THE SECRET TO ROBOTIC FARMING? THINK SMALL

When GPS first reached the public consciousness, one of the most obvious applications every futurist excitedly predicted was automated farming.

This would take the form of the planting, weeding and harvesting of crops by roboticised versions of farming equipment. We were shown 3D renders of giant headers without windscreens, crawling back and forth across a vast field under the light of the moon. No sleep for the cybernetic, after all.

But it turns out automating a $500,000 tractor might not be the most effective way to deploy today’s sensors and positioning technology.

Which is perhaps why it took an actual farmer to come up with a system that makes economic, not just technological, sense.

SwarmFarm Robotics was founded in 2011 by grain and cattle farmer Andrew Bate. The story goes he was sitting out on his tractor, trundling back and forth across a field, and wondering exactly why he was there. After all, the only thing a human does on a modern piece of farming equipment is push a few buttons and then make sure it doesn’t drive into a ditch. He, like so many others, thought there had to be a better way.

But unlike so many others, he didn’t just bolt a GPS unit and some steering servos onto his giant tractor. Instead, he considered what robotic technology was available on the market and how it could be applied to farming.

The result is an agricultural robot that’s about the size of a hatchback with long legs. This platform can navigate around a field and communicate with the farmer and other robots. Tools bolt onto this basic frame - right now the robot can navigate a field in a team, and drive around for 36 hours with millimetre accuracy. Eventually it will be able to prepare the field, plant seeds, apply fertiliser, kill weeds and bugs and even harvest.

As of mid-2016, SwarmFarm is completing its development phase and is seeking expressions of commercial interest.

According to SwarmFarm chairman (and former Queensland Premier) Campbell Newman, the company is ready to take orders.

“Our current business model is that this technology is still under development,” he says. “So you need the lab coats around to make sure it runs properly.” In other words, the first farmers to use the robots will be buying more of a service than a product - they’ll be beta testers. But Newman believes the advantages are compelling.

“Once upon a time commodity prices were much higher, so it was feasible to farm a small plot using traditional methods,” he says. “Today, you need a huge farm of a certain size, certain soil type, so costs will be very low compared to production.

“A hundred years ago, all these small properties in south-east Queensland farmed wheat. Today they’re hobby farms and horse studs. This technology could open up all that land again.”

Usually when the conversation is about automation and robotics, the fear is the “little people” will get squeezed out. But SwarmFarm actually offers the opposite. It makes it possible for families to stay on small farms and makes them profitable again.

“Selling a crop like wheat is very demanding,” says Newman. “You need to have the highest possible amount of protein to get a good price, you’re paid on the level of impurities in the grain. Today, a farmer has to decide when to cut an entire field based on his knowledge and intuition.

“But within a decade we could have drones flying over the field, creating a yield map which tells the farmer what part of the paddock is ready to harvest. Then the robot goes out and takes out just the wheat that is ready.” So rather than have that millennia-old tradition of “harvest day”, a SwarmFarm future will see robots selectively snipping parts of the field over, say, a week or so.

Really what companies like SwarmFarm and new drones-as-a-service provider Measure Australia (watch this space for more on them) are giving farmers is data. And data means certainty. So much of farming, even today, is metaphorically chewing your knuckles and wondering if the decision you’re about to make is the right one. Harvest now or wait another day? Spend big on a pesticide spray or hope last year’s rainfall means hardly any bugs will hatch this time?

With small-footprint farming robots and drones, combined with “bigger” data about weather, farmers will be able to make those decisions with greater confidence. That means more money for their survival and, ironicallyin-a-good-way, cheaper food for us.

Of course, as an ex-politician, Newman makes sure to round out our chat with a few other pro-robot points - and to highlight how development of SwarmFarm is providing jobs in sectors perhaps not traditionally associated with agriculture.

“With this technology, I see a tidal wave of generational change coming to hit us,” he says. “We need to be leading the way. This isn’t just about farmers, it’s about giving young people the opportunity to be involved in this innovation and have jobs in it, rather than just be subject to what’s happening overseas.”

The past of small-scale farming was a poor farmer on a tractor in the dust. The future is a rich farmer sitting on his veranda with a laptop, while tireless robots work the fields.

**********

WHY A SMALLER ROBOT MAKES SENSE

Giant robot headers look cool, but they’re not always the best solution, especially for smaller farms. Here are some of the advantages of scaling down to a medium-sized robot.

1. A smaller robot can farm smaller parcels of land, including awkwardly-shaped plots that today are just hobby farms, horse studs or a limited number of other alternatives. Robots could make it possible for vast areas of land to be unlocked and made much more profitable.

2. Allows for much greater flexibility in the types of land farmed, in terms of soils, water and more. Because the robot can be adapted to any plot, farms no longer have to satisfy the “economics equation” that favours huge farms of only a few types today.

3. Reduces reliance on “blanket spraying” of pesticides and herbicides. The robots can target and remove individual weeds. That means less chemical spraying which not only saves the environment, it saves the farmer money too.

4. Better employment of capital, because a single robot will be a farming “Swiss Army knife” able to do multiple tasks throughout the season, from preparing to planting to weeding to sowing and more. That’s very different to that to today’s expensive specialised machinery, some of which spends all but a few days a year sitting in a shed depreciating.

5. Scalability makes smaller farms viable. A farm might only need 3-4 robots to be productive, but if the farmer buys more land they can just add another couple of robots.

6. The robots can be upgraded as new sensor or tool packages are developed. Amazing new technology hits the market? Don’t sell that $500,000 obsolete tractor, just bolt a module onto an existing robot.

7. Environmental benefits from robots are considerable, from reduced emissions from the smaller diesel motors (though Popular Science forsees a future where these systems are totally electric), to less soil compaction because the robot is so much lighter than a big burly tractor.

By Anthony Fordham in "Australian Popular Science", Australia, issue 90, May 2016, excerpts pp.36-37. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.