How Do Smallholder Farmers Afford Ag Robotics?

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

Robotics technology is improving and adoption is picking up. But there is still the barrier of the price tag of this equipment. How are small or medium sized farmers supposed to afford new technology that can be well into the six figures in cost. In some parts of the world, like India, service providers end up being the early adopters of this equipment says NIQO Robotics’ founder Jaisimha Rao.

Rao… “In India, obviously we're working with farmers that have very, very small acreage, and in general, farmers rent their equipment. So the business model that we have used in India is what we call a VLE led model. So the VLE stands for a village-level entrepreneur. So this is someone who generally has about a thousand, 2000 acres of influence around that region. He's providing different services like seeds, tractor as a service, crop chemical protection. And he's an entrepreneur. He's providing different services to the region. So this VLE leases the unit from us, pays a yearly fee, and then he in turn charges per acre to growers, to farmers there. So, I think that's predominantly if the equipment gets relatively expensive, like this kind of equipment. That's the model that has worked really well for us and allows you to scale in terms of acres quite quickly.”

NIQO has worked with over 2,000 farmers, treating over 100,000 acres.