Realities of Farm Robots

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

There’s little doubt that the future of agriculture will involve a lot more robots and probably a lot fewer humans. But, that doesn’t mean they are an end-all-be-all solution for some of ag’s most complicated issues. Mark DeSantis says farmers must understand the realities and costs when it comes to robots in agriculture.

DeSantis… “I think the challenge with robots is people have tried to build a general-purpose robot. So, I can build a robot that can pick grapes, pick apples, pick corn, you know, all this stuff. And you can't. The plant structure, scale of the farm, the manipulation, all those things are unique. So, something you can pick tomatoes in a greenhouse probably wouldn't work in an apple orchard. And as a consequence, you also have the issue of yes, indeed, it saves on labor, but this thing is a big expense and the fragility of the equipment, all those things are not yet there. But I'm going to make a prediction that in specialty crops within 10 years, more than half of specialty crops harvesting will be done by robots. I can say anybody who's skeptical, I want to assure you this is different. It's coming and it's coming strong. I can see that from our relationships with our customers, from our experience with our partners, it's coming.”

DeSantis believes robots will also be an increased trend among industrial growers as well.