A weeding robot works on the field in a farm in eastern France. (Photo : Getty Images)
The use of self-driving tractors and agricultural robots will revolutionize farming in the next decade, according to an article published by technologynewschina.com.
Farmers will soon adopt autonomous technologies as the need to manage farm costs and increase harvest become urgent amid a decline in sales of farm machinery and weak prices for major crops such as corn and soybeans, the report said.
"They (farmers) are a pretty cautious bunch, which is understandable," according to Kraig Schulz, co-founder and CEO of Autonomous Tractor Corp., a Minnesota-based company developing AutoDrive technology, which turns existing tractors into semi-autonomous machines.
According to experts, higher-value crops which include tree nuts, vineyards and fresh produce will benefit from the first wave of autonomous agriculture technologies. They added that self-propelled autonomous implements, such as sprayers in row crops, orchards and vineyards or other robotic equipment to do other tasks on the farm, will replace big tractors.
Goldman Sachs predicted that the agricultural suppliers will have a $240-billion market opportunity for farm technologies, with a $45 billion market on small driverless tractors alone. The firm said the investment could reach tens of billions on advanced tech for major farm uses that include planting, irrigation, precision fertilizer, and spraying.
The report said that the shift to autonomous tech will be further driven by the rising cost of farm labor and the falling costs of self-driving technology.
In California, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Monday, Sept. 19, a historic bill that gives state farm workers overtime pay.
"This is going to have a serious effect on farming out in California," Schulz said. He said that the rise in farm labor costs could be an opportunity for autonomous and even semi-autonomous equipment to replace human labor in farming.
"Rising labor costs would certainly be a positive for adoption of automated processes," said Jerry Revich, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Development in the self-driving technology for cars such as sensor capabilities using multi-camera system, radar and lidar technology, can help speed up and reduce the cost of developing automated farm equipment.
"Some of the new sensors that help you autonomously park your car, parallel park, backup sensors, cameras and things like that - all that stuff - the cost has come way down on it and it's allowed us to leverage it more in our machines," Matt Rushing, a vice president in charge of precision agriculture and advanced technology for AGCO, said.
Revich said that driverless cars cost about $2,700 per vehicle, but for autonomous driving equipment for farms would be more complex but "not disproportionately higher."
"We're watching the sensor and technology prices really move down," said Rob Zemenchik, global product marketing manager for Case IH's precision farming unit, Advanced Farming Systems.
At the Farm Progress Show in Iowa last month, CNH Industrial, a European company known for its Case IH tractor brand, unveiled an autonomous concept tractor that could work around the clock unmanned and uses GPS and sensor technology.
