Amid the roar of engines, an agricultural drone carrying a crate of navel oranges soars over a steep orchard and lands steadily at a mid-mountain collection point. Nearby, a monorail transport system shuttles fresh fruit down the slopes. On September 18, reporters joined the "Vitality China Field Research" team at the Yandengbao Smart Agriculture Demonstration Park in Gujiaba Town, Zigui County, Yichang City, Hubei Province.

Within this base, which covers a core area of 200 mu and radiates influence over 20,000 mu of surrounding farmland, monitoring equipment for weather, soil moisture, pest conditions, and disaster warnings is spread throughout the groves. A water-fertilizer integrated pipeline network reaches beneath every orange tree—oranges traveling by drone and by "mini train" is just part of daily operations in this local smart agriculture scene.

Behind these small scenes lies a massive industry. In recent years, Yichang's agricultural drone sector has grown rapidly, ranking among the top in the province for fleet size, operational scale, and workforce. In Zigui, known as the "Hometown of Chinese Navel Oranges," the impact of technological empowerment is especially visible: the county's entire navel orange industry chain has achieved a comprehensive output value of 24.243 billion yuan, with the "Zigui Navel Orange" brand valued at 16.678 billion yuan.

New Careers Taking Flight in the Orchards

Zigui sits along the Xiling Gorge of the Yangtze River. The county's orange groves are built on mountain slopes in terraced patterns, with fragmented plots, dramatic elevation changes, and dense ravines—many orchards border cliffs and roads. In the past, during harvest season, oranges had to be carried down the mountains in baskets on workers' backs.

"Previously, hiring labor required a 'one-plus-one' arrangement—one male and one female worker—costing 1,000 to 1,200 yuan per day, plus meals and cigarettes. Factoring it all in, the picking and transport cost per catty of oranges was about 0.3 yuan," calculated Song Xingjian, member of the Zigui County Party Committee Standing Committee and Director of the County Committee Office, on September 18. "Now, using drones for transport combined with manual picking, the cost per catty drops to about 0.15 yuan—cut in half."

Pilot Guo Xingcheng was among the first in the county to embrace this technology. "At peak season, a single drone can lift 50,000 to 60,000 catties in one day," he said. During the early promotion phase, farmers didn't trust the drones, so he experimented on his own orchard and invited others to observe. Once they saw the results, acceptance grew.

As of December 2025, Zigui has 1,050 agricultural drones countywide, bringing together more than 2,500 pilots, most of whom are born after 1995 or 2000. The county has also built over 2,200 rail transport lines totaling 410,000 meters. Throughout 2025, drones transported more than 700,000 tons of navel oranges across approximately 300,000 mu of orchards, improving efficiency by 7 to 8 times compared to traditional manual labor.

Zigui's digital transformation extends far beyond transportation. "Zigui is a typical mountainous area—farming once relied on shoulder-carrying and back-hauling. With rural aging intensifying, labor shortages are growing more severe," said Li Li, head of the Science, Education, and Informatization Division at the Zigui County Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau. "Promoting drones and deploying IoT devices is also about providing technological support for the question of 'who will farm in the future.'"

Li Li explained that all 451,000 plots across 397,000 mu of orange groves have been coded and registered, giving each orchard a "digital ID" containing information on altitude, slope, and tree age. Farmers can open the "Zigui Agriculture" WeChat official account, where the system automatically generates a "soil-testing formula fertilization recommendation card" based on soil nutrients and crop variety. When pests are detected, farmers can photograph and upload the image, and AI automatically identifies the species and provides treatment plans—keeping the county's pest damage loss rate within 5%.

"Digital agriculture collects physical information from orchards into data, while smart agriculture uses that data to support decision-making," Li Li said.

Since being selected as one of the first national digital village pilot zones in 2020, Zigui has progressively advanced from digital agriculture "Version 1.0" to smart agriculture "Version 2.0." In October 2025, the "Three Gorges Citrus Industry Brain Land Parcel Information Dataset" obtained data property rights registration certificates and data intellectual property certificates—marking the "first breakthrough case" of public data intellectual property registration by an administrative unit in Hubei Province.

Policy Support Strengthens the Transformation Foundation

The digital transformation of mountain agriculture relies on systematic policy backing. In addition to implementing 7 million yuan in central agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, Zigui has introduced a special agricultural industry reward and subsidy program, allocating 2 million yuan for additional subsidies at 30% of the provincial standard—with a maximum single-machine subsidy of 18,000 yuan. This has supported the purchase and subsidization of 892 agricultural drones, with 11.54 million yuan in subsidies disbursed.

To address the challenges of charging and takeoff/landing difficulties for drones in mountainous areas, the county has coordinated the clearing of 36 kilometers of utility lines that obstruct operations, raised 4 million yuan to build 44 takeoff/landing platforms and charging stations across five major citrus-producing areas, and established a "charging services + revenue feedback" closed loop that allows village collective economies to benefit sustainably.

The combined force of policy and industry has ultimately translated into tangible livelihood gains. Currently, Zigui's navel orange planting area reaches 400,000 mu, with annual output exceeding 1 million tons and comprehensive output value surpassing 25 billion yuan, benefiting more than 260,000 people with increased income. The county has developed a four-season fresh orange industry structure: "Lunwan in spring, summer oranges in summer, September Red in autumn, and Newhall in winter."

Regarding farmer income growth, Zigui has cultivated 18 citrus industry "billion-yuan villages," with growers' average annual income exceeding 100,000 yuan. The "Zigui Orange Farmer" labor brand has trained 2,500 young people for return-home employment and entrepreneurship. In terms of brand influence, the "Zigui Navel Orange" brand value stands at 16.678 billion yuan, having earned over 10 national honors and being selected for the national "2025 Agricultural Brand Premium Cultivation Program."

Looking across the broader Yichang region, Zigui is not an isolated case. As of now, Yichang City's agricultural drone fleet exceeds 2,100 units, with Zigui County, Dangyang City, Zhijiang City, and Yiling District leading in fleet size. There are more than 3,200 certified professional pilots, with industry operation revenue surpassing 130 million yuan—making low-altitude agricultural applications a provincial leader in Hubei.

The quality of agricultural digital transformation is also reflected in the regional economy. In 2025, Yichang achieved a regional GDP of 646.4 billion yuan, ranking 47th among the nation's top 100 cities. In the first half of this year, regional GDP reached 311.9 billion yuan with a growth rate of 6.8%.

Looking ahead, Zigui's plans are clear: deepen the integration of the "Citrus Brain" with more data resources, focus on building seed chip engineering projects, smart premium orchards, modern agricultural supply chain platforms, and comprehensive inspection and testing service centers. The county will continue advancing high-quality dataset construction and data intellectual property registration, exploring mechanisms for realizing the value of agricultural data resources.

"The next step is to build more high-quality datasets suited to Zigui, making AI smarter and decision-making more accurate, turning data resources into data assets, and establishing Zigui as a place that exports agricultural data assets and standards," Li Li said.