Robots are the anwer to lowering food costs

It’s the year 2020, the Earth’s population has reached 10 billion, and food is becoming more scarce and more expensive. How do we meet the need?

This is a question agriculturalists, politicians, and those in food production have asked for decades. Food waste reduction through legal means and adjusted consumer habits is a high priority across the globe but the worry remains.

We need larger fields, higher yields, more efficient transportation, bigger tractors.

Or do we?

Plant Smarter, Harvest More

SwarmFarm, an Australian company partnering with Bosch and ADAMA, believes the solution lies outside of conventional agriculture. Rather than a bigger tractor in a larger field, SwarmFarm’s approach is a smarter tractor able to maximize the current fields, crops, and infrastructure already available.

A literal swarm of automated machines will prepare soil, plant, care for, and harvest crops for food and textiles. 2018 will see the first large-scale use of the swarms in Australia, two years ahead of the 10 billion human population benchmark. SwarmFarm and over 150 similar companies may be our planet’s best hope to feed the world.

Global hunger aside, what does automation in agriculture mean for farmers, food companies, and consumers?

Lower Cost of Food

Over time, with less need for workers and higher crop yields, robotic agriculture will lower the expense of food. However, the implementation of robotic agriculture will be expensive–despite these implementation costs, by 2024, the agricultural robot market will reach $74.1 billion in annual revenue.

Less Human Error

Regardless of preparation and expertise, human error will always exist, and error in agricultural decisions can lead to famine. No matter their experience, a farmer is not able to monitor soil conditions in all areas of a field, at all hours of the day, and make perfectly timed corrections to moisture and pH balance all while protecting local rivers and ecosystems from contamination.

A fully automated farm system with robots monitoring soil, plant, weather, and even drones with multi-spectral data from overhead will increase yields by removing the human guesswork.

Improved Hygienic Conditions

“Employees Must Wash Hands” is an everyday sight, so why are Hepatitis A and other foodborne illnesses also everyday occurrences?

It isn’t always the restaurant, the packager, or the consumer, it is often workers in the field. In 2015, four recalls for Creative Gourmet frozen berries due to Hepatitis A outbreaks from berries grown in China devastated the Australian packaging company. Their facility was clean, the berries were not.

Robotic agriculture will reduce human exposure to food, decreasing contamination. This reduces risk for consumers and the expense of a damaging recall for producers.

Full Automation is the Future

Companies already use smart and AI-driven software like ZipBooks to automate their businesses — and the day will come when food companies will (near) fully automate their production. Food producers will reasonably place orders directly to systems overseeing crops across the globe. Producers will monitor, harvest, and transport their crop, and seeing it safely packaged and shipped to consumers–all with the click of a mouse.