The UK farming sector is facing numerous challenges, from meeting net zero requirements to supplying food security for the country. However, the aftermath of Brexit has dealt the biggest blow to British farmers, as they now struggle to find seasonal workers for fruit picking in the summer, meaning tonnes of food going to waste. However, there are alternative solutions, as innovations in AgriTech and robotics offer farmers’ a viable alternative to deal with labour shortages. Read on to see how AgriTech can help UK farmers meet demands, their challenges, and the future outlook for incorporating this technology into British farms.
According to a recent government report, Brexit and the pandemic have severely impacted the UK farming sector and food production due to a labour shortage. Until Brexit, the UK relied on seasonal workers coming from the European Union for jobs like fruit picking. First, leaving the European Union made it near impossible for seasonal workers to work in the UK, and the pandemic with its closed borders was just another nail in the coffin. It’s not food production that’s lacking, but no one is there to pick it.
In fact, 5% of grown fruit in the UK rots in the fields each year due to this lack of workers to harvest it, and it’s not only leading to a lack of supply for the general population but it’s also costing the farming industry £36 million a year.
It’s not as simple as recruiting British locals to pick fruit. It’s a job with low pay, is physically demanding, and has long and unsociable hours. Those unemployed and on benefits risk losing their benefits and do not see the benefit of working these kinds of jobs–not to mention most live in cities away from farms–plus, there is a stigma that considers the job as for migrant workers. Although farmers have repeatedly tried to recruit locals, very few turn up to job interviews and many who accept the job stop returning after just a few days of work.
Without migrant workers, the UK needs to come up with new solutions.
AgriTech is an exciting industry right now that tries to find solutions to some of the most pressing problems, such as climate change, food security, and labour shortages. Low-paid workers once worked in factories and were replaced by robots, so what if the same could be said for farming? Let’s look at some of the new innovations in AgriTech that could help farmers meet demands without migrant workers.
It appears that robotics could be the answer, and the Small Robot Company in Salisbury have developed the concept of “per plant farming.” They created three robots–Tom, Dick, and Harry–who serve three different functions. Tom maps each field and collects data on which patches might be affected by weeds or require some care. Dick–a robot that resembles a spider–uses electricity to remove any weeds without using chemicals. And Harry plants the seeds in precisely drilled holes that require no ploughing.
Other ways to meet food demands through AgriTech are vertical farms, which reduce the requirement of how much farmland is needed as the farm can move vertically and could treble production for leafy greens and other vegetables, and make farming 250 times more efficient.
And, of course, some innovations look to tackle the worker situation. One such is Xihelm’s Eagle robot, designed to harvest fruits and vegetables inside greenhouses using AI to identify the ripest fruit. It can also collect data on over 300 other variables inside the greenhouse. Although the robot does not pick faster than a human, it can operate 24/7, only needing to stop for charging and cleaning.
It’s not the only fruit-picking machine in the AgriTech sector, so let’s meet some others.
Fieldwork Robotics, a company from the University of Plymouth, has advanced significantly to develop fruit harvesting robots. Their raspberry-picking robots are already working commercially in two locations in Portugal.
The fruit-picking robots are fitted with four arms and work with sensor technology and grippers, which reduce slippage. The fruit picked by the robot has passed all quality controls, and Fieldwork Robotics is developing their robots to speed up the picking process to provide a yield of 2 kg of fruit in one hour. Another goal is to change materials to reduce production costs by more than 20%. Other than the raspberry picking robot, they also developed a vertical harvester and a horizontal platform that can be deployed through rows of crops to pick produce without supervision.
There is also “Robot Highways”, a project run by the UK’s largest soft fruit co-op, Berry Gardens, awarded £2.5 million to create the world’s first robotic farm. The project will be housed in Clock House Farm, Kent, and will be the biggest demonstration of robotics and autonomous technologies. Saga Robotics, a leader in the soft fruit sector’s robotics, and various universities will participate in the project. If the project is successful, it can help reduce the need for manual labour by 40%, reduce fruit waste by 20%, and fungicide usage by 90%.
When picking soft fruit like raspberries, the main challenge is to release each berry without bruising it. Fieldwork Robotics have found that a combination of 3D cameras, sensors, and machine learning can help the robot identify if the fruit is ripe enough to be picked. It uses the four-picking arms to move towards the fruit, applying pressure to the stem rather than the berry to release the berry. This stops the raspberries from being damaged. The company’s vision is to have each robot be capable of picking more than 25,000 raspberries in one day (as opposed to a human worker who picks 15,000 in an eight-hour shift).
However, while robots show promise and good results, headlines focus on the challenges and teething problems. Some farmers find fruit-picking machines lacking and don’t match human workers’ speed, dexterity, accuracy, and judgement skills. In 2018, strawberry picking machines by CROO were only able to find and pick 50% of the ripe berries compared to 60 to 90% in the case of human workers. But robotics have advanced considerably since, and intelligent machines, like those we’ve seen so far, have overcome many of these challenges by including:
Robots may not be perfect yet, but they are improving and may help the UK with its migrant worker crisis to keep supply chains running. Fortunately, thanks to R&D and investment in AgriTech, fruit-picking robots are becoming commercialised.
Although the technology is still developing, fruit-picking robots are showing much potential to fill in the gaps left behind by migrant workers. The British government is considering investing more in technology and offering grants for farmers to get new machinery. In fact, there are plans to introduce more automation on British farms.
Food security plans in the UK could include more investment in AgriTech to help farmers become less reliant on fertilisers and pesticides and bring down production costs.
Many exciting things are happening in the industry, and players from sectors like AI and software development are stepping in to work with AgriTech innovations. AgriTech companies, in the meanwhile, can also focus on research, finding ways to improve performance and lower costs to make their innovations more viable for the commercial market and for British farmers. It’s exciting to see how AgriTech will change the way farming is done in the UK, and we’re excited to do our part in it.
If you have an AgriTech business and are looking for consultancy advice or help with making R&D claims, get in touch with someone from our team, and we’ll see how we can help you.