This is what the agriculture of the future needs

Agriculture is facing challenges, conventional methods of cultivating fields often no longer match ecological and economic requirements.

In the future, agriculture will depend more than ever on state-of-the-art agricultural technology that enables economic, ecological, and socially responsible management. Powerful machines and intelligent production systems are moving agriculture towards Industry 4.0.

Five areas are crucial in research:

• Autonomization: Machine systems and production chains must become more and more autonomous. 

• Reliability: production units must be as fail-safe as possible; this is where modern fault management systems can help.

• Electrification/sector coupling: The electrification of agricultural machinery is playing an increasingly important role, and sector coupling in power generation in rural areas enables decentralized energy supply.

• Internet of Things: The principles of Industry 4.0 are increasingly being applied to farms.

• Automation/sensor technology: The digital transformation is essential for efficient and sustainable crop production. In the future, process control levels will be completely relocated to the cloud, so that a modern farm management system (FMS) will develop in the medium term.

How can crop production become more sustainable? What trends are there?

A topic that always plays a role is ground pressure. That means: The machines are getting bigger and the load on the soil is increasing. This can be compensated for by distributing the load using caterpillar tracks. But the long-term options are limited. Therefore, a new approach could be the use of several small units, the so-called field swarm.

What do you have to imagine?

This is a radical break with current developments. Instead of a huge agricultural machine, you use many small robots that communicate with each other and work together as efficiently as possible. Overall, the robots then perform the same as the giant machine but put less strain on the floor. And it is cheaper in the medium term. This is a little bit comparable to the development of the satellite operators. In the past, a large, very expensive satellite was sent into space; today, constellations of inexpensive small satellites are used

But does that also mean that the machines are becoming more specialized? 

Yes. A second major trend is single plant detection and treatment. So far we have been doing this more or less according to the watering can principle and spraying and fertilizing the entire field. The big goal, however, is that ideally, we should take care of each plant in the way that it needs. This is resource-saving and efficient.

How does this work?

Already today we can recognize different parts of the field and treat them differently accordingly. We call this site-specific treatment or precision farming. The machines and devices for precision farming usually use navigation systems and GPS receivers to determine their position. They use "digital maps" that are created using geographic information systems.

For example, to recognize individual plants, a robot must be able to recognize whether a plant is a crop or a weed to react accordingly. Thinking one step further, the robot can then also learn what exactly the crop needs and whether it is sick, for example. This is still a dream of the future for large arable land, but it is already being used successfully in vegetable growing.

If robot swarms are to communicate with each other in the field, a stable mobile network is required. Are we already that far in Germany?

We need area coverage with the 5G network. This is a challenge in rural areas, but it can be done. The trend is unstoppable towards Industry 4.0 technologies also playing an increasingly important role in agriculture.

Where does agriculture differ from classic industry in this area?

Connectivity is immensely important, i.e. that all partners in agricultural engineering and operations communicate with each other. One difference between most branches of industry is that work in agriculture is very mobile and not as stationary as in industry.

When will agriculture in this country be so far that one can talk about Industry 4.0?

The beginnings have already been made. Today, automatic steering is standard on combine harvesters. The cutter bars have become much larger in recent years and are up to 12 meters wide. As a driver, you can hardly see whether you are driving along the edge of the field or not, i.e. whether the grain is left standing or whether you have mowed everything. Modern combine harvesters scan this automatically, so nothing is wasted. And the modern machines always regulate their utilization so that it is as efficient as possible. That saves CO2a and costs to farmers. After all, if you pay a price of more than 400,000 euros for the most powerful combine harvester, it must be worth it. If we also have a nationwide 5G network in the country, assume that we will have real Industry 4.0 in agriculture within the next 5 to 10 years. But it is not only agricultural technology that makes agriculture more sustainable. New methods also help.

Which are they?

I come back to the floor example. It is in every farmer's interest that the soil, as his most important means of production, is healthy but also productive. In the past, there was endless plowing. The floor was nice and black afterward, as we say in jargon. But it also has disadvantages: plowing was the most energy-intensive part of agriculture and is very CO 2 -intensive.

Today, in most cases, so-called conservation tillage is used, which releases far less CO 2. The soil is processed, for example, with disc harrows or so-called cultivators, which loosen the soil but do not plow it. The soil structure and the capillary system are better preserved. This is particularly important in areas with little rainfall because moisture is held in the ground and does not evaporate as quickly.

Plowing is also about weed suppression. How do you do that when you're not plowing anymore? 

We are also currently using pesticides. Like glyphosate.

Glyphosate has always been the subject of much criticism. How is that to be rated?

This is of course a hot topic. There are many different studies on this. Many rates the pesticide as unproblematic, and some conclude that glyphosate could be carcinogenic. Glyphosate is a total herbicide that removes all weeds on the surface. I can imagine that many believe that it must be particularly toxic.

If glyphosate is banned, the effort required will increase, perhaps more plowing will take place again? But farming will continue. Farmers are inventive and innovative.