Drone usage in agriculture has continued to increase in recent years, over 3 million acres sprayed by these unmanned aircraft in 2023 alone, but legislation making its way through Congress seeks to effectively ban Chinese made DJI drones in the US due to security risks posed to farmers and ranchers. Arthur Erickson is CEO of US drone manufacturer Hylio.
“Basically back in 2017 So already, about seven years ago, the Department of home Homeland Security put out a memo stating that they had strong reason to believe that DJI drones were sending critical information back to the Chinese government that could be used to undermine US national security in various ways. And they also actually made an argument back then too, that DJI was dangerous for using monopolistic practices and undermining the US drone market by price dumping and things of that nature. So they sent that memo out. They also said, hey, the federal government us should not use any of these Chinese made drones anymore for the security reasons.”
Erickson says the current legislation moving through the House of Representatives would effectively take these drones off the US landscape.
“It was proposed by Elise Stefanik, Representative out of New York. It passes the House in the Senate now, and what it will do is basically make DJI, the largest drone manufacturer in the world, Chinese based company, into a covered entity, as defined by the government, which means that they would not be allowed to have FCC authorization to operate on the frequencies and communication channels in our country. So Alder drones would basically become paperweights because they need those communications to function, obviously. So it would be a virtual ban, and we’re gonna have to see where it ends up. But that’s that’s where we currently are.”
He says it isn’t hard to realize the potential risks posed by foreign entities collecting data through drones, farmland ownership and more.
“No normal citizen is privy to what’s actually happening behind the scenes, what DJI or other companies may or may not be taking from us, but just from a logical standpoint, if you think about the immense amount of data that they’re gathering, it’s almost inevitable that that could be used to hurt our country, right? I think you would be a little naïve to assume that country like China, which is in economic competition with us, and perhaps even more serious competition in the future. It’d be foolish to think that they wouldn’t try to use every advantage that they have, right? That’s not even just, you know, Chinese government, but pretty much any government today would utilize data like that to get an edge economically, geopolitically. So I think that’s something we have to be really careful about.”
The countering CCP drones act moved through the house in May as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. It’s now awaiting action in the Senate.