(1)INESC TEC - CRIIS
1. Agricultural and forest needs contextualisation
Agriculture and forests are fundamental to sustain the world population. Both are fundamental to provide us with food, oxygen, wood, and raw materials for clothes or even furniture. Since they generate fundamental inputs to our survival, as a society, we have explored intensively agriculture and forest without considering the limited resources available on earth, and the need for a balance between plants, soil, water, animals, insects (sustainability). This overexploitation of agriculture and forests has given a fundamental contribution to increase our living quality, during the last century. However, it has also contributed to climate change, to the waste and overuse of nutrients, water, farm chemicals products, and soil. From this point of view, and according to a technology outlook, we can rise the next questions:
Question 1: How can robotic and automation technology support the reduction of overdosage of agricultural inputs (nutrients, water and farm chemicals)?
To extract the maximum production/yield from the fields, we have looked, as a society, to agriculture as a factory system, where we tried to simplify the production system, for example using just one crop (and plant variety) to simplify the production systems, and artificially fully organising and eliminating any kind of interference from ecosystems/nature by the means of overuse farm chemicals products. Besides, when we compare innovation on agricultural/forestry practices against industry practices, we notice that agricultural and forestry practices had witnessed less innovations, most of the time adopting the same approaches. These approaches are always trying to simplify the processes and trying to eliminate any unwanted interference from ecosystems/nature, as we work in closed factories where we can control all the processes. Plants originate in nature, with an enormous quantity of interactions with other ecosystems. Hence, another question emerges:
Question 2: How can robotic and automation technology support a better and more positive interaction between the production of the desired plant and remaining ecosystems?
Agriculture and forest, like other sectors, need humans to carry all operations and tasks needed to create the product of interest. Most of these tasks are labour-intensive, time consuming, far way from urban centres, and often performed in specific time windows (e.g., cannot be postponed to the weekends). However, since we increased the quality of life of our society, each person wants better and qualified jobs. Since agriculture and forestry-related tasks aren’t always well remunerated or as appealing as other jobs, these sectors face a significant labour shortage problem, thus leading to another question:
Question 3: How can robotic and automation technology support a better quality of life for farmers?
2. Robotics and Automation as an answer to agricultural and forest needs
To answer the previous questions, we need to explore the Precision Agriculture (PA)(1) concept. PA is the most acceptable approach to reach more efficient agriculture and forestry sectors. In PA, we find the concept of applying “the right product, in the right time, in the right spot and in the right quantity”, which requires the use of Variable Rate Technologies (VRT). VRT considers the use of prescription maps, supplied by Decision Support Systems (DSS), and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to enable the PA concept. With this contextualisation in mind, we can address the main questions presented; regarding the first(How can robotic and automation technology support the reduction of overdosage of agricultural inputs (Nutrients, water and farm chemicals products)?), the overdosage/application of macro-nutrients (such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) ) is a main issue, since NPK is quite problematic in terms of agricultural costs and negative impact on soil and groundwater quality. Here, the use of VRT can play an important role. The use of machinery tractors with VRT is already a reality, mostly in extensive crops, but not yet fully disseminated in small farms and permanent woody crops, due the inexistence of cost-effective technology and adapted machinery/robots to each crop needs/requirements. In the future, robots will play a fundamental role in performing NPK soil and plant monitoring tasks that will feed the DSS with more accurate data, thus enabling highly detailed prescription maps for NPK. In contrast, the overdosage or losses (to air or soil) on the application of farm chemical products is still a reality in agriculture. Robotic and automation technology could address this question. The use of farm chemical products has a well-defined target application time-window; failure to comply with it leads to higher doses and a negative impact. Robots can carry out near optimal treatments and fertilisation, because they can transport advanced sensors and actuators for precision monitoring and treatment/fertilisation process; more importantly, they can operate 24/7, enabling them to reach the optimal time and right moment. Besides, robotics technologies enable faster operation with higher levels of precision and accuracy.
Concerning the second question (How can robotic and automation technology support a better and more positive interaction between the production of the desired plant and remaining ecosystems?), if we ignore concepts like greenhouses (probably the most sustainable approach to produce food, but also the most expensive) fully isolated from the remain ecosystems, we need to keep in mind that agriculture and forestry in open fields should not be perceived as isolated systems; in this sense, the adoption of poli-crops, poli-variety and biological concepts could bring significant positive effects (for food quality, safety, yield ). However, these concepts are hard to accept/consider because they are very labour-intensive - even with most advanced machinery -, unless we can consider the use of robots. As seen before, robots can help to reduce the overdosage of fertilisers and nutrients, relevant to increase agriculture and forestry sustainability, enabling a balance between plants, soil, water, animals, insects. But more importantly, robots can support the application of biodegradable and bio-friendly treatment products in a preventive way, while ensuring the continuous monitoring of diseases to avoid the application of more harmful products. In the same line, robots can be considered for precision pollination (for example, micro drones), vegetation control (mowing robots), seeding and weeding control, fertilisation and spraying, and all operations relevant to increase open field farms sustainability.
How can robotic and automation technology support a better quality of life for farmers? Without automation, agriculture becomes highly labour-intensive and physically demanding. Automation (namely weeding, fertilisation, harvesting) has increased the quality of life of farmers, yield and profits. However, automated solutions are not accessible to all farmers, due their cost and lack of adaptation to the specific needs of each farm and crop. Robots are becoming commercial and accessible, but just like automation, these technologies will not become widely accessible to all farmers (smaller and bigger) and all crops (extensive and woody crops). These robots can help to increase the quality of life of farmers, profits, and yields, while promoting rural development. However, there are several barriers to the adoption of robotic technology, which should be addressed, namely: