An economic feasibility assessment of autonomous field machinery in grain crop production

Abstract

A multi-faceted whole farm planning model is developed to compare conventional and autonomous machinery for grain crop production under various benefit, farm size, suitable field day risk aversion, and grain price scenarios. Results suggest that autonomous machinery can be an economically viable alternative to conventional manned machinery if the establishment of intelligent controls is cost effective. An increase in net returns of 24% over operating with conventional machinery is found when including both input savings and a yield increase due to reduced compaction. This study also identifies the break-even investment price for intelligent controls for the safe and reliable commercialization of autonomous machinery. Results indicate that the break-even investment price is highly variable depending on the financial benefits resulting from the deployment of autonomous machinery, farm size, suitable field day risk aversion, and grain prices. The maximum break-even investment price for intelligent, autonomous controls is nearly U.S. $500,000 for the median days suitable for fieldwork when including both input savings and a yield increase due to reduced compaction.

Economics of robots and automation in field crop production

“…Sørensen et al (2005), Pedersen et al (2006Pedersen et al ( ), (2008 and Pedersen et al (2017) focused on sugar beet. Sørensen et al (2005), Pedersen et al (2006), Gaus et al (2017) and Shockley and Dillon (2018) estimated some benefits for cereals. The focus on automation/robotics for horticulture is logical because it is often a high value crop.…”

“…Most studies reviewed focused on one or two crops, but two of the studies were whole farm (i.e. Sørensen et al 2005;Shockley and Dillon 2018).…”

“…The conventional sprayer alternatives in the model ranged from 8.2 to 36.6 m. The analysis suggested that relatively small autonomous equipment would have economic advantages for a wide range of farm sizes, but especially for small farms. Shockley and Dillon (2018) reported their key results in terms of the breakeven price of intelligent controls that would convert conventional tractors to autonomous. They considered four scenarios: (1) all costs and returns same as conventional production, (2) a 10% reduction in input cost, mainly driven by site-specific pesticide application by the robot, (3) same as scenario 1, but with a 7% yield increase because of a reduction in soil compaction and (4) both the 10% input cost reduction and the 7% yield increase.…”

An Extensive Review of Mobile Agricultural Robotics for Field Operations: Focus on Cotton Harvesting

“…The initial investment in row crop robotics systems may become very big for an average farmer [10]. As much as USD 319,864 for an 850 ha farm is required for investment in intelligent machines to achieve maximum break-even point [104]. Fortunately, [104,105] concluded that farming robots would bring profitable business to farmers because robots can reduce 20% of the scouting costs for cereals, 12% for sugar beet weeding, and 24% for inter-row weeding.…”

“…As much as USD 319,864 for an 850 ha farm is required for investment in intelligent machines to achieve maximum break-even point [104]. Fortunately, [104,105] concluded that farming robots would bring profitable business to farmers because robots can reduce 20% of the scouting costs for cereals, 12% for sugar beet weeding, and 24% for inter-row weeding. Robots can work like a swarm of small robots to accomplish farm operation at a very competitive cost compared to current machines [106].…”