14 / 36
14
Aspects of Land
Spring / Summer 2018
AGRITECH
With the need to feed an expanding global population,
a growing emphasis on the environment and rapid
developments in technology, there’s no doubt that farming
in the future will look very different from farming today
g
I
t’s 2050. A farmer sits in a room
with computer screens ablaze
with data. At his fingertips
are controls for drones and
self-driving vehicles. Sensors
tell him if fields need irrigating
or cows need milking. He
hasn’t put on wellies in weeks.
Reality? Or the stuff of far-
fetched science fiction? “Definitely the
future,” says Tom Brunt of Savills Food
and Farming, who also chairs Savills Rural
Innovation Group. “The direction of
travel is very much to agritech and smart
systems, and that will only continue.”
Last year, Harper Adams University
ran a Hands Free Hectare (HFH) project
where it farmed a hectare of land using
only autonomous vehicles and drones to
plant, tend and harvest a spring barley crop.
Throughout the growing season, not a
single person entered the hands-free zone.
“The weather can be an issue for
farming, providing only small windows
for work to be completed. This is part
of the reason why machines have been
getting so much bigger over the years,”
explains Project Researcher Jonathan
Gill, a Savills-supported Nuffield Scholar.
However, he believes this will change in
the future, with farmers managing fleets
of smaller, autonomous vehicles.
“These will be able to work unmanned,
allowing farmers to use their time more
effectively and economically instead of
having to drive up and down the fields.”
Not only will they free up a farmer’s
time, but smaller vehicles are healthier
for the soil and the wider environment
as they cause less compaction, which
leads to less run-off. In a world where
environmental concern takes centre-
stage, agritech has many of the answers.
HFH Agronomist Kieran Walsh says
that there’s a lot of “blue sky thinking”
about how UK farming will look in the
next 30 years, but one thing that’s certain
is that there will be massive steps in
robotics and sensor use.
“We attached a standard HD camera
under a drone and flew it a foot above the
crop. It was possible to slow that footage
down and watch it in my office – the view
was as good as physically walking the crop.
“There’s the potential to combine this
with real-time data from in-field sensors
and weather stations. We’re also seeing
the development of robotic variable
rate sprayers that will use sensors to
identify and spot spray weeds, and the
idea of ‘e-noses’ attached to your wellies
for ‘sniffing’ diseases has also been
suggested,” says Walsh, adding that tech
capability currently runs ahead of existing
mechanical delivery systems.
It’s clear politicians in England, Wales
and Scotland see agritech as fundamental
to delivering their visions for farming and
the environment, as laid out in the 25-year
Plan and the Scottish Government’s five
key action areas in relation to climate
change mitigation. Defra Secretary of
State Michael Gove, speaking at the NFU
Conference in February, said: “Whether
it’s automation and machine learning,
data science or gene-editing, improved
tracking and traceability of livestock or
new plant bio-security measures, there
are specific innovations that will increase
productivity across farming, bring food
Farms in
the future
MACROVECTOR / iSTOCK