cost more electricity and machine depreciation. However, China’s 1.8 billion mu land is divided into hundreds of millions of plots, and the average land size for each farmer is less than 1.35 mu , while the figure for American farmers is 1300 mu. What’s more, Chinese farmers don’t own the land, they have thirty-year-long leaseholds from the village collective they belong to and agricultural land buying and selling is prohibited by the government. The lack of clear ownership of the land is causing low input into the farm, which result in the poor yield and further more decreased the transfer rate. Small land size and low transfer rate is holding back the modernization of agriculture in China.

Another issue is that Chinese farmers lack agricultural knowledge and systematical education. Japan has a slightly more average land size of 43 mu per farmer, yet they are able to produce around 78-thousand-yuan worth of product on each mu of land. Japanese farmers enjoy a nationwide scientific and educational system. There are 434 professional agricultural colleges all over the country, and Japanese government has established scientific organizations as well as experimental centers in different areas to introduce and promote advanced farming methods and tools. Back in China, most farmers are not familiar with the pharmacology or toxicology of pesticides, and rely mainly on experience and pesticide company's promotion to make their choices. As for crop protection stations which are government departments aiming at providing instruction and techniques to farmers, they are not as well funded and are relatively slow in carrying out experiments and setting standards. When being asked about running tests on agricultural drones, one of the office chiefs in Jiangsu Agricultural Machinery Station replied: "We are not capable of doing that kind of experiments. I don’t think any government department in China can." One of his colleagues added: “Unmanned Areal Vehicle are unmanned in regulation and standardization too.”

Unlike government departments, technical companies like drone manufacturers are more competent in scientific research and are taking the responsibility to carry out experiments as well as tackling the land size barrier. Dji, a famous drone company has developed a machine in detecting atomization efficiency of drone sprayers, and Xaircraft has went further to set up experimental land in order to test and produce more efficient pesticide. In provinces like Henan and Anhui, drone companies are cooperating with local governments to carry out large scale pesticide spraying projects, so that farmers with smaller land could also enjoy their services at a relatively low price.

By the vast wheat land, several operators are talking excitingly about the company’s new surveillance drone product. “I heard it could cover 2000㎡ of land in one flight and automatically generate a precise map in the app!” Said one of the young men, “I don’t think the Americans have come up with something like that yet!” Chen Fei, happy with what he has got in his camera, said with a smile on his face: “See? Agriculture could be so cool now in China.”