Farmers’ preferences for agricultural drone services under uncertainty: A Choice Experiment in Hubei, China

doi:10.1016/j.jia.2025.12.066

Journal of Integrative Agriculture

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Hua Zhang¹, Lena Kuhn¹^#, Hang Xiong^2,³, Zhanli Sun¹^#

¹Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), Halle (Saale) 06120, Germany

²College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

³ Macro Agriculture Research Institute, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

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Abstract

Agricultural drones can improve productivity, save labor, and reduce environmental impacts by offering digital multifunctions in agricultural production. Yet, the lagging adoption among smallholders is still prevalent. Existing literature commonly explains it by lack of capital, land fragmentation, and digital illiteracy, with little delving into specific adoption modes under uncertainty. In this study, we demonstrate the potential of hiring agricultural drone services and investigate the role of supplier uncertainty in the adoption decision. We conduct a discrete choice experiment among 338 farmers in Hubei Province, China. Mixed logit models are used to analyze farmers’ preferences for the agricultural drone service (ADS) and its attributes. The results show that the large majority of sampled farmers are willing to adopt ADS. Besides low prices, farmers prefer services with local suppliers and contracts. Potential adopters in this choice experiment are characterized by youth, high education, owning poor-topography farms, drone learning via word-of-mouth, and adoption experience. The willingness to pay analysis indicates that farmers would like to spend 25 CNY per mu (53 USD per ha) on average for ADS. Notably, farmers value the localness of suppliers more than the form of agreements when choosing a particular drone service. These findings suggest that the mode of hiring ADS can effectively motivate farmers’ adoption intention, thereby, the supply-side incentives and uncertainty-reducing promotion strategies needed to enhance smallholders’ access to and adoption of agricultural drones.

Keywords: UAV digital agriculture technology adoption mixed logit model

Online: 31 December 2025

Fund:

This study is part of the project “Digital Transformation of China’s Agriculture – Resources, Trade and Food Security (DITAC)”, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (01DO21009) and the project “Mechanism through Which Video-based Extension Affects the Adoption of Digital Agricultural Technologies: from the Perspective of Knowledge Constraints”, funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72173050).

About author: Hua ZHANG, Email: zhang@iamo.de; Correspondence Lena Kuhn, E-mail: kuhn@iamo.de; Zhanli Sun, E-mail: sun@iamo.de

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Hua Zhang, Lena Kuhn, Hang Xiong, Zhanli Sun. 2025. Farmers’ preferences for agricultural drone services under uncertainty: A Choice Experiment in Hubei, China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, Doi:10.1016/j.jia.2025.12.066

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