How Farms Are Using Autonomous Vehicle Technology And What India Can Learn From It

Farming, soon, may not remain the labour intensive practice that it has been since time immemorial. The credit for this can be given to advancements in technology, more specifically, to automation. In the southern coast of England, this automation has recently taken the shape of a small robot. A robot named ¡®Tom¡¯, which inspects the winter wheat crops for weeds and pests without ever getting tired.

The use of the four-wheeled robot comes as an attempt to increase farming efficiency amid rising economy strain and in an environmentally friendly manner. To solve the mentioned purposes, the robot under test digitally maps the field through artificial intelligence, GPS and smartphone technology.

The bot has been brought into existence by a company dedicated to solve farming-related issues. The Britain based agri-tech startup plans to test two other robots next, interestingly named ¡®Dick¡¯ and ¡®Harry¡¯. They will work next to Tom for physical weeding, precision micro-spray, drilling and planting. There is a brain behind all the three robots, an AI software named ¡®Wilma¡¯ that gathers all the intel back at the site through the robots and accordingly alternates operations.

AP

How do they help?

To think of it, it is practically impossible for humans to do what the robots are capable of. Individual attention to each plant is something only a non-tiring and dedicated worker can do and as such, the AI powered automated robots fit the description perfectly.

That being said, the bigger purpose is not to reduce the human labour per se. The robots are meant to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilisers. The ever-increasing use of these is harming the agricultural production in the long run and in ways unparalleled. Not to forget, the dropping quality and natural essence of food resulting from these.

Reuters

How is India doing in these regards?

Back home, such practices are being considered but are far from widespread adoption. There are incidents when farmers turn to technology for various aspects of farming. Around the same time last year, for instance, agri-tech startup Avanija came up with an app integrated automated system for irrigation, allowing farmers to monitor and control the irrigation only through the app.

Another farmer in Bengaluru, named Manohar Sambandam, came up with Green Robot Machinery and subsequently, the company¡¯s first product that is able to detect and pluck cotton balls individually.

Green Robot Machinery

Those are, however, one-off instances of automation helping improve the efficiency of farming in the country. A major reason for this is the labour intensive nature of agriculture in country. Labour is cheap, and combine that with the incentivised pesticides and fertilisers, and there is no reason to do away with any element of the trio.

Robots, on the other hand, will be costly. ¡®Will be¡¯ because not many are working on them currently anyway. And once they do hit the markets, the initial investment will be too much for many farmers to opt for them, considering the already prevalent economic issues related with the trade.

A Possible Solution

The Small Robot Company also takes the economic factor into consideration. Hence, to ease things on that part, it has come up with subscription plans for the farmers to use the robots, instead of full-fledged one-time investment.

A similar model might work for things here in India, provided initiatives are taken towards this direction. And as the dependency of the majority of population of the country is on homegrown yield, these initiatives will have to be collaborative efforts of the government bodies as well as the agri-tech players.

Reuters

Robots like Tom, Dick and Harry might be an overshot to start things with but several solutions like automatic watering and irrigation systems, aerial mapping through drones and such easy to employ automation can work wonders for the Indian agricultural scenario if used wisely.