Everyone is talking about driverless cars and lorries, but did you know that we are also developing farm vehicles that can carry out activities on their own? Guided by satellites and
, and relying on inputs from sensors, farm machines can
cultivate soil, plant seeds, monitor and spray crops, and harvest produce when it is ripe.
As an engineer, I am extremely proud of these technological advancements - they make farming easier and more precise, they give the farmer more free time, and they reduce the overall cost of farming. What's not to love!
But what about the potential downsides of using autonomous vehicles?
Buying this equipment can be very expensive, meaning that a lot of farmers cannot afford it. Is it fair that only wealthy farmers can afford the technology when poor farmers around the world, who might benefit the most, cannot?
And what about putting people out of work? These machines will be doing the jobs that people used to do. What will happen to them?
It's also important to look at the environmental impact of using autonomous vehicles. They might improve the way that we manage soil, for example, but if we don't use renewable sources of energy to power these vehicles, they will produce more emissions that will contribute to climate change.
Wow, it's not an easy choice, is it? There are lots of different angles to consider.
It seems clear that autonomous vehicles could be very beneficial to the agriculture industry. However, without doing more research on the subject, there's no way to know for certain whether the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages.
