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Robots are coming to American farms. Here's why.

Smriti Daniel
/
SciDev.net

Agriculture is still in the early days of applying robotics to farming. But analysts are confident that in coming years, robots will revolutionize agriculture.

In a recent essay, Forbes gave two reasons for why they’re confident robotics will change life on American farms. Firstly, “when the money stops the thinking starts.” Some commodity markets have seen historically low prices in recent years. For example, many family-owned dairies in the U.S., which comprise 97% of the US market, haven’t made a profit in the last two years. Human labor costs money, and as profits shrink, ag operations will have to get creative.

The second reason for the advance of robotics in American agriculture is simple: Technology is pervading every sector of human existence, and agriculture is no exception. Technology is making products more cheaply, more quickly, and with fewer human errors than traditional methods.