South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson Requests Briefing on Chinese Drones

September 9, 2024

U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and twelve members of Congress asked the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to brief members of Congress on the risk Chinese-manufactured drones pose to America’s food supply and what the agencies are doing to protect American agriculture.

Johnson has been outspoken in Congress and as a member of the Select Committee on China to secure our food supply from foreign adversaries and has advocated for more oversight of foreign purchases of U.S. farmland.

Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. (DJI) is a Chinese Military Company, linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that makes thousands of drones, many of which are used in the United States. These drones operate on Chinese military software, firmware, and hardware, posing a significant risk to American agriculture and safety.

“The risk of these DJI agricultural spray drones being manipulated to carry out an attack in the United States cannot be ignored,” the members wrote. “Relying on our greatest strategic adversary for technology critical to the success of our agricultural production endangers the resiliency of our food supply.”

DJI’s advanced surveillance drones use LiDAR sensors and multispectral cameras which DJI states can collect and interpret crop data that is “impossible for the human eye to see.” The CCP’s access to this data and software gives them an unprecedented ability to control our agriculture supply chain.

The letter was sent by Reps. Mark Alford (R-MO), Ben Cline (R-VA), Neal Dunn (R- FL), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Michael Guest (R-MS), Ashley Hinson (R-IA), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), John Moolenaar (R-MI), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Zach Nunn (R-IA), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), and Robert Wittman (R-VA).

Read the full letter here.

Source: U.S. Congressman Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.)