The U.S. is home to more than two million farms over 900 million acres, and the American agricultural industry is driving world-leading, technologically innovative ways to boost farm productivity.
One recent technological advancement that has proven beneficial for entrepreneurial farmers are tractors that operate without drivers.
Kinze Manufacturing in Iowa is developing variations of driverless tractors, utilizing some of the same self-driving technology used by Google. Only instead of driving on our city streets collecting data, Kinze tractors are driving back and forth across corn, wheat, and soybean fields.
One of Kinze’s earliest models resulted from a partnership with Jaybridge Robotics, which allowed human-driven tractors to offload grain into autonomous carts that followed them across a field.
“This is a giant step from existing technology in that it is truly autonomous and there is no human override in the cab,” says Susanne Kinzenbaw Veatch, Kinze’s vice president and CMO. “The systems allow one farmer to operate multiple systems at the same time, vastly increasing efficiency.”
James Thompson, president of UC Davis’ Postharvest Engineering LLC, notes there has been a rising interest in driverless vehicles in the agricultural space, and driverless tractors are now being used on numerous farms and agricultural businesses.
Driverless tractors use GPS technology which allows them to perfect a route down to the inch, reducing spraying and fertilizing overlap by 90 percent—saving time, resources and money.
Kenny Lund, chairman of the United Fresh Supply Chain Logistics Council, expects autonomous tractors and trucks to be commonplace in the next five years.
“There may be a driver on the truck, but the truck will be driving itself. It’s already happening and we’re only going to see more of it,” he says. “I think people would be shocked at how much technology is in the truck today. There are satellite uplinks, mechanics able to monitor engines in real time, and it’s all really fascinating.”
Thompson warns there are safety issues because of the potential for equipment malfunction—which necessitates someone still being on the tractor—but the benefits far outweigh the negatives. These machines’ ability to self-steer and efficiently follow pre-programmed routes down to the inch boost your fields’ productivity and free up your time to focus on other important farm operations.
technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, small business