Robots start work on the farm

By Euronews

Published on 30/01/2017 - 13:59

Smart connected farms were a hot topic at the ‘International Green Week’ in Berlin.

Experts estimate the global market for such hot connected farms could be worth 70 million euros by 2024.

one example on show was an “Iglo”. It is a self-contained system for calves. It has shelter, but more importantly a feeding machine in which milk powder is mixed with water and offered to the calves.

It means that the milk has always the right temperature, is always fresh, available at anytime rather than being mixed and served in the early mornings.

“The advantage is that as a farmer you don’t need to drag buckets around. You don’t have to clean all the time. You have more flexibility, you are not set on the feeding times constantly.

‘You can just show the calves how it works and then you don’t have to get up at six am or eight am to feed the calves. That means you have much more flexibility,” Birgit Warnet, Head of Marketing, Urban.

Juno is a farm robot with one task – pushing hay to the cows.

Not too complex, but a tiring job that has been carried out by farmers for hundreds of years.

Some at the show didn’t seem that convinced about the working robots but do accept times are changing.

“I have been in agriculture for 45 years. My son is about to take over. And there is a conflict between what I learnt and know as a specialist and what my son learnt at his training. He had a very good training.

‘When we speak about new technology you notice that this is an area of conflict. He is far more relaxed about it and we are much more critical,” remarked Johannes Losing.

Driverless tractors are said to be one of the next big things in the connected, smart farms of the future.

There were around 100,000 such products shown by over 1500 exhibitors at the show.