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Democratic capitals – from Washington to Tokyo – are concerned about their reliance on Chinese technologies and its implications for national security. And while much of the focus remains on telecommunications companies and social platforms like TikTok, and their potential misuse of personal data such as the threat that TikTok sharing these data with Chinese intelligence for disinformation and hybrid warfare, this narrow scope overlooks broader vulnerabilities that pose far more significant risks.
In response to growing levels of food insecurity driven by climate change and population growth, farmers worldwide are increasingly relying on new technologies that could help China gain a dominant position in the global food market. More radically, agricultural data could be used to unleash biological warfare against crops, annihilating an adversary’s food supply. Such scenarios pose a significant threat to national security, offering China multiple avenues to undermine critical infrastructures by devastating food availability, threatening trade and economic resilience, and destabilizing agricultural systems.
The high level of security vulnerabilities associated with smart agriculture technologies, combined with the current lack of preparedness to address them, makes these technologies a potential target for adversaries.
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Technological innovation is the centerpiece of Xi Jinping’s “China Dream,” which aims to transform China into a leading global powerhouse by 2049. In this context, it is crucial to shift the attention away from merely banning Chinese-developed technologies to examining their broader security implications and developing a more meaningful national security policy and rhetoric to address their vulnerabilities. A recent report by the US House of Representatives highlighted the threats posed by Chinese drone technologies in academic research programs, not just for siphoning off raw data, but also as a backdoor to access university IT systems and knowledge repositories.
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China is the world leader in the agricultural drone industry, having experienced a drone revolution in agriculture since the late 2010s. Chinese-owned drone manufacturers XAG and DJI are leaders in the smart agriculture industry. These farming-specific drones can spray, feed, and monitor crops with more precision and speed than any human. They are fast-growing and one of the most widely used industry-level drones.
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As part of their investment strategy, the Chinese government has made military agreements with Chinese-owned agriculture drone manufacturers and agriculture research universities. Their military-civil fusion strategy – integrating civilian technologies with military goals – enables the Chinese government to exploit critical farming data for economic and military advantages. To support sustainable food production by monitoring crop health and predicting crop yields, the drones collect alarmingly specific data about the crops and regions they are used in. For example, a drone used for corn fields in the US, one of the world’s largest corn exporters, will gather detailed information about the area’s climate, soil conditions, and susceptibility to pests and diseases. The onboard AI can analyze this data to report crop vulnerabilities and identify optimum growth conditions for these and other crops, such as rice and wheat – foods on which much of the world’s population depends. From Brazil’s soy farms to Spain’s olive groves, the Chinese government could potentially access farming data from customers in any region.
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Conclusion
While concerns about critical infrastructure espionage tied to Chinese drones are growing, their potential to dominate the food market – and to conduct biological warfare against crops –remains largely overlooked. As the Chinese agricultural technology juggernaut quietly grows, policymakers must act now to safeguard national security. Nations can protect their food security and economic interests by regulating the data collected by agricultural drones, preventing third-party access, and reassessing the broader strategic implications of these technologies. Yet, for now, the data gathered by these drones is far less regulated than the data collected by TikTok. Failure to act could give China a decisive advantage in any prospective future confrontation. Left unchecked, the exploitation of smart agriculture data could leave nations vulnerable to food-based coercion. If this becomes part of China’s asymmetric warfare strategy, they are clearly playing the long game for global dominance.
