Environmental Constraints on the Adoption of Agricultural Spraying Drones: An Empirical Study in China

Wenhao Gu, Chenguang Xu, Zenghui Chao and Jun Zhang

No 404307, 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: This paper investigates how natural conditions affect agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) purchase intensity and model choice in China. Using administrative subsidy transaction records, county-level weather and terrain data, city-level economic controls, and county socioeconomic characteristics, the paper combines two empirical approaches. First, a zero-truncated Poisson model with correlated random effects estimates county-year purchase counts. Results show that terrain and precipitation exhibit nonlinear associations with purchase intensity, low temperatures are negatively associated, and net price is negatively associated. Second, a conditional logit model examines top-20 model choice among family farms and individual buyers. Subsidies significantly influence model choice, but this effect varies with local conditions: precipitation weakens the subsidy effect, whereas wind and high temperatures strengthen it. Policy simulations predict changes in model shares under no-subsidy, uniform subsidy increase, and condition-targeted scenarios relative to baseline. The findings imply that UAV subsidy design should account for geographic heterogeneity. Furthermore, product-choice models that exclude non-purchasers should be interpreted as capturing reallocations among existing models rather than changes in total adoption.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/404307/files/E ... n%20China%281%29.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea26:404307

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.404307

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().