Missouri-based agricultural drone company outlines a comprehensive five-year plan to replace foreign components, scale domestic research and development, and build a resilient supply chain for American farmers.
By Jim Magil
Faced with a rapidly changing regulatory landscape and increasing federal scrutiny regarding foreign-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Boonville, Missouri-based Agri Spray has announced a fundamental transformation of its business model. Over the next five years, the company will transition away from its historical role as a distributor of imported agricultural drones to become a dedicated manufacturer of fully American-sourced agricultural spray drones.
In a recent interview, Agri Spray founder and CEO Taylor Moreland explained that the decision to enact this dramatic operational pivot came in direct response to evolving restrictions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of War. These regulatory shifts have created an unprecedented and urgent demand for the domestic development and manufacture of agricultural spray drones to ensure long-term agricultural stability and national security.
"We’ve been working on this for a little over a year, putting the plans together to get an understanding of what the needs are to begin producing some of this technology in the U.S.," Moreland said.
Over the past several years, various branches of the federal government have steadily increased restrictions on the importation and utilization of drones and critical drone components produced by nations deemed hostile to the United States, with a primary focus on China. In July, the FCC advanced a formal proposal seeking to restrict foreign-produced drones and critical hardware components that currently reside on the agency’s Covered List and satisfy its proposed criteria for "military-grade" technology.
Under the proposed federal guidelines, this classification explicitly encompasses drones capable of dispensing "economic poison." In an agricultural context, this definition directly captures heavy-duty agricultural spray drones utilized extensively across the American heartland to distribute vital crop protection products, including insecticides, fungicides, and defoliant agents.
Recognizing that these regulatory measures will permanently alter the commercial environment, Moreland noted that Agri Spray had to revise its entire corporate strategy to remain a viable, competitive player in the U.S. market well into the future.
"We will be beginning to manufacture and build the R&D and engineering side of the house to actually develop the technology in the US to meet the government regulations and to keep up the supply of this highly needed equipment," he said.
Because of the immense scale, financial investment, and logistical hurdles involved in establishing a domestic manufacturing ecosystem, Agri Spray expects the comprehensive conversion process to unfold gradually over a multi-year timeline.
"Could we build a 100 percent US-made spray-drone: software, hardware, everything? Yes, we could. But could we build 5,000 of them by the end of this year or next year? No," Moreland stated. He emphasized that the industrial capacity simply does not exist yet within the United States to supply the agricultural drone sector with the specialized, high-demand components it requires—most notably high-output electric motors and heavy-duty power batteries—at the massive scale demanded by modern farming operations.
Despite these nationwide supply chain limitations, Agri Spray plans to initiate the first phase of its ambitious five-year roadmap immediately, beginning with in-house software development.
"Our software team has been built up over the past several months and we’re actually building our own software and firmware for these drones, even though much of the hardware is still coming from China," Moreland said. "We’ll be utilizing the DoW and FCC’s conditional approval program so that we can continue to use existing foreign supply chains while we onshore components over the next five years."
During this interim period, the company will continue to rely on specialized foreign-sourced components required for critical electronic subsystems, such as flight controllers and printed circuit boards, which are predominantly produced in trusted allied nations like Taiwan.
According to Moreland, the federal government’s widening crackdown on foreign-made drones and overseas hardware components is driven by two paramount national interests: comprehensive data security and robust supply chain security.
"The U.S. government wants to make sure that the drones flying over U.S. skies are controlled—software-wise, data-wise, backend-wise—by U.S. companies," Moreland said. "And secondly, they want to make sure that the supply chain cannot be cut off by one foreign adversary or another."
5-Year Transition Plan
The initial phase of the hardware-focused transition will center on domestic assembly, which is scheduled to get underway within the next several months. Agri Spray has already converted a substantial portion of its main headquarters warehouse in Boonville, Missouri, into a dedicated assembly line facility.
"Assembly and quality control are the first steps that are happening at our headquarters in Missouri," Moreland said. "We’re prototyping multiple different hardware components from several different manufacturers across the country."
As the company moves from the second into the third year of its strategic transition, Agri Spray will progressively increase the percentage of American-made components integrated into its agricultural drone platforms.
"That’ll start with a lot of the simpler items, some injection-molded pieces, some aluminum tubes for the frame, some different fasteners," he explained. "Then the most complicated piece of that—for US components—will be the PCB boards."
By the fourth year of the plan, the company projects that its domestic supply chain network will have matured sufficiently to begin installing U.S.-sourced electric motors into its manufactured fleets.
"We are starting to prototype those now. We know that building that steady supply is going to take a bit of time, so it’s not going to be an instant switch," he noted.
Concurrently, Agri Spray plans to begin prototyping U.S.-manufactured batteries next year, with the ultimate objective of integrating them into the majority of its commercial product line by year four. By the conclusion of the fifth year, the company expects its domestic production capabilities and component sourcing to fully satisfy all federal regulatory requirements and market demands.
This extensive industrial expansion will also necessitate a substantial increase in personnel for the growing company. Agri Spray currently employs a workforce of approximately 65 people, a figure that is expected to grow significantly as manufacturing ramps up.
"Over the next two years we will likely be hiring about 25 to 30 people," Moreland said.
To adequately finance its planned growth and capital expenditures, Agri Spray—which is currently 100 percent owned by Moreland—intends to pursue outside investment for the first time.
"We are right now beginning the first steps into seeking investment. We’re being pretty strategic about who we work with. We want to work with folks who are just as passionate as we are about this industry," Moreland said.
Focus on Agricultural Drones
Founded in 2020, Agri Spray has established a steady production track record over the past three years, averaging approximately 1,000 agricultural spray drones annually. The company maintains an exclusive commercial focus on the agricultural market segment, steering clear of consumer, mapping, or general enterprise drone sectors.
"We’re really not doing camera drones, mapping drones, enterprise drones. So, it’s just spray drones, along with all the accessories, the batteries and chargers, but also the field equipment," Moreland said.
Because agricultural spray drones operate under grueling, high-stress conditions, a significant portion of Agri Spray’s overall business operations is dedicated to providing comprehensive replacement parts, repair services, and responsive technical support. Operating an agricultural drone fleet requires a vast supporting infrastructure in the field, including heavy-duty generators, specialized trailer transportation systems, advanced plumbing equipment, and readily available replacement parts.
"Spray drones are used, 10 plus hours a day, every day, all summer long at very high weights, at very close proximity to the ground and power lines and trees," Moreland said. "More accidents happen with spray drones and it’s much more critical to get them up in the air extremely fast because you’re racing against the clock in terms of weather and plant growth and disease growth."
