“I like what the regulations have done,” said Markus Weber, a director of the newly formed Canadian Agricultural Drone Association, speaking at the group’s first conference. “I didn’t like these years when we couldn’t spray. The reality is we don’t have a bunch of drone spraying businesses yet where people don’t know how to spray. The pesticide going down right now is from farmers who have spent decades spraying and understand the chemistry, and the risk is low.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Proposed Health Canada rules could open the door to widespread drone pesticide application in Canada. Researchers say the technology carries real drift risks that existing aerial application standards don’t account for.

What the rules would allow

Health Canada’s Pesticides Regulatory Directorate received 130 comments on the proposed changes earlier this year. Those comments will be factored into the final proposal, said Monica Le of the directorate.

“The proposal would allow drone application for products that already have aerial application on their label,” Le said in a video presentation to the conference. “The goal is to provide more flexibility to growers while assuring the existing label requirements continue to be applied in a way that everyone is protected.”

Weber credited years of lobbying — and farmers who sprayed with drones despite the practice being technically illegal — with pushing the government toward a decision.

“Spraying was considered illegal, but they did it anyway. The need for enforcement really helped to move the needle and policy conversation.”

Canada lagging behind

Auburn University scientist Steve Li said Canada’s slow regulatory pace has held back adoption compared to other countries.

“In Canada, drone use is in its infancy stage because PMRA has not fully opened up the label application for label changes. Whenever that happens in the future, your adoption will just be like the U.S. and go up exponentially.”

The scale of drone spraying elsewhere underscores just how far behind Canada sits. In China, 250,000 to 300,000 spray drones cover 350 to 400 million acres of cropland. In the United States, 10,000 to 20,000 drones spray 16 to 20 million acres.

Li, one of the few scientists dedicated to studying drone pesticide application in the U.S., said the research needs are far outpacing current capacity.

“It is overwhelming. We need more people to work on this. Even though I am one of the early adopters of drones on the research side, it doesn’t mean one person or one team can work on all the questions and get all the answers. We need more universities, more researchers to be involved and more funding. Funding is a big problem.”

A researcher’s warning

Not everyone at the conference was celebrating the proposed policy direction.

Canadian spray researcher Tom Wolf called Health Canada’s decision to align drone regulations with existing aerial application standards a major reversal — and not a science-driven one.

“This is a policy decision, not a science decision. This is the biggest U-turn I have seen in my career that PMRA has made,” said Wolf.

Wolf said the agency’s original position — that drones are a unique and different application method — was scientifically sound.

“It isn’t like an aircraft, and we have evidence in studies that drones are more difficult to use than an aircraft in terms of uniformity and swath width. I would stand by the fact they are a unique and different application method.”

The directorate’s Ross Breckels acknowledged the tension, saying the agency weighed risks to humans and the environment alongside implementation and regulatory compliance.

“We need to be somewhere in the middle of this. For this reason, the PMRA chose to align with many other OECD countries with respect to drone regulations.”

Drift risk a key concern

Wolf’s core concern is spray drift. Drones use lower water volumes and produce smaller droplets than other application methods — a combination he says makes them the worst performers on drift of any equipment currently in use.

He ranks application methods from best to worst: ground sprayer, high-clearance sprayer, aerial applicator — and last, drones.

“They have the least uniform pattern according to our data. They have the least consistent swath width, according to our data. They still have relatively unknown efficacy repercussions, and they are also the least productive, and here we are giving them the green light.”

Wolf was clear he’s not dismissing the technology entirely. Drones are inexpensive, easy to operate, leave no field tracks and can reach difficult terrain.

“They do have utility, and I don’t want to rain on that parade, but we have to balance that with the downside — are we viewed as responsible users of this pesticide technology or are we not? If we are not, we have a public image problem and possibly a future regulatory problem as well.”

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“I wanted to get drones for social media for promotions and marketing. It was pretty useful. It made for some cool videos,” Kenyon told the recent Canadian Agricultural Drone Association conference.

He found the DJI Mini Pro 3, a lightweight, foldable camera drone, so useful he bought a second, larger drone to seed pastures to help pasture rejuvenation.

“I don’t like new equipment, yet I still have two drones,” he told the group from across Canada gathered to learn more about drones and their uses.

Camera drone became a ranch management tool

While the initial drone was purchased to fly over his pastures and livestock to take pictures and video to show how he manages his grazing systems, he found it helpful to check livestock, fences, waterers and gates.

“I have very rough pastures. Driving out there in vehicles is pretty bumpy. The drones are really handy to check pastures and water systems. I can even tell when a herd needs to move. We rotate every couple days. I can tell the difference in colour where the fence lines are.”

Kenyon uses a heavy electric bungy cord as gates and can even tell from the air if the gates are closed.

“I am pretty happy with my 3. It does most of the things I need.”

Aerial seeding adds efficiency to regenerative grazing

In 2023, Kenyon bought a DJI Agras T-10 drone for seeding pastures from the air and has since spread seed on thousands of acres with the small drone for himself and customers.

“I am not very good with technology. I am the guy who asks his kids how to use my phone.”

Adding seed from the air is efficient and can add new seed varieties in the hard-to-reach parts of a pasture, but it is only one part of the grazing system, he told the group.

“I am a terrible salesman. I tell them, ‘If you are not going to change your grazing, don’t bother seeding because you are wasting your money.’ ”

Kenyon uses the footprints of cattle to punch the seed into the pasture to help establish the new seeds while rotating the cattle through the paddocks.

“I practice regenerative agriculture. My way of thinking is growing soil from the plants. The plants are a tool to grow soil; then we get the biology and get a perpetual fertility system,” he said.

“It all works together. You can’t just add seed. You can’t just have cows out there. We need the combination of everything working together. I am trying to build ecosystems. The cow is a keystone species in a grazing environment.”

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When the Americans first attempted to impose mandatory country-of-origin labelling on cattle from Canada and Mexico to the U.S., Canadian cattle producers and provincial and federal counterparts lobbied hard to convince American politicians the mandatory rule would be detrimental to the American cattle industry.

But Dave Solverson, head of the Canadian Cattle Association from 2014 to 2016, said it wasn’t until they began making alliances with cattle-producing states, that they started to gain traction and convince American cattle producers the new rule would be more harmful than helpful.

“The coalitions we had and our work with the (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association) and state organizations really proved beneficial for both sides,” said Solverson.

“We really concentrated on producer-to-producer (discussions) and went to the state cattlemen meetings and talked about how important it was that they could top up their pens with a good group of Canadian cattle.”

Nebraska and Iowa were the first states to recognize the importance of doing trade with Canada, especially eastern Canadian markets, he said.

“Fortunately, the relationship developed through country-of-origin discussions has continued. We have trilateral meetings three times a year with Mexican, American and Canadian cattlemen. That, of course, will continue and become very important.”

President-elect Trump’s threat to add a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods, including livestock, would devastate the livestock industry, said Solverson. Cattle markets would drop and Canadian cattle producer profits gained since the border closure 20 years ago would be lost.

Ken Solverson echoed his brother’s concerns. “If our demand shrinks because we are priced out of those markets, it has to affect our bottom line. The cattle cycle is really slow. We were almost where we are now in 2002 and we got smacked down with BSE and it has pretty much taken 20 years to get there again. It will be devastating if we miss another peak. The Americans never missed that last peak, but we did and we are just trying to get there again.”

Both Canadian and American beef herds are at 60-year lows, said Dave Solverson, which protects Canadian cattle producers right now. With so few cattle in the U.S., feedlots and packers need Canadian cattle and they may convince politicians of the need for the lower-priced Canadian cattle.

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Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency approved Garlon XRT herbicide, the first industrial vegetation product with drone application on the label.

“We are the first company to have a pesticide registered with PMRA for drone application,” said Mark Versluys, specialties business leader for Corteva Agriscience in Calgary.

“There is no other pesticide in Canada that has drone application on the label,” he said.

Versluys said the data collection and processing of the information required for approval took many months before the company received approval from PMRA.

Now, the herbicide can be sprayed by drone under utility right-of-ways, transmission lines, oil and gas leases and on steep mountainous terrain, anywhere Garlon was already registered for use in industrial areas. The approval does not extend to drone spraying for agricultural use.

Versluys said Corteva will continue to collect data and work with PMRA to have other pesticides registered for application by drone in the future.

“This isn’t just a one and done. This is the first step in a very exciting journey,” he said.

“I think the future looks very bright.”

Markus Weber, president of Landview Drones, said while the door is open a crack, PMRA needs to do more to add drone application registration for agricultural use to existing labels. Approving one herbicide at a time will take five to 10 years before there is a large selection of chemistry available for farmers.

Weber said ideally, he would hope PMRA would approve any chemical for drones that is now approved for aircraft.

“To me that is ultimately the way that we need to do this. It can’t just be label by label,” he said at the Agriculture in Motion farm show held northwest of Saskatoon.

In the first hour of the show, more than 120 farmers showed up for a drone demonstration.

“It is incredible. Farmers see this as a tool primarily for three things: brush control, pasture fungicide application and desiccant application.”

Pest control products can’t legally be sprayed by drone, but farmers see the potential, he said.

“Now that drones can fly large acreages and spraying can be done quickly and reliably, they see the potential, but they just can’t because the label doesn’t allow them to.”

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