Farming robots: The future of agriculture?

DW (English)

To offset widespread labor shortages in the agricultural sector, robots are stepping in. Some are trained for planting and harvesting; others take on more delicate work, like picking strawberries and pollinating flowers.

Transcript

00:00Farming is a grueling business.

00:03The work is physically demanding, monotonous,

00:06and often done in extreme weather conditions.

00:09As fewer people are willing to take on these jobs,

00:12farmers are turning to farming robots,

00:15like this one by US startup Tortuga.

00:18It can pick around 800 strawberries per hour.

00:22While this is slightly below the average of human harvesters,

00:26the machines can work day and night

00:28and pick with almost human-like precision.

00:32Vision software detects the color of the fruit.

00:35Sensors assess their texture.

00:38A snipper grabber then cuts the berry stem

00:41and places it in a basket.

00:43We have 17 different machine learning models.

00:47We look for the ripeness level by color,

00:50which is how most humans check for ripeness.

00:53Sometimes weird conditions happen where they ripen from the top down.

00:56Sometimes the colors are very splotchy.

00:58It's a very complex set of different decisions and observations

01:02that combine to form this AI that is specific to harvesting fruit.

01:08The berries are grown in specially designed containers

01:12that are more accessible for the robots.

01:16Farmers like to use robots to perform repetitive and strenuous tasks,

01:22such as planting,

01:25fertilizing,

01:27and watering.

01:29There are even pollination robots that mimic bees.

01:34The robot moves autonomously inside the row.

01:38And as soon as a flower is recognized,

01:42the robot sends a calibrated air pulse on the flower.

01:46The flower shakes,

01:48and then the pollen falls down in the stigma.

01:51And that's how you have a fruit setting.

01:55The pollination robot is used in areas

01:57where natural pollination is no longer guaranteed

02:00due to changing climate patterns

02:02or a decline in the insect population.

02:05As more crops move into the sheltered environment of greenhouses,

02:09the number of tasks which can be assigned to robots

02:12will likely increase.

02:14Many experts in the agricultural sector are convinced

02:17that the farming of the future will be dominated by machines.

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