These are the droids the agriculture sector’s looking for.
The University of Guelph is studying the use of robots to perform day-to-day tasks on farms, compared to traditional farming methods.
The robots – called Farm Droid and Orio – are working alongside tractors in fields in the Bradford area, and are being used on crops such as onions, beets, carrots and more.
The three-year project began in 2023, and is being funded by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance.
“On-farm labour is becoming more expensive and harder to get,” said U of G professor Mary-Ruth McDonald, who is leading the three-year project. “Robots can fit nicely into farm operations to replace or improve some of the labour requirements.”
She said another issue vegetable farmers are dealing with is herbicide-resistant weeds, adding robots cultivating a field to get rid of weeds is becoming “a last resort or only option” for some crops.
“Having an autonomous robot that can do that for you to free up time of a tractor driver to do other things could be very beneficial for vegetable production as well,” McDonald said.
According to a report from the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council, it is believed a third of the workforce in the agriculture sector will go into retirement by 2030.
It added 100,000 jobs will need to be filled, and automation can help address difficulties in finding temporary workers and the cost of labour.
Human workers will not be replaced, she insists, and the robots are meant to just take the stress off existing workers and allow for humans to perform other tasks.
McDonald said a farmer estimated the Farm Droid can do the job of three or four people pulling weeds in the field, but there still needs to be someone monitoring.
“That means the weed control can be even better, so one person has more time to get rid of the weeds the droid might miss, or perhaps a farmer can operate some more acres because they have more efficient weed control,” she said.
“Pulling weeds by hand is not the most fun job on the farm, so if a robot can do that and free up the labour to do other things, including monitoring robots, that’s really a win-win situation for everyone.”
The Farm Droid is a 24-hour solar-powered seeder and weeder that can be monitored at a distance through an app. It has already seen growth, going from 250 metres of seeding per hour to 550.
Orio is an autonomous carrier of tools. It runs on electricity, and produces less greenhouse gasses than a tractor.
Each robot, designed by FarmDroid and Naio Technologies, cost between $130,000 to $200,000.
Being solar and electric powered respectively, the robots naturally come as an environmentally-friendly solution. But McDonald added it does come with challenges, such as cloudy days blocking the sun, as well as the need to charge Orio
Cost effectiveness is also part of the scope of the project. Although McDonald doesn’t have the hard numbers at the moment, the equipment being used now is more expensive.
“Talking to some growers, they were throwing out ballpark numbers, one of their tractors cost $500,000, the sprayer cost $300,000,” she said.
“When you’re looking at the cost of a robot that might be $150,000 to $300,000, they’re lower priced.”
But she added the cost comparison is going to change, depending on individual farms.
The project is analyzing the cost comparison, keeping track on how long each one can do the tasks, down time and collecting the data to provide it to farmers so they can make a decision on what route they could go.
McDonald added it is also too early to tell the life expectancy of the two robots, citing they haven’t been around operating enough.
The project has about a year left, and she anticipates like any good research, the team will come out of it with more questions than answers and more work to be done.
