The year is 2022, the world’s population has surpassed 10 billion people, and food is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. What are our options for meeting the demand?
Agriculturalists, legislators, and individuals involved in food production have been asking about this topic for decades. Food waste reduction by legal measures and altered consumer habits is a top goal around the world, yet there is still cause for concern.
Larger fields, higher yields, more efficient transportation, and larger tractors are all required.
Do we have a choice?
Table of Contents
Planting Wisely, Harvesting More
The solution, according to SwarmFarm, an Australian startup collaborating with Bosch and ADAMA, lies outside of conventional agriculture. SwarmFarm’s idea is a smarter tractor that can utilize the current fields, crops, and infrastructure available, rather than a bigger tractor in a greater field.
A swarm of robotic devices will prepare the soil, plant, care for, and harvest food and textile crops. The first large-scale use of swarms will occur in Australia in 2018, two years ahead of the 10 billion human population milestone. SwarmFarm and over 150 other startups like it could be our planet’s best hope for feeding the world’s population.
Aside from global hunger, what does agriculture automation mean for farmers, food firms, and consumers?
Food Costs Are Lower
Robotic agriculture will reduce the cost of food in the long run by reducing the demand for workers and increasing crop yields. However, robotic agriculture will be costly to implement; despite these expenditures, the agricultural robot sector will generate $74.1 billion in yearly revenue by 2024.
Human Error is Reduced
Human error will always present, regardless of preparedness or expertise, and errors in agricultural decisions can lead to famine. A farmer, no matter how experienced, will never be able to monitor soil conditions in all regions of a field at all hours of the day and make perfectly timed moisture and pH balance corrections while also safeguarding surrounding rivers and ecosystems from contamination.
By eliminating human guesswork, a completely automated farm system with robots monitoring soil, plant, and weather, as well as drones carrying multispectral data from above, will enhance yields.
Improvements in sanitary conditions
Why are Hepatitis A and other foodborne illnesses also common occurrences? “Employees Must Wash Hands” is a common sight, but why are Hepatitis A and other foodborne illnesses also common occurrences?
It isn’t always the restaurant, the packager, or the customer who is to blame; it is frequently field workers. Four Creative Gourmet frozen berry recalls were issued in 2015 due to Hepatitis A. The Australian packaging firm was destroyed by epidemics caused by berries cultivated in China. The fruit was not clean, but their facility was.
Human exposure to a food will be reduced as a result of robotic agriculture, reducing contamination. This decreases customer danger and the cost of a costly recall for manufacturers.
The Future is Fully Automated
Companies are already automating their businesses with smart and AI-driven software like ZipBooks, and the day will come when food companies will (almost) entirely automate their production. Food producers will be able to put orders directly to systems that monitor crops all across the world. With the click of a mouse, producers will be able to monitor, harvest, and transport their product, as well as watch it safely packaged and transported to customers.
