A glance into the future: Autonomous Farms

Thrive Agric
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

Daniel Ifeanyi Ojinaka for Thrive Agric

Over the next 3 decades, technological advancement will revolutionize the way we farm and eat all over the world. By the year 2050, the world population is expected to swell to over 10 billion people which means we will need to also increase the amount of food we produce.

Here are some emerging agricultural innovation springing forth to help us achieve that.

We have experienced major developments over the last century. 100 years ago, farming looked like this.

Today, farming looks like this.

In major advanced countries during the 1900s, about 1 million farm workers will produce food to feed only about 10million people but today half of those farm workers will produce food to feed 4 times the same number of people. What do you think will be the ratio with the fast advancement of technology in the years to come.

We can take a futuristic glance at what farming will look like with these emerging technologies.

Autonomous pickers

These pickers are enabled with 3D vision for detection and localization of ripe fruits, Soft touch gripper that doesn’t do more damage to the fruits as a human picker and picks the fruits as a human, without cutting or burning of the stem, but actual picking (without the stem), robotic arm that only picks if this is possible without bruising the fruits. Has a capacity of picking one strawberry every 3 seconds, advanced quality monitoring to sort according to size and quality and picking can be conditional on fruit characteristics, predict harvest and precision farming.

Imagine having a robotic picker that can switch between crops.

Robotic Weed and Pest killers.

These new robots can uproot weeds and spray precise amounts of chemicals for pesticides saving close to 90% of chemicals that would be used with the conventional method. Imagine having to eliminate pest and diseases which according to the UN causes 20% to 40% losses annually from the global crop yield.

Micro Sensors and the Internet of Things

Micro-sensors will monitor crop growth and alert farmers on their smart devices, when they are changes occurring or their attention is needed or even when its time to harvest.

At this point, you would begin to imagine if there will be the need for farm workers in the future.

Complete Autonomous Farm

What if it is possible to achieve a completely autonomous farm from pre-planting activities to harvest? Well, Researchers in the UK are currently experimenting on a complete autonomous farm with zero human activity physically on the farm from planting through to harvest. To better aid, your imagination, think of the game SIMS and how a player has virtual control from the gaming device.

Machine learning has made it possible for companies developing software’s to monitor and analyze drone captured infrared images to spot on healthy vegetation and alert the farmers when a troubled area is spotted. Machine learning is developing these systems to be able to differentiate between varieties of cops and also identify weeds.

A company named Maverick contracts pilots to fly with multispectral cameras on data gathering machine over large farms. A fleet of cube-sat operated by planet labs now takes weekly images of farms from space for wider views to help monitor crops. Some companies are creating analytic software’s to act as farm management systems allowing farmers to manage big data. With many farming networks emerging, these data that are traditionally available to corporate mega-farms becomes easily accessible to give micro level insights to growers of all size.

With machine learning integration, the rise of autonomous machines on farms and the tsunami of agricultural data making it easy for farmers to respond without having to be physically present, you can imagine what the future of farming would look like.

What happens when the access to farm lands becomes difficult or unavailable? Ever heard of vertical farming?

To discover more on the future of farming follow Thrive Agric for more publications like this.

Hectare

Thrive Agric

Written by

We are focused on building the right tools to increase food production amongst small holder farmers.

Hectare

Hectare

One Farmer at a time, we are telling stories of our journey to increasing digital participation in Africa and building an Africa that feeds the world and itself.

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