An eight-rotor drone whirred to life, and hovered steadily in the air before setting off to spray a large vegetable field in Guyuan City in the northwestern autonomous region of Ningxia Hui.

Using drones to spray is much more efficient than hard labor, and using drones for this task costs 30 to 40 yuan (4.5- 6 U.S. dollars) per Mu while the human cost is about 60 yuan per Mu.

These drones are being used on over 26,000 Mu of fields in Ningxia and this will only increase in the future.