Since the 2010s, agricultural drones have taken off worldwide, going from novelty to standard farming tool in less than a decade. Visit any major agricultural fair and you’ll see high-tech drones stealing the spotlight once occupied by tractors and plows.
The only catch? European farmers can admire them, but they can’t actually use them — outside of very specific cases. Brussels is looking to change that.
“Europe has the talent & technology to lead in digital agriculture. Now we need to make sure farmers benefit from it,” Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen wrote on Bluesky Tuesday, mentioning drones specifically.
The use of agricultural drones in the EU is governed not only by aviation law, like other drones, but also by a 2009 Directive on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides, which bans aerial spraying. But that framework is aimed at limiting spray drift, environmental contamination and exposure risks from crop-dusting planes and helicopters, written long before drones entered the farming mainstream.
In practice, capitals can give farmers permission to spray pesticides only where it’s hard or even dangerous to apply them directly. Think terraced vineyards in Portugal, apple orchards in South Tyrol, or flooded fields where tractors cannot operate and workers carrying backpack sprayers face a greater exposure risk.
Supporters argue that this process is cumbersome — and that drones’ benefits extend far beyond these niche cases and that the EU is lagging behind on farm tech. Drones can scan fields, spot pests and water stress earlier, and apply fertilizers and pesticides with far greater precision. By targeting only affected areas, they can reduce chemical use, lower costs, and limit environmental and health impacts, the argument goes. Pesticide lobby CropLife points out that drones are primarily battery-powered, making them a lower-emissions choice than tractors.
Yet agricultural drones are caught in a loop of uncertainty, the Commission concedes in a document outlining the rationale for the omnibus proposal. “Important knowledge gaps remain” on how drones can be used safely — for example, it’s not clear just how far pesticides will drift and which drones can most accurately deposit chemicals.