Robotics and AI unlock new possibilities for growers and producers
At evokeAG. 2025, industry leaders explored the future of agriculture in an age of automation. This session examined the revolutionary role of AI, robotics, and human collaboration in transforming food production.
Andrew Kersley has a clear vision of an operational field crop that uses robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), and it’s a picture that includes Oxin, his company’s world first, fully autonomous, multi-tasking robotic tractor.
“I see fleets of machinery flying or driving across the field, all unmanned, doing tasks like mowing, mulching, trimming, defoliating, weed and canopy spraying efficiently, safely and sustainably,” said the Founder and CEO of SmartMachine.
“We’ll use the data captured about crop quality, yield and plant health to make better decisions about inputs, hopefully increasing profits for growers and putting products into the marketplace at a price consumers can afford to pay for them.”
“This is the future we’ve been working on for six years, as we’ve launched Oxin in viticulture in New Zealand, Australia and the US, and we now have pathways to explore alternative crops.”
Mr Kersley was taking part in a group discussion about the potential for AI, robotics and human collaboration to transform food production, along with Michelle Lim, Vice President of Growth with 4AG Robotics, Dr David Nation, Managing Director of Dairy Australia, and Simon Pearson, Professor of Agri-Food Technology and Head of School at the University of Lincoln, UK.
Andrew Kersley, Michelle Lim, Dr David Nation and Simon Pearson at evokeAG. 2025.
20% of human jobs in ag to be superseded
Professor Pearson and his colleagues released a study in December 2024 looking at the role of Large Language Models (LLMs) in transforming agriculture, and concluded that 20% of human jobs in ag will be superseded by LLMs.
RELATED: Large language models impact on agricultural workforce dynamics: Opportunity or risk?
LLMs are AI models that generate human language to enhance robot interaction and task planning, enabling robots to understand instructions and perform complex tasks.
While traditional jobs may be lost, Professor Pearson said a massive upskilling and infrastructure change will be required to ensure people have the skills to operate machines and manage data.
“Our study benchmarked every job role in ag and showed that 25% will be highly disrupted and 55% won’t be disrupted,” Professor Pearson said.
“That’s because LLMs work on cognitive skills and the 55% have skills that are dexterous, but robotics will change those roles. So in theory, there’s hardly a job role that won’t be changed, and farms are going to be completely different.”
Robotics and AI offer new value proposition
Andrew Kersley outlined the pressures, motivators, and reasons for change that are driving the evolution of new technologies, AI and robotics in agriculture.
Andrew Kersley at evokeAG. 2025.
“The first is labour, the availability, cost and quality, and the second is the increase in input costs – fertilisers, fuel, water, chemical, the cost of machinery and implements,” he said.
“There are environmental challenges and social pressures that go with that, and the fourth reason is regulatory costs. A recent study in California showed that they had increased by 1300% over the last 18 years.
“We see AI and robotics delivering a new value proposition. Autonomy lets us do things like reduce the labour required to manage these fleets by 70% and reduce overall fleet sizes by 30%, and these two in combination with other benefits have the potential to reduce operational costs by up to 60% for these growers, which is truly significant.”
Potential to transform mushroom farms ‘especially exciting’
Michelle Lim’s company 4AG Robotics builds robots that pack mushrooms. The global mushroom industry sells $60 billion worth of white button mushrooms annually, and around 50% of production costs come from labour for the physically taxing tasks of picking, trimming, and packing.
“We currently have six customers on three continents, including Australia, and $8.4 million in robot sales. There’s a two-to-three-year payback period, but our robots can change the usual two eight-hour human shifts to 24-hour optionality, enabling growers to take advantage of the fact that mushrooms grow at 4% every hour,” Ms Lim said.
“Robots also allow us to use inputs much more efficiently. A third-party carbon auditor engaged by the Government of Canada showed robotics saved 8.4m kg of carbon emissions annually, on a mid-sized farm.”
“The AI capability, which enables us to create smarter models that are continuously learning and are modelled on the top human harvesters, helps robots to achieve and surpass yield and quality.”
She is interested to see how this translates to greenfield expansion and the way in which we build farms in the future.
“For mushroom farms this is especially exciting. For the first time they can think about mechanising the entire farm, not just picking the mushrooms off the bed, but bringing mushrooms to the cold room, and different things they want to toggle in quality and yield.
Michelle Lim at evokeAG. 2025.
“Everything in mushroom farms is built to be accessed by humans, so robotics may potentially mean you could have growing racks that are taller than six shelves and longer than 40 metres, set up in a way that considers efficiency and automation.
“The humans will need a different skillset to run that, and a lot of staff are actually going to be the operators of the robots. The sky’s the limit and it’s a really exciting time.”
Dairy industry likely to attract young farmers back to farm
For the dairy industry, Dr David Nation is excited about what AI can provide in terms of climate resilience and improved understanding of the interaction between soil and plant and animal, but he sees other, less obvious benefits too.
“Our industry is such a high touch industry, we’re milking cows two times or more a day and people get very busy, but what robotics and AI allows them to do is benefit socially as well as economically,” said Dr Nation.
“There are always going to be manual tasks but there’s going to be so much more opportunity to work on the business, rather than in it.”
“It’s also going to really help the multi-generational aspect. So many dairies are family businesses and robotics, and AI are encouraging young people to come back to the farm. That could be one of the most profound impacts of it.”