Automation in Farming: A New Generation of Agtech Redefines What's Possible

The recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in California showed strong ties between the worlds of farming and advanced systems technology, with a continued push toward smart farming and automation in agriculture. A number of roles in the agtech industry and in agriculture itself could face great shifts as these new technologies become more commonplace.

Instead of direct operators or farmers completing repetitive, labor-intensive tasks, more may become maintenance specialists and machine monitors, keeping a new generation of smart farming machines running smoothly and without interruption.

A Technological Answer to a Human Problem

The world population steadily increases, recently crossing the 8 billion thresholds. Despite a growing need for food, many countries face a shortage of agricultural workers. For example, just 1% of all Israelis are employed in agriculture. People aren’t becoming farmers, but people need to eat.

Perhaps automation provides a solution to this human problem.

Recently, an agtech team from Israel and the Netherlands developed a prototype robot that harvests tomatoes in greenhouse settings. Visual sensors can differentiate between the fruit and the other plant structures, determine the level of ripeness, and record the weight and size for future crop management purposes.

The company has its eye on including similar crops—cucumbers, eggplants, and peppers—soon. And agricultural producers are requesting the company expand services into avocados, oranges, grapes, coffee, tea, and even cannabis. Each crop brings various levels of challenges associated with seeding, watering, and harvesting—challenges that agriculture robots may soon solve.

Smart Farming Versions of Familiar Agriculture Instruments

Brand-new agtech isn’t the only solution. We’re also seeing more and more smart, connected versions of existing farm equipment.

Integrated drones, machine learning, AI, and automation take familiar equipment to a whole new level. Already on the market are elements like self-driving tractors, crop-spraying drones, and weed-identifying sprayers. These provide a higher level of accuracy and precision when connected with smart technologies to tackle issues in real-time.

John Deere has long been synonymous with big green tractors, but the company has made a major shift into software and smart tech that can power those tractors— no driver required.

John Deere software subscriptions, which they predict to be a major component of the future of farming, are dependent on real-time connectivity; they are working on integrating satellites to work on mapping, analyze crop growth, and mitigate diseases.

Farmers would then have access to the following:

• In-field data sharing

• Wireless data transfers

• Remote display access

• Faster machine learning

• Autonomous machine operation (where machinery is controlled and monitored with no additional infrastructure)

A Smarter Approach to Pest and Weed Control

Two major concerns with the use of pesticides and herbicides are ecological responsibility and environmental health. Here again, smart tech provides mitigating solutions: the precision attainable using automation in agriculture regarding pesticides and herbicides reduces waste, overspray, and the amount used. It also produces better data for future evaluation.

Training and Analytics Are Ongoing Concerns

Speaking of data, a farm might have dozens of tractors; several combines, sprayers, and harvesters; and maybe tens of thousands of acres. Smart farming equipment at that scale generates a ton of data, and all of it must be processed to be useful.

Training on new equipment is another challenge to new farmers; even those who may have generations of farming in their family history are learning new technologies to become as efficient as possible.

Building on Existing Automation Frameworks

Automation in agriculture isn’t springing up out of nowhere. Instead, it’s building on existing technologies like Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) systems, adding sensors to ensure the proper amount of water is delivered at the right time for the conditions in each location.

And drones already use various sensors to identify crop damage. Planning for planting is enhanced by drone use, and they can even be used in precision air planting and irrigation.

As agrobots like drones and robots may soon begin communicating with each other directly, farmers can look forward to being able to solve even more of today’s agriculture challenges.