A quarter of surveyed Eastern South Dakota farmers use drones — but many aren't sure it's paying off

A new study from South Dakota State University's Ness School of Management and Economics found that about a quarter of surveyed farmers in Eastern South Dakota have adopted drone technology, despite high upfront costs.

The findings, published in the journal Precision Agriculture, come from a 2025 mail survey of farmers growing corn and soybeans in Eastern South Dakota, led by Tong Wang, professor and SDSU Extension specialist at the Ness School. The research team analyzed survey data from 595 respondents. 

What are farmers using drones for?

Drones serve two main purposes on farms: capturing aerial imagery to monitor crop health and catch problems like nutrient deficiencies or disease early, and applying fertilizer, pesticide or herbicide with GPS-guided precision.

Among adopters surveyed:

• 11% use drones only for imagery
• 6% use drones only for input application
• 7% use drones for both

That works out to 18% of respondents using drone imagery in some form, and 13% using drones for input application, with adoption of application drones being the newer and faster-growing trend.

"(Unmanned aerial vehicle) is more widely adopted for imagery than for input application in the U.S. because the former became commercially available at an earlier date," Wang explained.

Application-drone use was "nearly nonexistent five to 10 years ago," with most adoption occurring in just the last three years — recently enough that, among the newest adopters, input-application drones have actually overtaken imagery drones in adoption rate.

Does the investment pay off?

Cost estimates cited in the study, drawn from prior research on the DJI Phantom 4 v2, put the initial investment at roughly $4,391 — covering the drone itself, software, insurance and licensing — with annual costs of about $2,685 plus $52 per flight.

Whether that investment pays off appears to depend on how the drone is used. Among adopters, 22% of those using drones for input application reported a profit increase of at least 5% (16% reported a moderate increase, 6% reported more than 10%), compared with 15% of imagery-only adopters (12% moderate, 3% over 10%). Losses were rare — only about 3% of adopters of either type reported a profit decline — but a large share of adopters simply didn't know. Roughly 20% said they had no idea whether drones had changed their farm's profitability, and that uncertainty was even more pronounced among nonadopters, nearly half of whom said they had no idea what impact drones would have.

Notably, farm size — which strongly predicted whether a farmer adopted drones at all — did not predict whether adoption paid off. The study's authors point to a possible technical explanation: Drone batteries typically last only seven to 12 minutes during input application (compared with up to 45 minutes for imagery flights), which may limit how efficiently the technology scales on larger operations.

"Drone adoption is growing in South Dakota, but many farmers are still not sure if it is actually paying off," said Akinsola Oyebanji, a graduate research assistant in the Ness School and a co-author of the study. "Closing that gap with better outreach and economic guidance could make a real difference in helping farmers decide if this technology is right for their operation."

Who's adopting? Who's profiting?

The study used statistical models to separate two different questions: who adopts drones, and who reports profiting from them. The answers don't fully overlap.

Adoption was more likely among farmers with higher education (specifically linked to imagery-drone adoption), larger farms by gross sales, a greater share of off-farm income, and farmland with more variable or challenging soil conditions. Farmers already using conservation practices like reduced tillage or biofertilizers were also more likely to adopt drone imagery. Age had no significant effect on whether a farmer adopted drones at all.

Perceived profitability, on the other hand, was where age mattered. Older farmers were more likely to report a profit increase specifically from input-application drones. The study's authors suggest this may be because older farmers tend to carry less debt and have more accumulated assets, making it easier to see a return after a relatively short period of use. Education also played a role here: more educated farmers were more likely to find input-application drones profitable, which the researchers link to the technical skill required to interpret the complex, real-time data these drones generate.

"Higher education equips farmers with more knowledge, skills and resources to effectively learn and interpret the output of complex technologies such as UAV for decision-making," Wang and her co-authors wrote. "Farmers with higher education are typically more receptive to new technologies."

What might help adoption?

Wang's team pointed to financial barriers as a key hurdle, particularly for younger farmers who may carry more debt and have had less time to build capital.

"Financial support, such as subsidies or low-interest loans to younger farmers, will be important in lowering the usage costs and helping them overcome initial financial barriers," Wang said. "More outreach efforts could be made to help farmers understand the profit change related to their UAV adoption so that they can choose the optimal forms of adoption and make advised decisions to maximize their profit from UAV adoption."

Co-authors on the study include Oyebanji; Wajdi Belgacem, postdoctoral research associate; and David Clay, Distinguished Professor and the South Dakota Corn Endowed Chair in SDSU's Department of Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science. The research was funded by the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, the South Dakota Corn Utilization Board, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Resources Conservation Service Conservation Innovation Grants program.