Last week the first autonomous farm in the USA was unveiled – Iron Ox, located in San Carlos, 20 miles outside of San Francisco. An unusual type of startup for the Silicon Valley, Iron Ox focuses on the automation of the production of leafy greens (romaine, butterhead, kale and various herbs) through the use of robotics and AI.
Iron Ox is quite a nontraditional farm. Its indoor measures are only 8000 square feet and its main farmer is Angus – a giant, 1,000 pound robot. However, the company’s goal is to grow roughly 26,000 heads of crops each year by adapting a completely different farming process.
Iron Ox uses the hydroponics method of growing plants, which does not require soil, but instead uses mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent. This allows the innovative farm to grow 30 times more produce per acre than a regular farm by arranging crops in vertical and horizontal stacks. The advantages of the hydroponics method are significant: reduced use of water, sterility and space efficiency. This method, however, requires more manual labor in moving the plants. Here is where Angus’s role comes in – completing the heavy lifting, farming and sensing tasks, while humans are responsible for the more essential roles in the process – planting each seedling and packaging the finished product.
Apart from robot automation, a cloud-based, A.I., called “The Brain” has been put into place to monitor important metrics, such as nitrogen levels, temperature, and the location of robots. In time, the company plans to increase its functions by incorporating more data and analytics of food-based trends in order to make exact decisions about what crops should be grown and in what quantities.
What is your opinion of this innovative approach to farming?
How do you think the agriculture industry will develop in the future and be affected by technological innovations?
Sources:
The Guardian, 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/08/robot-farm-iron-ox-california
The Verge, 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17950502/robot-farm-future-iron-ox-agriculture-automation
