On February 2016, Japan based company says that it wants to make the world’s first completely autonomous farm in the span of couple of years. The company hasn’t provided much detailed about its plans but the technology is seemingly is in place to make its ambitions into reality by 2017.
According to the management of the Spread Company, robots will take care of almost every aspects of the farm’s operations. Starting from watering seeds to harvesting the crops. To begin with that crop will be lettuce – the area in which the company has an extensive experience. According to the company, once the farm is fully operational it is projected to produce more than 30,000 lettuce every day. Humans will be still required for one major task which is to plants the seeds.
The ground of the farm will covered the area of 4,400 square meters, with lettuce will be growing on shelves stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The company also hopes that that the robot will cut down on personal costs as well as usage of energy. According to Spread, lettuce produced by its new project will be pesticide free and will contain more beta carotene when compared to lettuce produced and grown in farms.
However, to run a farm entirely by robots is completely mundane, dangerous and still some way off. The industry has involved new technologies that can replace the role of human. According to the Spread CEO, depending only on the conventional agricultural ways would be difficult to meet the increasing demand of growing population. The company mission is to create innovations that can meet the changing times on the agriculture technology and skills and is hoping to set the trend for similar projects in the coming years.
Analyst View:
One of the major advantage of robots running farms instead of humans is that, there will be no requirement to facilitate so much elbow room. Which in turn will provide more space to lettuce. Moreover, unlike humans, robots will be able to work around the clock and will not even ask for monetary rewards. However, to run a farm entirely upon robots is a very risky task and still some way off. This step of the company can prove to join the skills and technology inherited from the previous era and take on to next step that will connect us to the next generations.
