Will the Ag Machinery of the Future be Smaller?

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

For decades farm machinery has done nothing but get larger and larger. In the age of digital agriculture, the case could be made that farm equipment can do more with less, especially with autonomy. Take Burro for example, CEO Charlie Andersen says the small, almost cart-like robots are designed to work alongside people to do a variety of tasks.

Andersen… “ So these are five horsepower, up to around 20 horsepower autonomous vehicles. They go up to about five and a half to seven miles an hour at top speed. They can tow, haul things, mow, spray and patrol all autonomously. When they mow, spray or patrol, they can do it with a docking station. So you have a docking station. They go out and do a task, then come back and they can run repetitively, more or less like a boomerang or a yo-yo with infinite power.”

Andersen said Burros are designed to be affordable and accessible to get as many out on the farm as quickly as possible.

Andersen… “ I think there are two approaches to autonomy. One I call the perfectionist approach. And that's when you like build a perfect thing in a lab and you have a prototype and you do a lot of testing and simulation that you get out there. We're not that. We're the pragmatist approach. We're the ‘get something working, get people using it now’, you know, get a thing into the while that's very data acquisitive. Send a lot of stuff back. And the more you have, the more capable they are. The more people want them, the more you have in that, in that virtuous loop.”

Every day between 200-600 Burros turn on and operate, which helps the company collect data and continuously make the technology better.