Intrepid drone operators turn skills to good account

She returned to Tianmen in 2015 and focused on promoting new and green plant protection technologies.

Two years later she was a pioneer in Tianmen in using drones to help spray pesticides and do related farm work.

"Many men have left the area to find employment elsewhere, and that has left a lot of left-behind wives in rural areas who have a lot of time on their hands," she says.

"Operating intelligent plant protection drones is not that difficult, and with a bit of training the left-behind women are soon operating them."

Soon after realizing what drones could do on farms, Jiang came up with the idea of setting up the women's drone service cooperative.

"Being part of the cooperative not only allows women to take care of their families at home but also to increase their income."

Liu Chang'e, a widow from a poor household in Luming village in Henglin township of Tianmen, says drones have made work easier for many farmers, and by operating drones for local farmers last year her family's annual income was 70,000 yuan ($10,000).

Liu, who joined the cooperative in 2019, says she underwent drone operating training for a week, and after a month of practice she felt fully competent in flying them.

"Flying drones and promoting related new technologies in rural areas will help pull more and more farmers from poverty," she says.

Jiang says she has trained 169 women drone operators, and by the end of last year, the cooperative's drones had serviced more than 400,000 hectares of land across the country, covering more than 1 million households.

"Some of the women come from local poor families, and they had no other skills but have become skillful drone operators."