{"id":120140,"date":"2026-08-20T16:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/120140\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:20:08","slug":"eu-mulls-letting-farm-drones-spray-pesticides-widely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/120140\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Mulls Letting Farm Drones Spray Pesticides Widely"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Europe&#8217;s skies may soon be buzzing with more drones, but this time the targets are insects, not enemies. Brussels is moving to relax a long-standing EU ban on aerial pesticide spraying, clearing a path for agricultural drones that have become standard in fields <a href=\"https:\/\/cfaes.osu.edu\/fact-sheet\/drones-spraying-pesticides-opportunities-and-challenges\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">from the US to Asia<\/a> but are mostly off-limits in Europe, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/brussels-agricultural-drones-pesticide-spraying-eu-rules\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Politico<\/a>. The change is tucked inside a broader, contentious &#8220;food and feed&#8221; package, yet the drone piece is proving oddly uncontroversial, with 15 countries pushing for it.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Farm groups say drones can cut chemical use and emissions. &#8220;Drone use has immense benefits for spraying,&#8221; a Euronews columnist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/next\/2026\/03\/31\/regulatory-roadblocks-for-commercial-use-of-drones-in-europe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">noted<\/a> earlier this year. &#8220;As a way to improve technological use in agriculture, and by mere virtue of comparing ourselves to our trading partners, it is essential.&#8221; Environmental critics, meanwhile, have been relatively quiet, while still warning about data privacy and a tech gap between large and small farms. One catch: If the wider package collapses in political fights over pesticide approvals and import rules, the drone update goes down with it. Purdue&#8217;s College of Agriculture <a href=\"https:\/\/ag.purdue.edu\/department\/extension\/ppp\/resources\/ppp-publications\/mobile\/ppp-154\/3.interest-in-spray-drones-for-pesticide-applications.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has more<\/a> on the different ways that spray drones can be used, as well as their benefits and challenges.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Europe&#8217;s skies may soon be buzzing with more drones, but this time the targets are insects, not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[233,5098,17,39,4,256,40,990,6859,3955,4744],"class_list":["post-120140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-agriculture","tag-drone","tag-drones","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-farmers","tag-farms","tag-pesticide","tag-pesticides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}