China's citrus harvest is now in full swing, and in hill country a growing share of the fruit leaves the orchard by air. On November 6, 2026, when Xinfeng county in Jiangxi province formally opened this year's Gannan navel orange season, drones operated by logistics companies were shuttling freshly picked oranges out of the groves. Four days later, in Changyantang village in Hubei province, drones were photographed lifting crates of honey tangerines from hillside plots up to a mountain road.
Zigui county in Hubei, on the steep slopes of the Three Gorges, shows how far the practice has spread. The county has close to 400,000 mu, or roughly 26,700 hectares, of citrus orchards, producing more than one million tonnes of fruit a year worth over 25 billion yuan. Growers there used to carry about 50 kg of oranges per trip down narrow mountain paths, a walk that could take up to 40 minutes.
Today a single drone can lift around 100 kg in one load and bring it from the hillside to the collection area in about a minute. Over a working day one aircraft can move roughly 25 to 30 tonnes of fruit, according to local growers, work that used to need a team of porters. Zigui now has about 2,600 licensed agricultural drone pilots, many of them young people who have come back to the county to work in the trade.
Lifting is only part of what these aircraft do. In Zigui and in coastal Zhejiang, the same agricultural drones also spray pesticides and spread fertiliser across the orchards, then switch to carrying fruit once the harvest begins. In Jiangxi, the transport flights at the start of the navel orange season were run by logistics companies rather than by the growers themselves, an early sign that harvest lifting is becoming a service that farms can hire.
For distributors, farm cooperatives and agricultural service companies outside China, the Zigui model is a useful reference for any steep, labour-short growing region. When choosing a drone for lifting work, buyers should check the rated lifting payload with the cargo hook or winch fitted, how the aircraft controls load sway, how many battery sets are needed to keep flying through a full harvest day, and whether the same airframe can be refitted for spraying so that it earns money outside the picking season. Local rules on carrying suspended loads and on pilot licensing also need to be confirmed before an order is placed. If you are sourcing agricultural or lifting drones from Chinese manufacturers, our team can help you compare models and arrange a complete shipment.