Increased automation of agricultural farm processes - Abhipreet

Increased automation of agricultural farm processes (Abhi)

Automation in farm processes:

It’s amazing how the human race has been able to re-engineer the environment to generate food for humans for about 12,000 years. However, we are at a point of inflection with global population expected to be over 9 billion by 2050, the current levels of agricultural productions will need to be increased by 70%. This puts a huge amount of pressure on farmers to produce nutritious food, which has put more pressure on our environment. With technology advancements like automation farm’s productivity can be increased to meet this fast paced increase in demand of nutritious food around the globe.

What is automation in farming? Farm automation, also called ‘smart farming;, that increases the productivity and efficiency of farms by automating the production cycles of crops and also livestock. A number of companies are also working on robot based automations like robotic harvesters (robotic manipulators working together to pick fruits and vegetables that meets farmers standards), autonomous tractors (remote and pre-programmed that helps in reducing labour cost and also increases yield by increasing efficiency in operations), Automated seeding and weeding (promises to reduce pesticide usage by 90%, through computer vision sprays herbicide wherever required), drones can be used to identify problems through imagery and infrared analysis, while they can also be used to monitor and apply pesticides, fertilizers remotely.

Enablers

The key enablers in this has been heavy investment into technology from ancillary companies in the agriculture sector and an exponential increase in investment to support these companies like ecoRobotix, American Robotics, Rabbit tractors etc. Some of the other enablers have been tangible benefits from using ‘smart farming’, reducing the cost of labour (which is 50% cost to grow a farm), increase in productivity and yield rates have also reduced the cost to customers, and most importantly a significant impact to reduce the environmental footprint.

Inhibitors

The high cost of adoption for such technologies has been the biggest barrier for entry for farmers. The other inhibitor is the access to this technology at large scale for small farm holders.

Paradigms

This driving force is at an early stage of adoption but definitely offers a path towards sustainable and efficient agricultural practices. Every year, companies are making significant strides to improve existing technology and making such tech more commonplace and cost efficient. These practices will replace a significant amount of human labour and drive efficiency.

Web resources

https://ict.eu/2020/robotizing-the-agricultural-sector/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325307706_Guest_editorial_Robotics_and_automation_in_agriculture https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/how-automation-transforming-farming-industry/ https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/resources/10-agriculture-automation-companies-shaping-future-farming/