Drone Ban - Part Three

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

This week we are covering a proposed ban on Chinese drones that would include drones used for agricultural spraying. Bryan Sanders of the American Spray Drone Coalition says the ban was excluded from the National Defense Authorization Act, but is still being considered. If it moves forward, Sanders says even drones assembled in America with Chinese parts would be affected.

Sanders… “I think there's two problems. One, this ban looks at all of the components inside the drone. And that's all of your chips, that's all of your radio transmitters, that's your, the little cameras, all of the radars and sensors, the motors, the batteries, the chargers, and all the circuitry and wiring and all that stuff inside. Unfortunately, as a country, we've gotten out of that business for the, by and large, we still make chips of course, but that's it. Let's be all in on America manufacturing and all of this innovation. This is a great opportunity for us as a country to lead the way, but we gotta do it the right way. If we just shut it down, we're really gonna hurt our farmers.”

Sanders said he hopes that long term this will lead to a boom in domestic drone manufacturing, but in the meantime he doesn’t want to see American farmers suffer from being lumped into this ban.