Western Growers releases inaugural Global Harvest Automation Report

Burro automated carts lined up alongside a grape orchard in California's central valley. The company has been gaining traction in the ag-tech space.
Burro automated carts lined up alongside a grape orchard in California's central valley. The company has been gaining traction in the ag-tech space.
(Image courtesy of Western Growers Association)

Growers are keen to adopt automation to bridge the growing labor gap and ensure that their crops can be picked in time, according to the Global Harvest Automation Report, or GHAR, in a study commissioned by Western Growers. The report is the first in a new annual series that will track, measure and report on industry progress in harvest automation across the fresh produce industry.

The report is part of WG's Global Harvest Automation Initiative, which aims to accelerate ag automation by 50% in 10 years. 

"One of the main aims of the report was to take a comprehensive look at the entire harvest ecosystem and provide a quantitative look to the Western Growers’ membership at how much harvest innovation is impacting their operations across fresh product produce, where the most progress is occurring and why," Walt Duflock, WG vice president of innovation, said in a news release. "Second, we wanted to provide an in-depth view of the innovators who are doing the heavy lifting by crop type, so growers would know who to contact based on the crops they grow."

Among the findings of the report, which was prepared in collaboration with management consultants at Munich, Germany-based Roland Berger:

  • 65 percent of participating growers have invested in automation over the past three years;
  • The average annual spend on automation was $350,000-$400,000 per grower;
  • Spending occurred in preharvest and harvest assist activities, including weeding, thinning, harvesting platforms and autonomous ground vehicles. It is anticipated that 30%-60% of these activities will be automated by 2025.
  • Harvest automation itself remains limited because of the technical difficulties in replicating the human hand to harvest delicate crops. It is anticipated that 20 percent of harvest activities will be automated by 2025.

Download a complete digital copy of the report here.

Labor is a key component in harvesting fresh produce, and the widening labor gap is putting growers under increasing pressure. Use of harvest automation technologies in the fresh produce industry is among the most promising solutions to accommodate these labor and other ongoing industry challenges. Unfortunately, the market and technology are still in an early development stage, according to the report.

Western Growers wants to bring the agriculture community together to drive collaboration, facilitate access to funding of new technologies and support start-up development in the harvest automation space.

Growing labor shortages are a source of increasing concern for the global agriculture industry.

Farm profitability is under pressure because of increasing operating costs and stagnating market prices. For fresh produce growers, there are four main drivers: rising labor costs, tightening of regulatory controls, pricing pressures from retailers and unforeseen market disruptions such as COVID-19, the report said.

Most growers expect their automation investment to increase by 10% to 50% in the next three to five years, according to the report. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing uncertainty in businesses, automation levels have still increased between 2019 and 2021. This shows a need in the market and a willingness among growers to adopt new technology.

In 2021, more than 80% of growers indicated they deployed some form of automation. Unfortunately, there are currently few options for growers when they are looking to automate their harvest process, resulting in a low adoption rate, according to the report.

In particular, two commodities reported using more harvest automation.

Large apple growers indicated that 20%-50% of their crops were harvested using harvest assist platforms. Blueberries show high-cost savings potential; however, this is accompanied by a significantly higher shrinkage rate compared to hand harvest.

Most market-ready automation startups focus on harvest assist and preharvest. Although, there are a number that are focusing on harvesting, the report said.

The need for harvest automation has been made pretty clear. The report also highlighted several ag-tech companies that are showing potential in the harvest assist arena.

Naio Technologies holds the most market share among preharvest operations. The France-based company serves large vegetable growers and wine grape growers by providing robots for autonomous weeding and farming assist activities. Evaluations have shown Naio’s robots can remove about 90% of weeds, resulting in up to 50% savings.

Burro, in Philadelphia, offers autonomous, collaborative robots for heavy-weight support in grape harvest operations. The robots often carry packed boxes of grapes from the field to a loading area. The company plans to extend its robots beyond grapes. One robot supports six to eight people per day and increases harvest by about 30% more fruit per day, according to the report.

Davis, Calif.-based Advanced Farm Technologies has developed an autonomous strawberry harvester. The company is currently working alongside manual harvest crews in California. One machine can harvest up to 100 pounds per hour, reducing labor by about 30%, the report said.

Tortuga AgTech, Denver, has harvesting robots for indoor tabletop strawberries with integrated artificial intelligence software. The robots enable data-driven forecasting, UV treatment, trimming and other services. The company is picking strawberries at commercial quality and at cost-competitive rates compared to hand harvesting, according to the report. It also plans to launch a table grape harvest robot in 2022.

 

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