Future of farming: How smaller, autonomous machinery is slashing farmers’ operational costs and emissions

The future of farming is smaller, not bigger, if you ask Tammin farmer Brad Jones. The forward-thinking farmer is one of four in WA’s $11 billion agriculture industry to put long-awaited autonomous machinery to work across his grain farm east of Perth. While autonomous machinery has been used for various tasks in the mining sector since 2018 — including self-driving trucks and trains — it is is the first time it has been used commercially on WA farms. In recent weeks, Mr Jones has been learning about life with his new diesel-powered SwarmFarm Robotics machine, using it to kill green weeds in brown paddocks before starts planting this year’s crop this month. The Queensland-created, 75-horsepower robots are generally leased to farmers and other businesses for a cost of $86,000 a year for three years, which includes in-field service. It’s a business model SwarmFarm Robotics owners Andrew and Jocie Bate believe will serve them well as they continue to turbocharge operations in their 11th year of business. They build the robots in their on-farm workshop in Emerald, central Queensland, and have been busy scaling up manufacturing while other companies struggled with importing goods. Mr Jones said it was incredibly exciting to finally see “cutting-edge” autonomous machinery in use on WA farms after years of discussion about the technology’s benefits. Precision application of crop protection products — as opposed to blanket spraying entire paddocks — and the small size of the machine has saved him money in chemicals and fuel. SwarmFarm is also putting the final touches on auto-dock and refill technology, which will enable the robots to fill up with chemicals, fertiliser or seed without human assistance. Mr Jones is currently using it for green on brown spraying — green weeds in brown paddocks — but this year plans to use it for green on green, allowing him to spray weeds in crops. “The biggest advantage for us has been the reduction in chemical and fuel use . . . the technology has been accurate,” Mr Jones said. “We will be able to diversify this technology in ways we don’t even know yet.” Widely regarded as one of WA’s most tech-savvy farmers — a title Mr Jones is reluctant to take on — the sprayers are a range of pieces of the technology puzzle he is deploying on farm under the adage “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. While the SwamFarm Robotics autonomous sprayers aren’t as big or visually imposing as the newest John Deere or CASE IH tractor or airseeder, they are just as impressive. As one of the world’s first farm robots, they can work nonstop and unsupervised, identifying and spraying tiny weeds in crops, mowing turf and even mechanically harvesting fruit. The clincher for Mr Jones came a few weeks ago, when he and his wife Kate spent a week in Tamworth and programmed the SwarmFarm robot to spray weeds for four days. They were comforted by the fact it would report any issues to Mr Jones’ mobile phone. “It didn’t complain it had worked all weekend, it didn’t mind we were away . . . and I was able to watch the machine on the phone,” he said. “You can be anywhere in the world, programming it to work.” Midway through the trip, Mr Jones felt a buzz in his pocket and received a notification the machine had stopped in the middle of a paddock and was “waiting for an obstacle to clear”. Switching on the camera to see what the mysterious obstacle could be, he saw a kangaroo — which was happily grazing in front of the machine. Mr Jones said the kangaroo and the robot stood in a standoff for 15 minutes before the former hopped away and the latter continued its work in the paddock. It was a moment that made him burst out laughing. “It is so sensitive to anything it could possibly hit... it’s very polite,” he said. While his wife Kate jokes her husband loves the new technology more than her, there is a serious purpose to the tech used across more than half a million hectares of Australian farmland last year. The small robots — weighing 300kg — allow farmers to take a break or do other work while labour-intensive tasks like spraying are being taken care of. Swarmfarm’s Mr Bate, pictured, said he believed the robots put technology in the hands of farmers. The business’ journey started in rural Queensland in 2012, when Mr Bate and his wife decided agriculture couldn’t continue with bigger and more complicated machines. It aimed to help solve a complex problem faced by farmers: how to grow better crops and optimise land without excessive amounts of chemicals or using bigger equipment. “We had a clear vision to create better farming systems and unlock the promise of autonomous agriculture,” he said. In the existing environment, nearly everything farmers can do in their paddocks depends on what they can hook on the back of a tractor or what can be tipped into a spray tank. Using their own farming operations in central Queensland as a base, the couple partnered with two universities to develop their first prototype — an autonomous RTV called Agbot 1. In 2014, they built their first SwarmBot — a three-wheel, single-drive machine weighing 300kg. Eleven prototypes were created between 2015 and 2018 and used in the couple’s contracting service, and a turf mower attachment was created in 2018 — opening another market. In 2018, their first commercial delivery took place — a robot named Indigo with a 3m mowing deck put to work on a turf farm in Queensland. Fast forward to 2023, the company has deployed autonomous robots to farms covering more than half a million hectares, operating for 68,000 hours and reducing chemical inputs by 780 tonnes. It uses a platform called SwarmBot and an operating network system called SwarmConnect to enable developers to create an array of applications for platform users. SwarmFarm currently serves customers across Australia and works with several farm equipment developers, including WEED-IT, Bilberry, Weedseeker, Hayes Spraying, Rasmussen Brothers Engineering, Goldacres, and Croplands. Mr Jones uses Bilberry spot-spraying technology with a Raven Industries Nozzle Control system for precise application, and a Goldacres 18m boomspray. He rebuts some farmers’ concerns that autonomous machinery could hurt small communities by replacing jobs — saying it frees up farm workers to focus on bigger, more important jobs. “Our leading farm manager asked ‘what will this mean for me?’,” Mr Jones said. “And I said ‘this will be upskilling you, not replacing you’. “And while it is working, we can be doing all sorts of other things. “A farmhand can be a machine operator, but suddenly they are also a highly skilled machine programmer. “There is a lot of excitement about technology in the sector at the moment.” SwamFarm plans to launch in North America this year and to expand its platform with new applications after netting $12 million in a funding round led by Canadian-based Emmertech. Mr Bate said the company was also eyeing Europe, after years of interest from farmers. Mr Bate paid tribute to the farmer and government-funded Grains Research Development Corporation, which pumped $1m into the business through its GrainInnovate Fund in 2020. The fund invests in startups — from “seed to growth stage” — to help drive the future profitability and sustainability of Australia’s grain industry. Australian farmers are regarded as some of the most innovative in the world and during the past JUdecade there has been a rapid adoption of “smart farming” technology. As well as autonomous machinery, this includes drones, sensors and satellites that can monitor everything from soil moisture levels and crop growth rates to livestock movement. The ag-tech area attracted about $30m of investment capital in 2017, with AgriFutures Australia estimating that figure has blown out to $1.2 billion in the years since. Globally, the ag-tech investment market is growing at a rate of $7.6b per year. AgriFutures believes the Australian sector needs $8.7b to help reach National Farmers Federation’s goal of the nation’s agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors being worth $100b by the year JU 2030.