Farm Labor and Robotics

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Finding ag labor continues to be a pressing issue heavy on the minds of growers across the country. Kyle Cobb successfully sold his first robotics company in the solar energy industry, and then set his sights on automated harvest in agriculture with a new company: advanced.farm.

Cobb.. “I think it's very clear if you ask anyone in farming, you know, the biggest challenges that they face are labor, labor, and labor. I would say our first goal is actually to help growers solve this labor gap at a cost-competitive rate. So, at least until we’re at scale, we likely won’t see a significant reduction in cost for growers but I think for them, its really important to stabilize their cost structure as wages double you know, every decade and again, provide a steady supply of harvesting that can work alongside their human crews. I do think that over time as we transition to robotic harvesting first, where you just start to design the ranches around using robotic harvest with human harvest alongside it, rather than humans with robotics alongside them, I think we will see opportunities to save 25-50% of costs over time.”

Cobb says their robotic harvester is a long-term investment that will result numerous benefits when used at a commercial scale.