A new startup spun out of the University of Sydney is looking to capitalise on a growing workforce shortage in agriculture, worldwide.
Put “aging agricultural workforce” into a Google search and you will come up with no end of ominous headlines, such as this one: “Farming on the verge of a workforce crisis”, from Deloitte Australia.
The problem is far from being unique to Australia, as similar headlines such as U.S. Hired Farm Workforce Is Aging, on the US Department of Agriculture’s website, testify.
I was prompted to research the topic after listening to a conversation at Amazon Web Services’ Innovation Day with Salah Sukkarieh, professor of robotics and intelligent systems in the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney.
Sukkarieh and his team have developed two prototype robots — Swagbot and Digital Farmhand — for use of farms and the University in April spun out a new company, Agerris, to commercialise the technology with Sukkarieh as its CEO.
Sydney Uni spins out farm robot builder
Agerris has been launched with $6.5m in funding from the University’s commercialisation vehicle, Uniseed and venture capital firms Carthona Capital and BridgeLane Group.
Digital Farmhand is billed as durable, low-cost autonomous robotics platform that automates on-farm tasks. It has been designed to assist smallholder row and tree crop farmers to better manage yields and crop health, including farmers in developing nations.
Swagbot is able to identify and manage weed levels, monitor pasture quality and herd livestock. Agerris says it will soon be able to monitor the welfare of grazing animals, and can be purpose-fit to deal with large scale row and tree cropping applications.
Automated assistance has potential in any industry but agriculture could be particularly receptive.
Farming facing tough workforce challenges
In his talk Sukkarieh mentioned that the Australian agricultural workforce is aging and, for many farmers, there is no clear succession because the younger generation prefer a life in the city to one in the bush.
“This is the only industry I have worked in where labour availability is so low,” he said, “Farmers want people to come to work on the farm, but nobody wants to work on farms …And if they can find labour the costs are very high. Consumers want the price of products to be as low as possible. So, we’re really squeezing the farmers.”
Exacerbating the problem is the project growth in population. Sukkarieh says that, by 2050, experts have estimated that global food demand will increase between 59 percent and 98 percent.
In a subsequent conversation I suggested to Sukkarieh that, if the situation is as he portrays it, a vital industry is heading for a crisis, one that merits government action as a matter of national priority.
He replied that many countries, especially developing countries take this view. “Food security is a national priority and they also look at automation.”
However, in Australia: “We are probably not too concerned, because 70 percent of our products go offshore. So, we have more than enough to feed the nation. The mindset is not there yet, but in many other countries it definitely is an aspect of national priority.”
So, farm automation is clearly needed to ameliorate the impact of an aging agricultural workforce and help meet growing demand.
Sukkarieh says one of the first priorities for Agerris is to get a robust platform that will operate 24 x 7 on a farm. “Then you can start to look at devices that will reduce their labour costs: weeding and eventually harvesting, especially of speciality crops. All the things that have high labour costs.”
But he says. the mindset on farms has to change first.
Government recognition of farm workforce issues
At least the problem is now gaining recognition at government level in Australia. The Australian Industry and Skills Committee hasa page providing high-level information and data on the Agricultural industry.
It identifies the skills most in demand in agriculture — many of them digital, and says:
It cites a report Future job openings for new entrants by industry and occupation from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, saying: “There will be approximately 10,500 job openings per year for farmers and farm managers over the forecast period 2017–24. Replacement demand (ie job openings due to people leaving the occupation) is expected to account for about 63 percent of the job openings.”
“A digital skills and capability gap across the agriculture value chain was identified in the report Accelerating precision agriculture to decision agriculture: Enabling digital agriculture in Australia[from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation]. Skill gaps were specifically identified in the areas of on-farm telecommunications, and data science and data culture.
