Drones in Russia’s Primorye Region Detect Illegal Dumps and Overgrown Farmland
New technologies speed up agricultural oversight
Unmanned aerial vehicles have helped inspect thousands of hectares of agricultural land in Russia’s Primorye region, the interregional office of Rosselkhoznadzor said. Inspectors identified plots that were not being used for their intended purpose, areas overgrown with weeds and shrubs, as well as illegal dumping sites.
Thousands of Inspections Nationwide
The drones allow inspectors to survey hard-to-reach areas and large territories in a short time. Agency staff were trained to operate the UAVs at the Primorskaya Agricultural Academy. In 2025, specialists inspected more than 14,000 hectares in the Kamchatka and Khabarovsk regions, as well as in the Jewish Autonomous Region and Magadan region.
In 2026, the head office of Rosselkhoznadzor plans to increase the number of drones in service. According to the agency, a 242-hectare site can be surveyed in about 15 minutes. Inspectors first conduct a scheduled flight and then use specialized software to create an orthophotomap – a digitally corrected aerial image of the terrain. Over the past year, a total of 3,138 field inspections were carried out across the country using UAVs.
