To offset widespread labor shortages in the agricultural sector, robots are stepping in. Some are trained for planting and harvesting; others take on more delicate work, like picking strawberries and pollinating flowers.
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00:00Farming is a grueling business.
00:03The work is physically demanding, monotonous,
00:06and often done in extreme weather conditions.
00:09As fewer people are willing to take on these jobs,
00:12farmers are turning to farming robots,
00:15like this one by US startup Tortuga.
00:18It can pick around 800 strawberries per hour.
00:22While this is slightly below the average of human harvesters,
00:26the machines can work day and night
00:28and pick with almost human-like precision.
00:32Vision software detects the color of the fruit.
00:35Sensors assess their texture.
00:38A snipper grabber then cuts the berry stem
00:41and places it in a basket.
00:43We have 17 different machine learning models.
00:47We look for the ripeness level by color,
00:50which is how most humans check for ripeness.
00:53Sometimes weird conditions happen where they ripen from the top down.
00:56Sometimes the colors are very splotchy.
00:58It's a very complex set of different decisions and observations
01:02that combine to form this AI that is specific to harvesting fruit.
01:08The berries are grown in specially designed containers
01:12that are more accessible for the robots.
01:16Farmers like to use robots to perform repetitive and strenuous tasks,
01:22such as planting,
01:25fertilizing,
01:27and watering.
01:29There are even pollination robots that mimic bees.
01:34The robot moves autonomously inside the row.
01:38And as soon as a flower is recognized,
01:42the robot sends a calibrated air pulse on the flower.
01:46The flower shakes,
01:48and then the pollen falls down in the stigma.
01:51And that's how you have a fruit setting.
01:55The pollination robot is used in areas
01:57where natural pollination is no longer guaranteed
02:00due to changing climate patterns
02:02or a decline in the insect population.
02:05As more crops move into the sheltered environment of greenhouses,
02:09the number of tasks which can be assigned to robots
02:12will likely increase.
02:14Many experts in the agricultural sector are convinced
02:17that the farming of the future will be dominated by machines.