A Uyghur College Student Starts an Aerial Application Business in his Hometown: Breaking New Ground with Drones

Over his family's objections, Aburimiti bought a DJI T16 drone and a pickup truck with loan at the end of 2018, and started his aerial application business. He could have worked as a civil servant or in public institutions like other college graduates, but he chose aerial application as his career, which was arduous and unrelated to his major. To other's surprise, he became a well-known local aerial application expert, and earned a gross income of 700,000 yuan in 2020.

 

 

Having graduated from Wuhan University with a degree in administration in 2017, Aburimiti returned to his hometown of Piyaqi Village, Arele Town, Wensu County, Aksu City to start his own business. His family managed 2 hectares of walnut trees, for which they had hired aerial application drones to spray pesticides in recent years, so he had a strong interest in aerial applications.

 

 

However, all his family members opposed it, believing that such work was laborious with low income. Over such opposition, he started his aerial application career at the end of 2018 after completing the training provided by DJI Agriculture.

 

In 2018, an aerial application drone cost about 70,000 yuan, plus 80,000 yuan for a transport vehicle. As his family could not afford it, Aburimiti had to borrow money from relatives and friends to buy a drone and apply a loan in his name to buy a pickup.

 

 

Without support from his family, Aburimiti had to do everything by himself, which was really a hard time. He said, "When I sprayed the cotton defoliant on 1.3 hectares of cotton fields for a large cotton farmer, the effect was unsatisfactory even after several attempts, so I did not even ask for a service fee." Returning home, he was not discouraged but found a lot of books on pharmacology and immediately started to study. He also started to read posts about the operation cases on the official DJI Agriculture WeChat account. "In the beginning, I thought that aerial application was just about operating the drone, but I later found out about the importance of pesticides." Abrimiti said that he studied related books every day during that time, and sought advice from those who knew more about pesticides from time to time.

 

 

Soon after, he received more orders and became a pesticides expert in aerial application. The next year, he went back to that same cotton farmer, who allowed him to try again on another 1.3 hectares of field. He succeeded this time and won an order of defoliant application for nearly 267 hectares of cotton field.

 

In the first two years of his aerial application business, Aburimiti rushed around even in wind and rain. Despite his hard work, he made a lot of new friends, saw a broader world, and even fulfilled his wish of making a contribution to poverty alleviation by means of aerial application service.

 

 

In 2019, Abrimiti went to Arele Town of Wensu County, Aksu City, where there were more than 30 poor households living on farming. "The secretary of the local CPC Committee asked me whether I could spray pesticides for free for those poor families as a poverty alleviation service." Abrimiti said, "I did not think too much, and agreed. A few months after the operation, I found that those poor families had good fruit harvests, and I also felt very good." In the past two years, he helped the poor households with free aerial application over more than 67 hectares of field.

 

Abrimiti caught on to the trend. In the first year of his aerial application business, he provided services for over 530 hectares of farmland with his pickup truck and T16 drone, and paid off the loan while making a small profit. Amazed by his good job, his family members changed their attitude, and began to help him with his business.

 

 

In 2020, Aburimiti established a local aerial application cooperative with the support of his family, buying three more drones and recruiting some college students. A small team finally took shape, and performed operations on about 5,330 hectares of farmland in just one year with a revenue of 700,000 yuan.

 

"Now I'm really glad that I chose the aerial application as my career, which can be a road for college students like me to realize our dreams in our hometowns." When it comes to planning for his future, Aburimiti says with certainty that he hopes to promote the local digital agriculture with his drone as a platform, so that all local farmers can have good harvests.