PHOTO: VIRGINIA TECH
PHOTO: XAG / BAYER PHOTO: EARTHSENSE
EDITOR’S PICKS ▶▶▶
Demand for agricultural robots expected to increase sharply
T
WORLD BY HUGO CLAVER
he demand for agricultural robots will increase by 24.1% until 2024, accord- ing to a study by Transparency Market Research. While the population
worldwide is ever growing, the availability of arable land is limited, and a number of emerg- ing economies are focused on urbanisation, states the ‘Agriculture Robots Market’ report. “These factors have raised a case for extracting maximum yield out of available agricultural landscape and have given birth to the market for agriculture robots, used for weed con- trolling, cloud seeding, planting seeds, soil analysis, and environmental monitoring.” The researchers say that as the awareness re- garding the benefits offered by agriculture ro- bots spreads, and the technology becomes more affordable for cost-effective parts of the world, the demand will multiply at an
Virginia Tech to build farm of the future
NORTH AMERICA
Virginia Tech is creating the SmartFarm Innova- tion Network, in order to build the farm of the future. On that farm drones will fly over forests and crops to communicate with robots em- bedded in harvesting equipment on the ground. Sensors on livestock and in field crops and forest lands will be linked to the cloud, where big data is transformed into practical in- formation regarding precision feeding, protec- tion, and management decisions. Plants will be biodesigned to require less water and fertil- iser, and be tolerant to drought, pests, and floods. Farmers will operate their businesses with iPads as much as tractors. The SmartFarm Innovation Network is made up of about 120 interconnected locations across the Common- wealth – the Blacksburg campus, 11 agricultur- al research and extension centres, and 108 Vir- ginia Cooperative Extension local unit offices
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impressive 24.1% from 2016 to 2024. The op- portunities worldwide translated into a reve- nue of US$ 1.01 bn in 2016, and swell to an estimated US$ 5.7 bn by the end of 2024.
Key factors Apart from increasing strain on the global food supply as a result of increasing population, other key factors augmenting the demand in the global agriculture robots market are pros- pects of substantial cost savings by the food producers in a long term, and government support to adopt modern agriculture tech- niques. In addition to that, recent new advents such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones that are specifically designed for agri- cultural farms, and welcoming nature of food producers in developed countries regarding new technologies, are also expected to reflect positively on the global agriculture robots market in the near future. On the other hand: it takes substantial capital
investment before production stage is achieved, there is a strong lack of awareness in several emerging economies, and the absence of stand- ardised safety regulations do obstruct the mar- ket from attaining its true potential. The com- mercialisation of agricultural robots is a time- consuming process. The players operating in this market will have to overcome this to gain maxi- mum profits.
New players Owing to the sheer profitability of this market and a radical growth rate, a number of new play- ers are expected to eat into the shares of the dominant players. For the key players to main- tain their stronghold, the analysts of the TMR re- port have suggested development of cutting- edge technologies to meet diverse requirements. In 2015, North America accounted for the maxi- mum demand, although vastly populated Asia Pacific is expected to turn into a highly lucrative region towards the end of the forecast period.
– where technologies are being developed, tested, and implemented. This network of cen- tres will work with the industry to commercial- ise technologies that address challenges in en- vironment, policy, workforce development, and more.
Bayer and XAG to invest in crop spraying drones
ASIA
XAG and Bayer CropScience in Japan will to- gether explore advanced chemical application via fully autonomous drones. Chinese
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 27 August 2019
company XAG develops cutting-edge patented technologies including drones, precision spraying, remote sensing, agriculture AI and Internet of Things (IoT). Japan is facing an age- ing population and a severe shortage of la- bour, attributed to the falling birth rate and young people’s increasing reluctance to work in agriculture. To save the sector and achieve food self-sufficiency, Japan started to embrace drone technology, and gradually relax its regu- lations toward agriculture UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). In 2018, XAG signed an exclu- sive agreement with Bayer CropScience K.K. to jointly promote the local application of
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