Drones, AI and Robot Pickers: Meet the Fully Autonomous Farm

jelizondo writes:

The Wall Street Journal published a look at new automation for farms, as reported by Mint

In the verdant hills of Washington state's Palouse region, Andrew Nelson's tractor hums through the wheat fields on his 7,500-acre farm. Inside the cab, he's not gripping the steering wheel-he's on a Zoom call or checking messages.

A software engineer and fifth-generation farmer, Nelson, 41, is at the vanguard of a transformation that is changing the way we grow and harvest our food. The tractor isn't only driving itself; its array of sensors, cameras, and analytic software is also constantly deciding where and when to spray fertilizer or whack weeds.

Many modern farms already use GPS-guided tractors and digital technology such as farm-management software systems. Now, advances in artificial intelligence mean that the next step-the autonomous farm, with only minimal human tending-is finally coming into focus.

Imagine a farm where fleets of autonomous tractors, drones and harvesters are guided by AI that tweaks operations minute by minute based on soil and weather data. Sensors would track plant health across thousands of acres, triggering precise sprays or irrigation exactly where needed. Farmers could swap long hours in the cab for monitoring dashboards and making high-level decisions. Every seed, drop of water and ounce of fertilizer would be optimized to boost yields and protect the land-driven by a connected system that gets smarter with each season.

[...] "We're just getting to a turning point in the commercial viability of a lot of these technologies," says David Fiocco, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. who leads research on agricultural innovation.

[...] Automation, now most often used on large farms with wheat or corn laid out in neat rows, is a bigger challenge for crops like fruits and berries, which ripen at different times and grow on trees or bushes. Maintaining and harvesting these so-called specialty crops is labor-intensive. "In specialty crops, the small army of weeders and pickers could soon be replaced by just one or two people overseeing the technology. That may be a decade out, but that's where we're going," says Fiocco of McKinsey.

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