Surveying Cacao Farms with Drones in the Philippines

Drones help Filipino cacao farmers survey a high-value, shade-grown crop that's awkward to inspect on foot — mapping the farm, reading tree health, and seeing through the shade canopy. In Davao and across Mindanao, where much of the country's cacao grows, that's a practical edge for protecting margins.

Here's what drones do on a cacao farm, and how to start.

Cacao is a high-value tree crop, so catching a problem early protects real money. It's also usually grown under shade trees and packed closely, which makes walking the rows to inspect every plant slow and easy to do incompletely.

From the air, a drone covers the whole farm in one flight and brings back data on each part of it — the kind of overview a ground walk rarely gives.

An RGB mapping flight produces a measured picture of the farm: its area, the layout of blocks, and a count of trees for planning and records. Add a multispectral sensor and you get an NDVI health map that scores each tree's vigour, flagging stress before the leaves show it. See how NDVI mapping works.

Cacao's shade trees are useful for the crop but a problem for a camera, which only sees the top layer. LiDAR helps here: its laser pulses pass through gaps in the upper canopy to measure the structure beneath, separating the cacao layer from the shade trees above and mapping the ground below. See how drones use LiDAR for canopy health.

Cacao is vulnerable to problems like vascular-streak dieback and pod diseases, and to drought stress in the dry months. On a health map, struggling trees show as low-vigour points among the healthy stand — telling a farmer exactly which trees to inspect and treat. On a high-value crop, finding the few sick trees among thousands is worth the flight on its own.

Begin with an RGB mapping drone to survey and count, then add a multispectral sensor for health, and LiDAR later if the shade structure justifies it. Fly on a regular schedule so the maps show change over the season.

Paid work needs CAAP registration and licensing — see the CAAP regulation primer — and the full toolkit is in our guide to agricultural drones in the Philippines.

Learning to fly? Practise survey missions in our free drone simulator, built for agriculture and the Philippines.

Can drones really see cacao under shade trees?

A camera mostly sees the shade canopy; LiDAR sees through gaps to the layer beneath, which is why it's used for shade-grown crops.

What can a drone tell me about my cacao?

Farm area and tree count from mapping, tree-by-tree vigour from a health map, and canopy structure from LiDAR.

Is this only for big plantations?

It scales best for larger farms and cooperatives, but even a modest cacao block benefits from a health map at the right time of year.

Where is most Philippine cacao grown?

Mainly in Mindanao, with Davao a major hub — the region where much of this drone work is concentrated.

Cacao rewards attention to the individual tree, and that's hard from the ground on a shaded, crowded farm. A drone gives the whole-farm view and points the farmer at the trees that need them.

Pair this with NDVI crop-health mapping and LiDAR for canopy health, and start with the agricultural drones guide.

Lumipad Drones is a non-profit that trains rural Filipinos to build, fly, and maintain low-cost agricultural drones, and to launch the microenterprises that serve local farmers. To learn more about our work, see our about page, or apply to join a program. You can also try our free drone flight simulator — built for agriculture and the Philippines, and runnable right in your browser.