Farmers using GPS and self-driving tractors as they shift towards precision agriculture

Farmers have been using GPS systems on their tractors for some time. Now they are being used with self-driving tractors and soon with autonomous tractors that drive themselves.

The shift towards precision agriculture is promising a major boon for farmers and their businesses. Now self-driving tractors are adding to this smart farm effort, allowing farmers to find even more efficiency an value for their businesses. According to Market and Markets this shift in agricultural technology is just the beginning: the research firm predicts precision farming could reach almost $8 billion in market value by 2022.

Farming with precision

Precision agriculture involves the use of GPS has been popular for some time now, allowing farmers to better apply fertilizer, seed, herbicide etc. much more efficiently, reducing expenditures while producing a higher yield and creating less stress on the environment.

This method of agriculture typically involves farming management that uses GPS and satnav systems to get up to date information about crops and administer resources accordingly. An example of this would be crop dusting planes equipped with GPS enabling them to apply chemicals only where needed.

Self-Steering Tractors

Gene Hart is a technician at the National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory. He is helping to evaluate the performance of a tractor that gets its steering signals from the $21 billion U.S. Defense Department's GPS system. The researchers hope to boost efficiency of farms and also free farmers from having to drive a tractor all day. The research may lead to other advances in robotic agriculture.

Hart still needs to be in the tractor in case there is an obstacle in the field or something goes amiss. He also has to make U -turns at the end of rows. Although according to Wikipedia : "In early 2008, Deere and Company launched its ITEC Pro guidance product, an automated system based on global positioning technology which automates vehicle functions including end turns." The self-steering tractor can go faster, work in fog or at night when there might be difficulty seeing landmarks to guide operators.

After he makes a turn, Hart watches a line on a computer display to make sure the tractor is back on course. Researchers believe that the self-steering tractor can traverse a field with no more than a three inch variation. Hart said operating the tractor was a lot easier and less tiresome than driving a conventional tractor. The equipment needed to convert a regular tractor to a self-steering one is said to cost about $50,000. Qin Zhang, an agricultural engineer at the University of Illinois, claimed that conventional tractors required operators to spend about 50 percent of their time just steering. The appended video shows the operation of a John Deere self-steering tractor.

Autonomous Tractors

Zhang sees the self-steering tractors as simply a forerunner of robotic agriculture where tractors would be autonomous running without a driver.

The University of Illinois has already developed a tractor that uses GPS, gyroscopes, a camera and a computer to drive itself from the implement shed to the field. It can then plant the field and return to its shed without the intervention of a human operator on board the tractor.

Back in the 1990's John Deere sought only to manufacture tractors that could function effectively. After more than two decades the company decided that more was needed: in order to create a satisfactory self-driving tractor, they had to replicate the farmer.

Dan Leibfried, of John Deere's Intelligent Solutions Group said: “We have to have the ability to sense everything the human would inside of the system related to the quality of the job. Whether it be preparing the soil, planting the seed, protecting the crop, or harvesting it.”

A blend of GPS and other location tracking sensors, plus image sensors and telematics allows advanced John Deere tractors to navigate fields today and self-steer. The latest model, the S700 combine, can automatically adjust its equipment based on the harvest it sees — but it still has a camera so that the farmer can look to see if it is operating correctly.

It may be some time before the farmer will simply be able to sit at his kitchen table and watch on a monitor as his tractor automatically plows, seeds, or swathes and his combine harvests the fields by itself. He will be able to correct any errors remotely.

Large Canadian prairie farm uses 21st century technology

Farms on the Canadian prairies have grown much larger over the years. In 2016, the agriculture census counted 43,457 incorporated family farms, along with 5,135 non-family corporations. New tools are helping farmers grow these developing businesses.

Trevor Scherman is a Saskatchewan farmer who farms 4,400 acres or 1,780 hectares just south of the town of Battleford in west-central Saskatchewan. Scherman's farm is four times as large as Vancouver's Stanley Park.

An edge on the competition

To cover the huge costs of equipment, seed and fuel and still make a profit, Scherman has to make sure that he is operating efficiently. To do this he has the help of a single app created by Farmer's Edge, a company that specializes in providing cutting edge technology to farmers such as Scherman. Scherman has access to a huge range of management and data tools that could not be imagined just a decade ago.

From three weather stations on Scherman's property plus five others on neighbouring farms, Farmer's Edge gathers data and can assess when there is a wind headed his way that might disrupt pesticide spraying. The app contains a gridded map of his farm, using precise info derived from satellite imagery, and also with info from soil samples taken from each square on the grid.

All this information is incorporated into a predictive model based on data from Farmer's Edge client farms across Western Canada. Based on this information Scherman can determine how much seed and fertilizer is needed for each grid on his land. The app can also set schedules for hired hands and keep track of his finances.

Efficiency and peace of mind

Scherman had already been using multiple weather apps and a number of websites, plus spreadsheets downloaded on his computer, but these have been replaced by the Farmer's Edge app. Scherman says in the seven years he worked with the company he has seen his inputs decline while yields have climbed. He claims he is spending about the same amount of money but produces more.

Scherman notes: “I’ve been able to wake up in the morning and, with the weather stations Farmers Edge has installed on my land, I know if I’m going spraying at four in the morning or if I’m going to my son’s ball game that day. Before, you used to wake up and drive all around the country and check rain gauges to see how much rain we got, so you could make your decisions. Well, it was noon before you figured out what you were doing.”

Farmer's Edge was started by two Manitoba agronomists way back in 2005 based in Winnipeg. The venture looked so promising that the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers invested early on, back in 2014. It was later joined by a Japanese commodity trading firm raising $58 million in finances. Later in 2016 they were bought out by the Canadian Investment firm Fairfax Financial. According to a recent article:Two years ago, the company’s app and data-crunching tools were in use on 600,000 acres of farmland. Today, the number is 6 million, with substantial market penetration in western Canada — nearly one-tenth of all land in cultivation on the prairie is now managed by Farmers Edge clients — and new growth in Australia, Brazil and eastern Europe.

Farmer's Edge was awarded the Startup Canada Global Entrepreneurship Award in September of 2017. With the rapid transformation of agriculture and the business of farming, we can expect to see more innovations such as Farmer's Edge in the future.