Are self-driving tractors the key to tackling agriculture’s labour crisis

Published on 01/11/2025 - 8:01 GMT+1

In a section extracurricular Woodland, California, a agleam orangish tractor hums to life. But there’s nary 1 successful nan driver’s seat.

Instead, it chugs its measurement done neat rows of crops, spraying a mist complete nan soil, guided wholly by sensors and software.

This is nan adjacent procreation of tractors - and it was connected afloat show astatine FIRA USA 2025, an cultivation robotics expo showcasing nan latest successful autonomous tractors, drones and AI-powered workplace tools.

"Today we've been demonstrating aggregate Kubota tractors that person Agtonomy exertion integrated by Kubota that tin run afloat autonomously," said Tim Bucher, CEO and co-founder of Agtonomy, a Silicon Valley start-up powering immoderate of these machines.

The technology, developed successful business pinch Japanese shaper Kubota, allows 1 personification to oversee an full fleet of self-driving tractors. "You tin now person 1 personification managing aggregate vehicles, fundamentally cloning themselves, getting activity done successful parallel," Bucher explained

Innovation calved retired of necessity

For galore growers, automation is nary longer a luxury - it’s survival. Rising costs, waste and acquisition tensions and a chronic shortage of labour person near nan cultivation assemblage nether immense pressure.

"The challenges facing growers person ne'er been arsenic large arsenic it is today. And it's astir labour expenses, it's astir different expenses, whether it's nan tariffs aliases waste and acquisition wars and whatnot," said Bucher. "So growers are looking for thing to make their operations much efficient. And nan only measurement retired is to innovate our measurement out".

In Japan, wherever Kubota is headquartered, nan situation is successful a peculiarly captious situation.

"Especially successful Japan, nan mean property of nan farmers now is 69 years old, and it's a very ageing society. And we are besides losing a important magnitude of labourers from our farming operations," said Koji Hasegawa, General Manager of Kubota’s Innovation Center.

The labour dilemma

For Walt Duflock, vice president of invention astatine nan Western Growers Association, nan problem comes down to economics.

"It is nan number 1 problem, particularly harvest growers face, is nan decreasing readiness of home labour and nan expanding costs of home labour and, much importantly, world labour," he said.

"Either we get that costs of labour down by moving nan cultivation cognition to wherever nan labour is cheaper, aliases we automate it pinch robots".

Beyond cost-cutting, Duflock hopes automation could besides make agriculture appealing again to younger generations.

"Like a moth to a occurrence for nan robots, truthful we deliberation nan robots are nan measurement to get kids excited, and we deliberation that tin bring kids backmost to nan workplace that possibly wouldn't person travel backmost to nan farm," he said.

Currently, nan mean property of an EU husbandman is 57 and only 12 per cent are nether nan property of 40, according to nan European Commission.