4 Sustainable business models for the use of drones in agriculture
‘A sustainable business model is one whose rational for value creation, delivery and capture allows an organisation to contribute to solving sustainability challenges and to promoting sustainable development.’
(Lüdeke-Freund et al., 2022 p. 36)
The use of drones in agriculture can help to address some related sustainability challenges through precision agriculture that is low-input compared to conventional farming. There is a broad range of sustainability challenges and there is a commitment worldwide to pursue sustainable development. In this section you will focus on two types of sustainable business models that are particularly relevant for the use of drones in agriculture. These are the cooperative ownership and the shared ownership business models (Lüdeke-Freund et al., 2022). Sustainable use of drones requires that they are used to their full capacity and recycled after obsolescence. Sustainability of income and reducing risks of investment are also crucial for farmers investing in new technologies.
Cooperatives are quite a common form of organising in agricultural and rural areas. Traditionally, farmers are organised in ‘producer cooperatives’ to collectively negotiate better prices for their produce by collective trading. Cooperatives offer a great way to manage forests and grazeland because they may be owned by the public. Cooperatives give both ownership and decision/voting rights to a group of stakeholders with aligned interests – either producers of the same crop or a community in the case of forests. Profits are shared among members or are invested back to the cooperative to sustain it in the long-term. Members have collective responsibility for all the common assets, such as machinery. Even though it is an appealing form of organising, cooperatives can be slow in decision-making and conflicts can occur when the values and interests of members diverge, or when there is misuse of common assets.
Shared ownership business models are based on the same collectivism principles as cooperatives but do not require the formation of a separate legal entity: the cooperative. Businesses and individuals can share the use of a product (e.g. machinery, technology) and own it collectively. For example, a village where farmers want to experiment with the use of drones but consider them expensive or a risky investment, can use a shared- or cooperative ownership business model to reduce both the cost and risk of using drones. Cooperatives, in particular, allow farmers to jointly cover the costs of pilot training or hire drones specialists to operate them. They can also be a source of advice on how to interpret the sophisticated analytics reports generated by drones and related applications.
Cooperative and shared ownership models also contribute to sustainability. One way they achieve this is by promoting collaborative use and consumption. This both reduces inefficient use of assets (drones) and offers a great solution for gaining access to products that:
- are relatively rarely used
- are expensive
- have not been fully tested
- many users are unwilling to purchase.
You will now explore how these apply to the ICAERUS Use Case for forestry and biodiversity monitoring.
Activity 3
Meet Kęstutis and Adele, from Art21 and AgriFood Lithuania [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , who work on Use Case 4 on forestry and biodiversity. This Use Case develops and promotes innovations on the use of drones in forestry and biodiversity monitoring.

Transcript: Video 2
How are Art21 and AgriFood Lithuania advancing the use of drones for forestry and biodiversity monitoring?
Discussion
AgriFood Lithuania and Art21 have been advancing work for ICAERUS Use Case 4 – forestry and biodiversity (UC4, see Week 1 of this course) by using a combination of different types of drones and cameras to create optimised solutions for forestry and biodiversity monitoring. For example, they use a multi-rotor drone to monitor tree health and fire risk, as well as a fixed-wing drone to monitor wildlife. Satellite imaging data will be used to detect possible tree stress, and multi-rotor drones will be used for detailed (high-resolution) monitoring of specific forest areas (including tree health and fire risks).
Fixed-wing drones are becoming an efficient tool in forestry research and can be used for wildlife monitoring because of their capacity to cover vast areas quickly. Since they can cover large areas within a limited time frame, the operational costs of monitoring are significantly reduced by implementing drones in comparison to other monitoring means, such as manned aerial surveys. So the use of drones in this area can lead to saving labour costs.
What business models can be developed based on the technology developed by Art21 and AgriFood Lithuania?
Discussion
Forests and wildlife are a public good, not only because they belong to all of us, but because we all benefit from their sustainability. As a result, there is very rarely private business interest in investing in efficient ways to monitor forests and wildlife, such as drones. National forestry and agriculture offices can purchase drones to support such uses. Drones used for forestry and biodiversity management can also support private timber management companies to monitor forests before wood is cut for commercial exploitation. In certain nations, the commercial exploitation of forest wood is organised by community cooperatives. Cooperative ownership of drones can be an effective business model, ensuring efficient fire and wildlife monitoring and timber management. A shared ownership business model can be used instead or alongside cooperative ownership.
There are many applications of drones in different areas that are mentioned in the video of Use Case 4 from Lithuania. You might have noticed one application that is mentioned is the use of drones for oceanography. This can support understanding various aspects of oceans, not only the organisms that live in them, but also the geology and chemistry of oceans, including measurements of temperature and ocean currents. Such applications of drones can open wide scope of business uses in this sector. Drones for ocean management can also support public sector organisations such as those responsible for marine life and its management.