In another move towards future farm tech, John Deere is planning to purchase Bear Flag Robotics for $250 million. Bear Flag Robotics has been based in the Bay Area since 2017, they specialize in heavy-duty Autonomous machinery.
Bear Flag specialized in retrofitting normal tractors with equipment such as: sensors, control systems, computers, and communications systems. The entire system needed for a machine to operate autonomously.
The Co-founder of Bear Flag, Aubrey Donnellan explained that on a “tour of an orchard [they saw] just how pronounced the labor problem is, they’re struggling to fill seats on tractors. We talked to other growers in California. We kept hearing the same thing over and over: Labor is one of the most significant pain points. It’s really hard to find quality labor. The workforce is aging out. They’re leaving the country and going into other industries.”
And During the 2020 global pandemic, the labor shortage became even more severe. Ag has had shortfalls in the area of labor even before the pandemic. This came to highlight even more so the importance of autonomous tech and a few companies sprang up to take advantage of the situation. However, not all have made it.
Of course, many newer machines have the ability to auto pilot on programmed GPS pathways already; however, the Bear Flag technology will completely remove a need for a drive in its entirety.
Bear Flag is an exception, and its acquisition is poised benefit both Bear Flag and John Deere. John Deere obviously bring in its own knowledge and resources. The is is not a feat new to John Deere, who has acquired many companies throughout the years – in a variety of industries related to its field, such as precision Ag technologies, and even an aftermarket sector for its own parts.
John Deere making such an aggressive move towards this means that it is surely the future and that future is eminent. Though, it is expected to develop slowly.
“John Deere putting their stamp on this kind of fully autonomous technology means it’s really coming.” – George Kantor, Roboticist, Carnegie Mellon University
Though, of course, some work may remain out of the hands of a purely autonomous environment for now. Such as more complicated harvesting you see with table grapes, among other produce.
But even those industries may not remain immune to technological wonder.
Over the next five years, it is expected that the robotics sector in Agriculture alone will grow to be more than a $15 Billion industry.
Ag is a large sector of the economy, with more than 2.5 million jobs directly associated with it. But this says nothing of all the other ancillary jobs and businesses within those larger Ag communities that are also part of that same economy.
