With all of the newest concepts at the forefront of the agriculture industry, it is hard to pick out the ones that are actually being implemented. We hear a lot of stories and see dozens of news articles published on the “potential”, “future impact” that has the “possibility” of changing agriculture or how a concept will “disrupt” farming…in the future. That’s the catch. There are a lot of speculations that can be arbitrarily created using “the future” as the foundational concept all of the ideas are based on. This breaks all boundaries as the potential regarding what can happen in the future is too vague to make accurate predictions or stipulations as far as the reality it goes. Despite the ever-growing influx of information of what might get accomplished or done, we wanted to clear out some of the vagueness by talking about how the latest technologies (namely IoT) are being implemented into AgTech right now, at the current moment.

Automated Fruit Packing Robots

It’s common knowledge in the technology space, that New Zealand is the home of the most innovative underground technology startups. One of those startups is called RoboticsPlus that has just secured over 10 million dollars in funding to improve one of their latest technologies – a robot that packs apples. The main use of this technology farmers can benefit from is to simply save time, money and effort that would otherwise be required for manual labor. It roughly takes 3-4 workers to handle and pack 120 apples in a few minutes – the robot can handle packing, grabbing and securing the same volume of fruit in under 1 minute – that’s the power of AgTech. Although the technology was considered to be an expensive initial investment, some commercial farms have already adopted this technology because they know that the ROI will be made back fairly quickly as fewer workers will be needed to get the task done.

Hands-Free Fruit Picking Machinery

Speaking of apples, RoboticsPlus is not the only startup that wants to revolutionize the lives of farmers in terms of fruit harvesting. A company named AbundantRobotics have secured over $12 million in financing to work on their apple harvesting robot that travels around apple farms, collects fruit and securely delivers them to a set destination. The main benefit of this technology is that unlike most previous fruit harvesting robots that carry the risk of smashing apples into pieces during picking, the robot uses a vacuum-like technology that detaches the fruit from the branches in a smooth and safe manner. Its algorithm also functions perfectly during night time.

Phytech – Monitoring Your Plants and Crops Without Headaches

Phytech is an innovative startup that has secured 14 million dollars in funding up to date. By getting a new start in 2011, the company has been working hard to develop a plant monitoring system that alerts farmers about the most optimal times to water crops, informs them about plant health, inspects the average moisture levels in the soil and determines its temperature. This means that farmers can accurately measure how well their crops are doing, estimate the amount of produce that will be harvested and keep on top of their business by helping their crops grow at peak optimal health.