The impact of automation has already been felt in many sectors, but now it’s poised to shake up one of the oldest economic activities in the world – the agricultural sector.

At present, robots are almost unheard of in farming due to the high costs of the technology, but rapid advances will cause prices to fall to a point where agricultural automation is economically feasible in many areas, according to a new study by Lux Research Inc. The research firm, which specializes in emerging technologies, said robotic solutions could be used to boost the efficiency of numerous agricultural tasks, including harvesting crops, strawberry picking, pruning grapevines, cultivating lettuce and moving potted plants around.

For now, cost remains the biggest barrier to adoption, said Sara Olson, an analyst with Lux Research. However, those costs are coming down, and combined with the increasing costs of labor in many areas, the benefits of robots – which include greater accuracy and more precision – will soon make it a worthwhile investment, the analyst said.

Robots are already employed in some agricultural sectors. For example, automated driving systems for tractors are already making inroads on large corn plantations in the U.S., with penetration reaching ten percent.

“The gap between labor cost and Autosteer- or Edrive-assisted labor in U.S. corn farming is relatively small and will become negligible by 2020,” Lux Research noted in its report.

Robots are also being put to work on strawberry farms in Japan, where human labor is relatively scarce and where the cost is roughly the same when those machines are shared by multiple farms.

Additionally, Lux Research pointed to the use of robots by European lettuce farmers. It notes that the cost of automated lettuce weeding is already competitive with that of human labor, and says it should become more cost-effective by around 2028.

It’s likely that robots will be seen performing many other agricultural tasks in the next decade or so, Olson said in an interview. She explained that robots will soon become a viable option for farmers in virtually any task that requires extreme precision, is physically demanding, or in situations where human laborers could be exposed to hazardous chemicals.

“Strawberry harvesting is a backbreaking task that requires the picker to bend over and seek out ripe berries essentially at ground level,” Olson said. “A picking robot can do the task instead. Meanwhile, lettuce weeding is typically done by having workers walk through transplanted fields with herbicide sprayer backpacks to eliminate weeds, however the lettuce thinning robot we analyzed in the report removes that herbicide exposure.”

The biggest revenue generator in the global market for agricultural robots will most likely be driverless tractors, Lux Research said. It forecasts that automated tractor systems will generate $30.7 billion of the robotic agricultural sector’s total $73.9 billion revenues by 2024. Drones, which will be used by farmers to survey agricultural land, monitor animal hers and crops, and for tasks like spraying chemicals, are expected to clock up the most unit shipments.

“Farmers should be excited, because agricultural robots present them with an alternative to human labor for some tasks,” Olson explained. “Many regions have labor shortages for some of the most simple, grueling agricultural tasks. Robotic platforms offer the chance for growers to have ample labor for those tasks, while human workers can turn their attention to tasks for which robotic solutions would simply be too expensive.”

Image credit: .icjaker via flickr.com