“The global agricultural robotics market is currently worth between $15 billion and $18 billion, with annual growth ranging from 14% to 20%, depending on the source. Even the most conservative estimate points to remarkable expansion, unmatched by any other segment of the agricultural machinery industry.”
These opening remarks by Alessio Bolognesi, an engineer in FederUnacoma’s Technical Department, introduced the conference entitled “Vegetable production: is it time for robots? Putting automation to the test in fields and greenhouses”, organised by Edagricole/Tecniche Nuove at EIMA International.
Bolognesi highlighted the potential of robotics in vegetable production, a sector facing labour shortages and well suited to the use of autonomous machinery. “In Italy, the uptake of robotics in vegetable production is being held back by a lack of training, limited awareness of the potential benefits and high initial machinery costs,” Bolognesi added. “Innovation comes at a cost, including for manufacturers, and wider adoption requires a targeted, sustained incentive programme.”
Nevertheless, autonomous machines are already well established in several applications. Davide Facchinetti, lecturer at the University of Milan, and Marco Sozzi of the University of Padua outlined the solutions reaching the market. These include equipment for sowing and transplanting, weed detection and targeted weed control, crop monitoring and input application, and harvesting.
The range is extensive: from Naïo Technologies’ Oz for sowing vegetable crops, with a working width of up to one metre and a stated operating autonomy of eight hours, to Octiva’s Xenion, Lumion and Renion for automated treatments in tomato, cucumber and strawberry production. Other examples include the FarmDroid FD20 for georeferenced sowing and inter-row and intra-row weeding, and Carbon Robotics’ laser technology for precision weed control.
Harvesting solutions include Sylektis’ AsperCut, capable of automatically harvesting nine white asparagus spears or 20 green asparagus spears per minute, and Four Growers’ GR-100 and GR-200 for robotic tomato and cucumber harvesting.
All these machines are already available. Initial costs run into tens of thousands of euros, but they have the potential to substantially reshape advanced vegetable production.
As Bolognesi, Facchinetti and Sozzi unanimously stressed, however, a fundamental challenge remains: the lack of clear, specific legislation that provides certainty for operators and defines the responsibilities of the parties involved in the unfortunate event of an accident.
