As California’s agricultural sector takes on a decades-old regulation restricting the use of autonomous tractors, technology developers discussed remaining data and regulatory barriers to implementation during the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco last week.
Praveen Penmetsa, co-founder and CEO of agricultural equipment manufacturer Monarch Tractor, acknowledged that his peers perceive working with regulators as “poking the bear.” But he thinks it is the industry’s responsibility to educate regulators, given the sharp learning curve that goes along with emerging technologies.
“They might be working [with] very old expectations of what technology can and cannot do,” Penmetsa said during a summit panel.
Penmetsa said tech companies should communicate with farmers and fellow innovators to establish cohesive frameworks for shaping regulation. He explained the tech industry risks creating additional compliance items for farmers if they do not regularly exchange information.
He added that Monarch’s current focus is showing regulators that technology can reduce dangerous jobs in the long term – but proving this is only possible by sharing data.
In 2022 Cal/OSHA board members refused to validate Monarch’s experimental trial based on a lack of labor representation but have since agreed to create a new Autonomous Agricultural Tractors Advisory Committee.
“A huge amount of the data that we collect is now enabling us to train our tractors and deliver them and slowly start automating things,” Penmetsa said, adding that Monarch field trials often start with the operator still in the original vehicle to observe how the older tech works.
He described the stage as “cleaning data,” allowing the company to understand what farm tools make sense to automate before eventually scaling to larger acreage or other operation types.
“We are very unique in being across multiple industries with the same platform,” he said.
Monarch’s automated tractors started primarily in vineyard applications but are now also in dairies as a result of the process. The company just launched the MK-V Dairy, a driver-optional feed-pushing tractor with multiple use cases.
But questions remain about how data in the hands of tech developers can expose operational trade secrets.
Tim Murnin, Amazon Web Services head of industry solutions, addressed those concerns during an earlier panel on AI-enabled agricultural tools. He explained that regardless of the application, farmers are worried about their data sovereignty — especially as tech companies consider serving clients across the globe.
He said companies must communicate with customers about how their data is encrypted and be transparent about any third parties that have access to said data.
“At the core of that is really the security and privacy postures that you're going to have for all of your data,” said Murnin. “Understanding where you're going to use it, what the accessibility of that data needs to be, and how you architect that for the point of view.”
Penmetsa also argued that data should be multipurpose to allow farmers multiple efficiencies from a single data set. He explained that on top of being analyzed to speed up certain tasks, like weeding or spraying, data can be repeatedly restructured to inform other operational needs.
“These autonomous machines are not just for automation of operations; they're also data functions, and that's important,” he said.
Feroz Sheikh, Syngenta Group chief information and digital officer, said developers need to center their “ethical responsibility” when setting out to collect data. Though Syngenta alone serves roughly 100 million hectares of farmland across the globe, Sheikh said they recognize that all data streaming into their digital platforms belongs to the farmers.
“Everything we do is to keep [the data] secure through the technological solutions that we've spoken about, ultimately to provide services back to the farm,” he said.
Agricultural groups have persistently testified before Cal/OSHA on behalf of understaffed members as reliable sources of labor continue a downward trend across the U.S. In 2022 California Farm Bureau Senior Director of Policy Advocacy Bryan Little told the board that other industries are already homing in on new technologies that allow workers to upskill — a possibility for agriculture with automated tractors.
And Walt Duflock, Western Growers Association vice president of innovation, said during the summit that roughly 60% of his team’s time is dedicated to finding automation solutions to labor.
Western Growers VP of Innovation Walt DuflockHe added that they regularly crunch the return on investment numbers showing that automation is necessary for growers, who face all-time high minimum wages and stringent overtime pay requirements.
Last month at World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, Assemblymember Juan Alanis, R-Modesto, said he and his fellow Assembly Agriculture Committee members would be reviewing out of date regulations prohibiting advancements in the agricultural sector. He named the 2021 Cal/OSHA ruling as a top priority.
The Autonomous Agricultural Tractors Advisory Committee will hold its first meeting virtually on March 26 and will allow the public to recommend topics for the first in-person meeting in May.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
