Autonomous Agriculture - friend or foe?
We’ve come a long way since windmills revolutionised watering livestock, although the challenges in implementing automated technology remain fairly similar. Will it work? Can we trust it? Will the long term effects be positive or negative?
The advances in technology are developing at an ever-increasing rate. We have automated drones, navigation systems, data analysis, robots – the list is growing daily.
It doesn’t seem long ago that agricultural knowledge was passed from father to son (I’m not intending to be gender typecast, that’s just how it was for the majority). The son managed the farm in a similar manner, added his experiences and the updated knowledge was then handed down to the next generation.
Over the last couple of decades education became important, with many of the younger generation gaining tertiary qualifications in agriculture and spending a few years on other farms to broaden their horizons before returning to the family enterprise.
Enter the agronomists, veterinarians, livestock officers etc providing specialist advice and enabling the modern farmer to enhance productivity and sustainability.
Autonomous agriculture is the next step and is already being embraced. But will it be a backward step?
Dr Kate Devitt, a Research Associate at the Queensland University of Technology, has written a paper (1) examining thought processes involved in adopting technology in agriculture.
“The more autonomous a system is, the less a human needs to know to operate it” she writes, “but it also means that farmers have less situational awareness about on-farm activities that in turn may affect strategic decision making about their enterprise”.
To me this lies at the crux of the matter. Farmers will need to find the ‘sweet spot’ where autonomy enhances their ability to run their enterprise, but is not blindly followed.
Success will be achieved where technology, experience and specialised knowledge are combined to make an informed decision.
1. Cognitive Factors that Affect the Adoption of Autonomous Agriculture. Dr S Kate Devitt. Farm Policy Journal, Vol. 15 No. 2, Winter Quarter 2018. Australian Farm Institute.
by Michael Guest in Latest News
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