Agricultural Drone Association NZ

21/08/2026

Agdrones will lift safety. Farming is a dangerous industry and Farmers are very skilled at managing risk.
On Thursday it was announced that routine agricultural drone operations will move from Part 102 certification to a notification to CAA. This is going to lift safety on farms.

The work a drone takes is the worst work on the farm
Drones are ideal for the steep faces, the wet gullies, the scrub and the gorse, the sidling tracks where a bike with a full tank on the back is a bad idea and everyone knows it.
It also happens to be exactly where people get killed. Quad bike deaths in this country are overwhelmingly rollovers, on slopes, usually with a load on. On average five people a year die in work related quad bike incidents. More than 100 suffer severe injuries.

ACC accepted more than 17,000 work related agricultural claims last year and paid out $119 million helping people recover.
There are more than 80,000 quad bikes working on New Zealand farms. Every hectare that moves off one and onto a drone takes a person off a hillside.
At the current fleet size the effect is real. Our estimate is that agricultural drones have already prevented somewhere around 30 ACC injury claims and a handful of serious injuries.

On credible adoption over the six years after this rule takes effect, the same modelling puts the number in the hundreds of injury claims and dozens of serious injuries prevented. Somewhere in there are people who would otherwise have been killed.
We are not going to pretend that is a precise number. The direction is not in doubt though. Take the most dangerous job on the farm and give it to a machine with nobody sitting on it, and fewer people get hurt.

21/08/2026

Great post. We agree that the definition of “routine” will be an important part of the defining the new rule

There has been a lot of discussion online regarding the Agricultural Drone Rules Reform. The announcement was clearly aimed at the general public, rather than professional certificated operators who already understand the risks and safety requirements associated with agricultural UAS operations. It was simplified for a broad audience, so we need to look beyond the headline and consider what they are actually trying to achieve.

Part 102 is a non-prescriptive, performance-based rule set. It was designed around the unknown: a way to enable rapid technological development within a structured aviation regulatory system. It is not simply “the drone rules”. It is a flexible, risk-based framework intended to enable new unmanned technologies, where an operator tells the CAA what they want to do and demonstrates how the associated risks will be managed.

That is Part 102’s greatest strength. You can do almost anything, provided you can establish a credible safety case. That is its purpose...., and I think this is sometimes forgotten or misunderstood.

However, the industry has evolved. Many Part 102 applications are no longer about genuinely new technology or novel operations. They are increasingly the same types of operations being submitted again and again, simply because Part 102 is the only suitable rule framework currently available.

That also exposes Part 102’s greatest weakness: every application must be individually assessed by the CAA, even where it is substantially the same as one they have already assessed. Whether you are a farmer, a contractor, or an aerospace engineering organisation, everyone goes through essentially the same process.

Agricultural drone operations are never entirely routine, but the risks are no longer unknown.

What the Ministers are actually proposing (underneath the election-year language) is to move standard private agricultural drone operations conducted on a farmer’s own land out of Part 102 and into a dedicated rule framework.

That does not mean deregulation. It does not mean “send it”. It means developing a prescriptive, tailored rule set in which requirements such as training, airworthiness, maintenance, insurance, operating limitations, and occurrence reporting are defined by the rules, rather than being proposed individually by each operator and assessed by the CAA every time.

In other words, it is intended to create a risk-proportionate regulatory framework for a specific and increasingly common type of operation.

I also raised an eyebrow when I first read the announcement. Words such as “routine” and “low risk” are subjective and do not properly capture what is being discussed. I cannot even think of a correct phrase for it: essentially, it is the same type of operation, involving known and manageable risks, being requested repeatedly from a regulator administering a deliberately non-prescriptive rule part. I can see why they settled on “routine”.

I like the word “licensed” (hint hint to the rule makers), but the reality is that we do not yet know exactly what the framework will look like. That is what consultation is for. This is where industry has the opportunity to help shape a pathway that enables farmers to use agricultural drone technology on their own land while maintaining an appropriate level of safety.

Some contractors may initially see the announcement negatively and worry that farmers doing the work themselves will reduce commercial opportunities. I see the opposite.

Making drone technology a normal, recognised agricultural tool will grow the overall market. Most farmers do not particularly want to become drone pilots; they want the job done properly. There is still an element of, “Ahhh, technology… I’m not sure about that.” A clear regulatory pathway helps shift the perception from uncertainty to, “That’s simply how this job is done... I’ll call the contractor.”

Ministers cannot come out and explain all of the above in an announcement aimed at the general public because most people would understandably respond with, “What?” It is also an election year, so the language was always going to be broad and "exciting".

The eventual rule framework will be shaped through consultation and developed with the CAA. It should be proportionate to the actual risks involved. As Part 102 operators, we already understand the training, oversight, airworthiness, maintenance, and operational controls required for these aircraft. Does anyone genuinely believe we are going from that.... to picking up an agricultural drone from Kmart and heading straight out to spray?

In no world is that the future.

This has the potential to be smarter regulation, not deregulation. The consultation process is the place for industry to make sure safety is properly represented and embodied in the final framework.

Also, a shameless plug: SPS Automation agricultural drones are New Zealand-made, fly for more than an hour, and are genuinely awesome. They provide precise chemical application for targeted spot-spraying operations.

When you buy one ([email protected]) make sure you add a leather jacket and a pair of Ray-Bans to your PPE. 😎

21/08/2026

The Minister is an asset to our industry.

20/08/2026

Agdrones are bringing safety to New Zealand farms
Agricultural drones have been working in New Zealand farms for years, flown by trained, certificated operators, and they’ve built a safety record this industry can be proud of. This record is what has prompted the government to update the rules, so here’s a plain explanation of what the change means.
Part 102 certification was built for custom operations. You write your own safety case and CAA assesses it individually. For complex or unusual flying that’s the right tool, and it’s staying for that work.
But routine agricultural work isn’t custom. Spraying, spreading and seeding use the same aircraft types, the same operating patterns and the same controls, flight after flight. The 102 system has been assessing the same operation hundreds of times over, and that’s why the queue blew out to 8-10 months. The wait was never the training. A Part 141 training school can train and assess a pilot to the required standard in a couple of months. The rest was paperwork.
So here’s what changes and what doesn’t. The paperwork changes: from mid-2027, routine operations will need a notification to CAA instead of a custom certification. The safety standard doesn’t change. Pilots will be trained and assessed, chemical rules untouched, and complex work still fully certificated. The Agricultural Drone Association will be making one argument all the way through the design process. Keep the training standard exactly where it is. It’s what makes everything else work.
Nothing changes today. Anyone operating now still needs certification, and if you’re partway through getting yours, keep going. Nothing you’re building is wasted.
The detailed design happens over the next year, with public consultation, and everyone in this industry will get a say. If you fly agdrones and want yours heard, get in touch.

19/08/2026

Some good news for our ag sector this morning:

We are progressing common-sense reforms to drone regulations, which will boost growth and increase productivity across our agricultural sector.

Farmers, growers and foresters have been clear that the current certification process is impractical and no longer fit-for-purpose. Existing rules have not kept pace with the evolving technological landscape.

We will scrap requirements for lower-risk routine drone operations to apply and wait for certification before starting work, which can take up to nine months and cost thousands of dollars.

Only a notification to the Civil Aviation Authority of NZ ahead of time will be needed.

The changes will make spraying cheaper, faster, and more efficient.

High-risk or complex drone operations, and spraying from planes and helicopters, will remain subject to existing requirements. This will ensure regulation is right-sized proportionate to risk.

19/08/2026

Changes are coming to the rules for routine ag drone work. Here's ADA's read on it.

"This is fit for purpose regulation, not deregulation," says ADA president Craig Simpson. "When compliance is achievable, more operators comply, and that's what actually makes the skies safer."

The Government has announced that it intends to overhaul the rules surrounding routine, lower-risk agricultural drone work and create a simpler pathway, while maintaining critical public safety and environmental protections. Under that pathway, an operator certificate would become a notification to the Civil Aviation Authority ahead of time. Target is mid-2027.

The training and safety requirements stay. Pilot certification, chemical competency and in-field assessment all still apply, and an operator certificate would still be needed for anything beyond routine, lower-risk work.

Nothing changes today. The detail still has to be designed and publicly consulted on. ADA discussed this with the Minister two weeks ago and has been invited into the design work, so we'll be in that room.

If you're in the certification queue, keep going.

What's changing and what isn't: https://agdroneassociation.org.nz/blogs/articles/agricultural-drone-rules-changing

08/08/2026

06/08/2026

Advocating for you in Wellington this week.

This morning I met with James Meager MP, Associate Minister of Transport, at the Beehive, and this afternoon with the Ministry's aviation policy team at MCERT. Tomorrow I sit down with the Director of CAA.

The message was the same. Agricultural drones are the fastest growing part of NZ aviation, and the biggest opportunities are faster certification, better systems, and sensible certification for farmers who want to operate on their own land. The Government's own research puts the value of agricultural drones at over $100 million a year to the rural economy at full uptake.

ADA represents its 130 members of this growing sector. More to come.