The technological revolution is taking place in all areas of our life, so it is not surprising that it even affected agriculture. Robotics, artificial intelligence, drones – all these things we very need in agriculture.
Agribusinesses face many challenges: how to contain costs while still producing enough food at competitive prices to feed the world? How to ensure sufficient harvesting labor in the face of a pandemic restricting the movement of workers? And how do you meet the sustainability standards that food retailers, consumers, and governments adhere to while still making a profit? Innovative technology and task automation can help overcome some of these challenges, as this rundown of recent trends in robotics demonstrates.
Forbes writes that despite the economic downturn in 2020 due to Covid, agricultural technology is increasing. According to data from Crunchbase, 2020 is set to top $ 4 billion in venture funding in 2019 for agro-tech startups around the world.
Drones / UAVs
The global agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle market has been growing steadily for several years now. According to Statista, the agricultural drone market in Latin America will reach approximately $ 600 million by 2023, up from roughly $ 170 million in 2018.
Among other things, agricultural enterprises use drones to collect data on soil, plant, spray crops, monitor crops, and more.
Harvesting & picking robots
Some crops require a lot of attention and effort at harvest time. For example, wine grapes are traditionally complex and time-consuming to harvest. Innovations such as nanotechnology, materials science, and mechatronics allow picking robots to detect fruits, analyze their ripeness, and capture and separate them without damage.
Weeding robots
You can just as quickly transfer some valuable crops in agribusiness to the care of robots: a weeding robot is even better able than a human to cope with work in places where the terrain is steep or conditions are dangerous for humans. In addition, when working with chemicals, they do not risk anything, unlike people. Today, many agribusinesses are hiring a dedicated development team to create software for these robots for their needs.
Milking robots
Traditional methods of milking goats and cows are no longer working. Here robots should come to the rescue. On the other hand, farmers are shifting from conventional milking methods to automated ones to meet the exponential growth in global milk demand and labor shortages. Market share is expected to change from stand-alone units to multi-stall units and then to advanced rotary units in the coming years.
Robot As a Service
Is a robot capable of becoming a profitable product for agribusiness owners in the future? The answer to this question depends mainly on whether farmers and manufacturers choose to view the robot as a product (RaaP) or as a service (RaaS). In other words, whether they consider the investment as capital or operating costs. The RaaS model can become more attractive to farmers due to its lower operating costs. The same goes for the Drone as a Service model – it is more economical for small farms and in line with the current trend towards asset sharing in agriculture.
How to make a technical revolution in agribusiness
With modern technology, the transition to a more technological approach to running agribusiness is not so difficult. At the same time, there is one critical condition – the entire industry must switch to a new development path. Businesses cannot make this transition alone.
Some farmers order business analysis and strategy development services, for example, at https://mlsdev.com/services/business-analysis to determine the best strategies for developing technical innovations on their farms.
In the future, advanced farmers will require vast capabilities in various fields, from knowledge of farming operations to advanced data analysis and the ability to provide solutions that seamlessly and seamlessly integrate with other platforms and related industries.
Author’s bio: Anastasiia Lastovetska is a technology writer at MLSDev, a software development company that builds web & mobile app solutions from scratch. She researches the area of technology to create great content about app development, UX/UI design, tech & business consulting.
