The Farmers Mart Feb-Mar 2018 - Issue 55 | Page 63

TECHNOLOGY 63
• FEB/MAR 2018
impact on soil compaction,
root health, soil erosion, and
soil health (organic matter and
worm populations).” Sam Watson
Jones, co-founder Small Robot
Company and fourth generation
farmer.
Machinery has in recent years
gotten larger, but with new tech-
nological advances in robotics
and advanced AI (Artificial Intel-
ligence) future machinery will
be much smaller and driverless.
Robotic machines use 95% less
energy, 90% less fertiliser and
pesticides which means they’re
more efficient to run.
One of the major issues
currently is soil compaction, as
machinery has gotten larger soil
compaction has become more
of an issue. Using robots to carry
out the role currently done by
large machines such as tractors
would reduce soil impaction.
This would improve soil health,
root growth and provide greater
germination across a field whilst
using less seeds. Also, it would
allow the field edges to perform
better, currently the headlands
produce poorly due to tractors
and other machinery constantly
turning around compacting the
soil in those areas.
“It is also kinder to the soil,
kinder to the environment, pro-
tects biodiversity, and enables
permaculture at scale. It has the
potential to reduce chemical
usage in arable farming by as
much as 95% and reduce cultiva-
tion energy and associated CO2
emissions by 90%.
“Our robots will seed and care
for each individual plant in your
crop. They will only feed and
spray the plants that need it,
giving them the perfect levels of
nutrients and support, with no
waste. It’s the best of all worlds.
An increased yield, as well as
minimal chemical usage.
“Robots are smaller, lighter and
more precise than the current
farming systems using tractors.
Using small robots instead of trac-
tors will deliver greater yield from
less inputs. Robots can also work
in smaller and more unusual-
ly-shaped fields, making the most
of headlands.” Sam Watson Jones,
co-founder Small Robot Company
and fourth generation farmer.
Lightweight robots would also
be able to continue working in
wet conditions something current
large driver operated machines
can’t do as well. Smaller, lighter
and more agile machines could
negate the need to plough a field,
as they’d be able to just push the
seed into the ground, and tilling
could become a thing of the
past in many areas, this would
mean carbon emissions could be
greatly reduced as a result. They
would also have the ability to
spray individual areas of a field or
individual plant, rather than the
whole field reducing the amount
of chemicals used on the land,
which would in turn reduce costs
for the farmer.
Recently one of the issues
facing farmers is labour shortage,
finding people willing to do man-
ual farm work out in the fields is
becoming a growing issue. One
way to solve this problem could
be the use of automation, though
this would also have a detrimen-
tal effect in areas where labour
isn’t a shortage and could lead
to job losses.