Drones and satellites

Photo by CABI

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are becoming valuable tools for locust and grasshopper monitoring and control, including assisting in surveillance and targeted spraying, as they can access areas that are difficult to reach by ground crews or conventional aircraft. They also enhance coverage and data collection by transmitting real-time landscape imagery to support rapid decision-making.

Traditional field surveys are often slow, costly, and difficult to carry out because inspectors and agronomic teams must travel to remote or unsafe locations. As a result, locust breeding or spread may not be confirmed until significant damage has already occurred. Satellite-based monitoring helps address this gap by providing wide-area coverage and frequent images that can detect changes in vegetation, moisture, and soil conditions.

How are drones being used in locust management?

The FAO has had success with using drones for surveillance that can transmit data to the FAO eLocust tablet in near real time.

In China and Mexico, drones have been used for targeted spraying of infestations, especially when locusts are roosting in trees at very high densities. While the limited payload is seen as a limitation, especially with sprays mixed with water, the use of ULV spraying can overcome this. The fact that drones can detect hopper bands shows promise for using drones to spot bands and spray them, though operational aspects still need to be worked out.

Drone use in Mexico

On April 28, Mexico inaugurated its first international congress on the use of drones in agriculture, with participation from 12 countries. The event focused on drone applications in general agriculture rather than locust control, although it reflects growing regional interest in the technology.

In the Yucatán, a commercial drone with a 100-liter capacity was recently acquired (spring 2026). A workshop will be held from June 23 to 25 with officers from the Mexican locust program. Although this is not a ULV drone, it should help improve operational efficiency and reduce response time. Results from calibration tests, as well as its use during preventive and emergency phases and in applications involving Metarhizium acridum, will be published.

Experience from Central America suggests that commercial spray equipment must be calibrated carefully, as insecticides are often applied at excessive rates, with significant environmental consequences. This is especially important because such equipment is usually deployed during contingency situations.

Drone use in Australia

The Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) is currently undertaking several projects, with the most advanced focused on integrated drone and satellite surveillance. This work began in November 2024, when a localized infestation of gregarious plague locust nymphs developed in central New South Wales during early spring. Over five days, a contracted drone pilot was engaged to test parameters for band detection and to compare drone-based observations with ground surveillance and standard fixed-wing aerial surveys. This trial also allowed an assessment of band detection and pasture damage using 3-meter resolution satellite imagery, but the resolution was too coarse to reliably detect damage or banding in variable pasture conditions.

Although the initial satellite results were limited, the drone trials demonstrated clear potential, prompting the APLC to invest further in internal capacity. Eight operational staff subsequently obtained remote pilot licences, and two small drones, a DJI Matrice and a DJI Mavic, were purchased to support additional in-house training and project development.

Orthomosaic map. The top down image stitched mapping technique did not show bands as well as offset camera angel and is a time consuming process requiring many high resolution images captured and stitched together to produce georeferenced maps. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

Best parameters image. 18° to 20° offset camera angle 120m drone height, early to mid morning survey, mid instar nymph stage. A single image can show locust bands in approx. 100 ha. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

Individual band size and area marking. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

3m resolution satellite image. Bands or damage in varied pasture types and conditions not detectable. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

November 2024 Drone, fixed wing and satellite assessment project. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

Following the 2024 New South Wales opportunity, two further projects involving migratory locusts produced promising results using both drone and satellite imagery. In the Proserpine coastal region of Queensland in October 2025, work with a local agronomist enabled the collection of ground-based and drone imagery of gregarious migratory locust bands damaging early-stage sugarcane crops at multiple altitudes. These data, together with images, locations, and timestamps, were shared for comparison with historical 3-meter resolution satellite imagery covering the same period. The satellite imagery successfully captured locust damage and, in some cases, the fronts of locust bands in a cropping environment, representing the first known confirmed use of satellite imagery to detect locust damage and dense gregarious nymph bands. Drone imagery from these bands also demonstrated that even a small drone can survey, identify, and map approximately 1,000 hectares in under 15 minutes.

3m spatial resolution satellite image showing 7 days of migratory locust band damage in young sugarcane crop and drone captured image at 50m height. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

Extrapolated assessment of 20 minute drone 1,000 ha assessment area. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

A third trial was conducted in the Alpha region of central-west Queensland in February and March 2026, following further breeding of an existing migratory locust upsurge in the Queensland central highlands and central west. This provided an additional opportunity for the APLC to test drones and real-time very high-resolution satellite imagery at 30–50 cm resolution, and to compare these results with ground surveillance as well as fixed-wing and helicopter survey imagery. Despite difficult weather conditions and persistent cloud cover, a short cloud-free window at the end of February allowed the trial to proceed during joint APLC and Queensland DPI control operations. These results have been the most successful to date, particularly the 30–50 cm satellite imagery, which clearly shows numerous band fronts and associated damage across the three 100 km² areas captured on two cloud-free mornings. Further analysis is also planned using GPS-referenced aerial survey and control data collected during the trial period to support additional infestation assessment work.

Image provided by Heath McRae APLC. Images of Locusta migratoria 3^rd to 4^th instar nymph bands at densities 500 – 4,000 per m square: A- Helicopter image 120m AGL (Above ground level) B- Ground level photo C- Drone 50m AGL D- Fixed wing spotter 350 m AGL E- Designated satellite capture areas of 100 km² and 120 km² F to O – Very high resolution 30cm – 50cm satellite images of banding fronts and damage

Band seen from fixed wing spotter at 350 m AGL

Same band detected with Very High resolution 30cm to 50cm resolution. Image provided by Heath McRae APLC.

Spray drones

In Australia, work on spray drones has advanced slowly because suitable low-volume ULV platforms for large-area locust control are still limited, although planning has begun on how best to develop and deploy them, and progress by Micronair on purpose-built ULV drone sprayers has been followed closely. Spray drones are likely to have an important role in future locust control, particularly as an affordable platform for ULV application trials and for treatments that partly replicate aerial operations. Their most promising use will likely be in combination with ULV methods, strip or barrier spraying with IGRs or similar products, and the targeted treatment of dense nymphal bands or roosting swarms, rather than broad-acre applications as highlighted in the example images 3 and 4 above, where the higher density bands can be treated at 5ha total compared to broad-acre spray aircraft treating 100 ha. In practice, they could become one more option in the locust control toolkit, alongside hand sprayers, vehicle-mounted sprayers, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters, with the choice determined by the situation.

Drone use at the FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) combines satellite imagery, drone surveys, and field operations to improve the speed and precision of locust monitoring. Satellites are used to identify areas where recent rainfall or green vegetation may have created suitable conditions for locust breeding, and drones are then deployed to survey those areas at much finer resolution, helping teams confirm vegetation patterns and locate potential infestations more efficiently. The approach is intended to reduce time spent searching vast desert landscapes and to direct field teams to the most likely breeding or feeding sites.

The dLocust system is FAO’s drone-based survey platform. It conbines a portable fixed-wing or rotary drone with the eLocust tablet, a dedicated app, onboard cameras, and real-time image processing. The system is used by national locust teams to plan flights, choose sampling patterns, collect imagery, and review results in the field. In practice, dLocust helps survey teams identify green vegetation and, in some cases, detect locust infestations more quickly and with less reliance on third-party operators.

FAO has also been testing the use of drones for control operations, including spray applications, although this is still more experimental than survey use. Field examples have included trials in desert-locust-affected areas where drones were evaluated for their ability to support surveillance and, more recently, pesticide application under real operational conditions. FAO presents these trials as part of a gradual move toward integrating drones into both early warning and, eventually, response operations, especially where conventional access is difficult and rapid targeting is important.

Drone pilot training in Oman

From 25–29 January 2026, FAO, working through the Desert Locust Control Commissions in the Central and Western Regions and in cooperation with Oman’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, launched the first regional training programme for drone pilots focused on desert locust survey and control operations. The initiative brings together specialists from affected countries to strengthen regional capacity in the use of unmanned aerial systems for surveillance, monitoring, and control, marking a shift from pilot testing toward more structured, institutionalized training. The five-day programme combined classroom sessions, simulator exercises, and field practice, with implementation support from Micron, the FAO office in Muscat, and local partner Ankaa Space Company. It was designed to build a certified regional pool of operators, harmonize procedures, improve operational safety, and support faster, more effective responses to locust threats. More broadly, it forms part of FAO’s effort to modernize desert locust management through digital tools, remote sensing, robotics, and precision application technologies, while strengthening preparedness, cooperation, and food-security resilience.

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Organizations associated with drones and satellites

Organization name	Acronym	Website	Type	Focus	Focus keywords	Geographic purview
FAO Desert Locust Information Service	DLIS	View	Intergovernmental Organization	Development, Management, Education, Governance, Information Hub, Funding	Agricultural development, Community development, Control, Coordination, Emergency assistance, Forecasting, International development, Media, Monitoring, Policy, Regional cooperation, Sustainable development, Technology, Training, Early warning, Natural sciences	Africa, Asia, Europe
IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre	ICPAC	View	Intergovernmental Organization	Development, Management, Research	Forecasting, Agricultural development, International development, Early warning, Natural sciences	Kenya