Robots and artificial intelligence will take over works on Australia’s first fully automated farm built at a cost of $20 million.
Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga will create the “hands-free farm” on a 1,900-hectare property to demonstrate what robots and artificial intelligence could do without workers in the paddock.
Food Agility chief executive Richard Norton said the reality of “hands-free” farming’ was closer than many people imagined.
“Full automation is not a distant concept. We already have mines in the Pilbara operated entirely through automation”, he said.
The farm will use robotic tractors, harvesters, survey equipment and drones, artificial intelligence that will control the operations of sowing, dressing and harvesting, new sensors to measure plants, soils and animals and carbon management tools to minimise the carbon footprint.
The farm is already operated commercially and grows a range of broadacre crops, including wheat, canola, and barley, as well as a vineyard, cattle and sheep.
Mr Norton said they would focus initially on autonomous vehicles that could harvest a crop while the farmer slept.
“We might also see mechanical autonomous harvesting in horticultural crops and in grape-growing areas,” Mr Norton said.
Precision farming
AI has already used in Agriculture. For instance, AI systems that have been deployed to improve harvest quality and accuracy is a management style, popularly, known as precision agriculture.
PA uses AI technology to assist in detecting diseases in plants, pests and poor plant nutrition on farms. AI sensors could detect and target weeds while deciding which herbicides to apply within the right buffer — preventing overapplication of herbicides and herbicide resistance.
PA is used to improve agricultural accuracy by creating probabilistic models for seasonal forecasting. These models could look months ahead and use data collected to provide farmers with base predictions for the most suitable crop varieties for the season, ideal planting times and locations. Agricultural AI technologies could, then, optimise farm management by basing decisions on predicted weather patterns during the coming season
Time is ripe for farmers in the Commonwealth Nations to use AI to maximise their harvest and soon, they will be able to enhance the productivity by fully-automating their farms. This would allow farmers to add value to their labour and increase the efficiency of operations that would, ultimately, increase not only the yield, but also enhance the much-desired quality of food, minimising the waste and loss of yield, particularly, in the process of harvesting due to inefficient methods.
