Page 36 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

In September 2018, Deere and Company acquired Blue River Technology, a firm that has
designed and integrated computer vision and machine learning technology that will one day
enable growers to reduce herbicide use by spraying weeds directly, not entire fields. Then in
December 2018, Deere announced the launch of the Startup Collaborator project to work with
start-up firms that want to work with Deere to test innovative technologies in real-world
environments.

David Slaughter, UC Davis Cargill also announced a strategic
investment last year in Cainthus, a machine
vision company based in Dublin, Ireland.
The company’s breakthrough predictive
imaging is used to identify individual dairy
cows based on facial recognition and hide
patterns. The system can track and analyze
food and water intake and detect heat and
behavior patterns, which can drive on-farm
decisions that affect overall health,
reproduction management, and milk
production.

Nate Dorsey, an agronomist for RDO Equipment Co, in Yuma, Arizona, who consults with
growers on adoption of precision agriculture, says that getting laborers to work in the field is
difficult.

“Fewer people are available,” he says. “And it is really hard work; people are unwilling to do it.”

Within the last year, Dorsey has seen a spike in interest in automation technologies, particularly
in California and Arizona, where there is heavy reliance on field labor. “With corn and soybeans,

there is not as much labor requirement, whereas in the Southwest, lettuce, peppers, strawberries
are very labor intensive—a lot of what’s done is done by hand, thinning plants, transplanting
plants, harvesting,” he adds.

For the past six years, Vision Robotics has been selling a lettuce thinner robot that uses vision
and spraying technologies. Pulled by a planter, the robot counts lettuce plants, then sprays a
killing dose of fertilizer or other product on unneeded plants.

One of the firm’s founders, Tony Kosalam, estimates that about half of the nation’s big lettuce
farms, mostly in California and Arizona, use some type of mechanized lettuce thinner, while
some of the other farms are experimenting with mechanized tape planting technology to ensure
the crop is not overplanted.

“The reason people are adopting the technology is they can’t find the labor,” Koselka said. "A
typical lettuce thinner can replace a hand crew of 20-30 people and costs $100,000 to $300,000-
plus.” In this case, automation reduces the need for labor to two people, one walking behind the
robot, and one operating the robot. If the technology is used efficiently, Koselka says “it can pay
for itself in a matter of months. If the lettuce farms were to use thinners 24-7 efficiently, the
world would need 40 to 50 of them.” Taking inefficiencies into account, he estimates the global
market would require a couple hundred thinners.

34 www.Agri-Pulse.com