Let's try to look into the future, on the basis of already available technologies and just emerging start-ups, to forecast the nearest prospects of agriculture.
The topic is also relevant because the growth of automation carries certain threats to well-established schemes of large and small-scale agriculture. What to expect for small farms and what should the giants of the market focus on, given the increasingly active use of robots in agriculture?
Agriculture differs from industry at least in that it deals with the processing of large (and very large) areas of land. When industry concentrate all production capacities in one place.
Before starting work, you need to study the state of the earth. Ideally - not just visually, but also make agrochemical analysis of the quality of the soil on each field. At what distance take these samples - it is decided individually for each field. If earlier it was required to drive through each field on a high-traffic car, today ATVs or even quadrocopters are used for this. Using robots allows you to speed up the execution of such operations and reduce costs.
As a result:
That is, automation in this area reduces the costs of the enterprise to survey its arable land and accelerates all processes. And requires the emergence of new personnel - operators of such equipment.
The use of UAVs to control the processing of land can save a lot of money by reducing the cost of monitoring the work performed. If you order processing of 200 hectares of land, 200 hectares will be processed on paper, and in reality - 50 hectares - how to find it? Only personally to inspect the entire territory. Or simply "believe" that the fuel is written off for processing 200 hectares of land.
To prevent abuses in this case, one UAV will suffice, which will record the state of the earth on the video before land processing. After the work is done, it will fly again and record another video. Just the fact of having such a check will force any contractor to take their duties more carefully.
Another direction of UAV using is the assessment of the state of the green mass of plants and the introduction of plant protection products, for more details, read here. The low weight, high maneuverability and high speed make the UAV very convenient not only for monitoring, but also for applicating of the PPP. Unlike the aircraft, UAV allows you to process the entire territory of the field without passes, like an airplane do.
There is a difference in approaches for large and small farms. The bigger ones "take" the market due to the possibility of issuing a low price and a consistently predictable sales volume. Although weather anomalies can damage the plans of any farmer.
Owners of small farms should take into account their strengths - the ability to respond quickly to changes in market demand. Of course, the technologies of exact farming will equally help any manufacturer, making his products cheaper. But small farms will quickly deliver to the market berries or spices which became popular. The topic of berries should be interesting, also because the EU market in general today has no restrictions on import of berries.
Already today, in a number of farms, robotic harvesting machines greatly accelerate the harvesting process.
Today unmanned tractors are sold. Operating without interruptions to "lunch and smoke", they show greater productivity than manned units. Although it is obvious that the lack of drivers (and the need to pay them a salary) does not eliminate the need of repairing and management of these tractors. You just need specialists of a different profile - besides technicians, you need programmers, network maintenance specialists and others.
In the United States, a layer of "suitcase-farmers" has already appeared. They live in the city most of the time, coming to their farm "with a suitcase" only at a time when their robotic farm needs certain type of work.
So far, the cost of such machines and farms is great. Their acquisition is not always available to an ordinary farmer, but it should be recognized that the process of robotization (not even automation) of agriculture is irreversible. And all participants of this business should take this into consideration so that their products can compete in the market not only for price, but also for quality.
Most of the technologies that should create robotic agriculture today still exists in the form of prototypes. Their development and testing continues, gradually prototypes will enter the market already in the form of commercial offers. Then the agrarians will need to make a decision - to bet on cheap (and low-skilled) labor or invest in robots.
Immediately there will be another problem - a highly specialized robot for assembling strawberries deprives space for maneuver when choosing crops. That is, the purchase of such equipment will "tie" its owner to certain plant varieties. But in the same time it improve the speed and quality of work. Perhaps, even there will be a service rental of robots for agriculture.
