A flying tractor at one-tenth the price
An agrodron is a device weighing about 70 kg that can carry 100 liters of working solution. The flagship Agras T-50 covers 350 hectares per shift (10 hours), or about 35 hectares per hour. That is the output of a ground sprayer.
The key figure is the cost difference. A new agrodron costs 14.5 million tenge on the market. The most affordable ground-based sprayer with comparable performance costs 100–150 million tenge, while an imported one costs 300–400 million. The difference is roughly tenfold for the same level of productivity.
The savings are not limited to capital expenditures. Spare parts for an agrodron are much cheaper: one of the most expensive components costs 120,000 tenge, compared with the price of an imported tractor engine. Energy costs also differ by an order of magnitude: charging the batteries with a generator to treat 1,000 hectares costs 40,000 tenge in gasoline, versus 250,000–600,000 in diesel fuel for conventional machinery. Storage requires less space.
The drone does not drive across the field or crush the crop, and, according to the distributor, the spraying quality is better than that of most conventional machinery: the computer regulates droplet size, and the propeller wash creates a cloud that envelops the plant from all sides, including the underside of the leaves.
Why the technology has not yet become dominant
If the benefits are so obvious, the logical question is: what’s the catch? According to Tankinov, the issue is not a hidden flaw in the technology, but its positioning and the inertia of perception.
Most farmers have never seen an agrodron in operation and treat it like a toy, whereas everyone has heard of military drones. This is a classic gap between innovators and the early majority. A focus group of farmers two years ago would have given a negative answer simply because no one was using the technology and no one knew how to assess it. Skepticism is dispelled by a field demonstration: once they see the result, the agronomist and the farmer are ready to talk.
The scale has already been proven by global practice. Agrodrones have been used in China since 2016, and today they are used in about 100 countries. Brazil buys 7,000 agrodrones annually. In 2023, drones treated 127 million hectares in Xinjiang alone — about five times the area of Kazakhstan — and the area treated by drones there exceeded the area treated by ground sprayers. Chinese farmers no longer need any explanation: the new Flycart model sold out 80% of its annual volume in a week of pre-orders.
Economics of a self-sufficient unit
The investment pays off quickly. A record in Kazakhstan: a farmer in Pavlodar Region sprayed 7,600 hectares in one season with a single agrodron. If used to provide spraying services, the drone pays for itself in one season, and with a contract in place — in half a season.
The business can be structured as a turnkey service team modeled on a machine and tractor station (MTS). The minimum self-sufficient unit:
- two agrodrones — about 28 million tenge;
- pickup truck — about KZT 15 million;
- mixing station — 7–10 million tenge.
In total, about 40 million tenge. Two drones are operated by one operator, while a second person changes the batteries and fills the tank with solution. The team’s output with the new model is about 600 hectares per shift, which matches the most expensive imported sprayer.
In continuous operation, the bottleneck is not the drones but the people: three teams of two are needed for round-the-clock shifts. Flight time is 10–15 minutes, and the pit stop for battery replacement and refilling the spray solution has been refined to 30–40 seconds, as in Formula 1. The season in the south lasts from April to October.
The Kazakh market is estimated at 3,000–4,000 agrodrones. With 24 million hectares of sown area, of which about 16 million are actively cultivated, this fleet is enough to capture a share comparable to China’s. At present, about 400 DJI agrodrones are in operation in the country, and Skywalker’s annual target is 250 units.
Control: Closer to a robot vacuum than to an airplane
The learning barrier turns out to be lower than expected. The operator does not manually pilot the drone, but monitors its cycles. The logic is like that of a robot vacuum: the operator maps the field, sets the parameters (speed, height above the crop, droplet size), and presses start. The human factor is eliminated — the drone does not miss any areas and knows where it has already worked.
Field mapping is done once per season: you can mark four points on a Google basemap, fly over the field with a drone, or walk it with a controller. The map is stored in the cloud.
Over two years, Skywalker has trained different categories of people — men and women, young and older. Two women in Kostanay Region (a farmer’s wife and the farm’s accountant) mastered the controls in three days. Machine operators in their 40s and 50s are switching from tractors to drones. The software is tailored for agriculture and translated into Kazakh — not literary Kazakh, but in a way that makes every button clear.
Concerns about the low application rate (10–15 liters per hectare versus 100–150 for conventional equipment) are dispelled by practice: ultra-low-volume spraying was used back in the Soviet era, and the AN-2 application rates were 5–15 liters.
The main barrier: the state is lagging behind the technology
The technology is outpacing regulation and the supporting infrastructure — these are the main constraints.
Financial support. The only instrument available to farmers is subsidies — about 2 million tenge (25% of the notional price, set above the actual one). In practice, there is no leasing, insurance, or subsidies for training. KazAgroFinance has a program at 12%, but the process is complicated: not a single drone has yet been leased under it. The association is calling for the rate to be cut to 5% and the requirements to be simplified. By comparison, in China a farmer leases a drone at 3–4% at the beginning of the year and settles the payment after the harvest, with spare parts insured.
Permitting paperwork. To use an agrodron legally, you need to register the aircraft, obtain the required operating license and a permit for aerial chemical spraying, and coordinate flights with the local air traffic control authority. The paperwork is enormous, and in practice, the permit is issued not to those who know how to follow the rules, but to those who know how to put together the paperwork. This also blocks leasing applications: there are very few of them, and they are rejected because it is impossible to assemble the required package.
Lack of a unified monitoring system. In countries with a developed drone industry, UTM systems are in place — unified digital platforms for low-altitude traffic management, where all flights are visible and all drones are registered, and different agencies (aviation, law enforcement, and agricultural authorities) operate within a single framework. In Kazakhstan, each agency maintains its own system: some areas are overcontrolled, while others have glaring gaps. Registries are kept on paper and cannot be verified. The solution is to register the drone upon import into the country, verify it when it is registered with the aviation administration, and automatically grant access to leasing and insurance programs.
Forecast
The war analogy explains the economics: a tank worth tens of millions of dollars is neutralized by drones costing just a few thousand. In agriculture, the same principle applies — the same work can be done at a much lower cost.
In China, the displacement of traditional equipment has already essentially taken place. In Kazakhstan, it is a matter of a few seasons: agrodrones will capture a significant share, while ground-based equipment will remain for specific cases. Technological application maps (which crop, which active ingredient, which settings) still need to be developed — this will require several years of field data, and this work is already underway in Russia.
For medium-sized and small farmers, an agrodron is an entry point into modern machinery with minimal upfront investment and a fast payback period. What is mainly missing is access to financial instruments and the necessary regulatory infrastructure that would translate the technological advantage into widespread adoption.