Driving automation on the farm: Self-driving tractors look to fill agriculture’s labor shortage
(Originally published on Agriculture Dive on Oct 13, 2024.)
A farm in Sonoma County had 27 tractor driver positions open and posted the positions on various job boards. The farm didn’t get a single applicant for weeks.
A few weeks later, the owners onboarded an autonomous tractor system for the farm and updated the job listing to say they were looking for an agtech operator position. In the preferred qualifications they listed “video game experience.” The applications came rolling in.
“You’ve opened up a whole new workforce for agriculture,” Tim Bucher, CEO of the ag startup Agtonomy, said. “One that’s never driven a tractor before.”
Tesla, Waymo and Zoox are usually the names that come up when talking about self-driving. But far away from the hallowed halls of Silicon Valley, autonomous vehicle solutions from Agtonomy and Deere & Co. are making huge impacts in the agricultural sector.
As farms struggle to address a significant labor shortage, self-driving tractors and other autonomous technologies are not only positioned to fill the gaps, but could also reinvigorate interest in an industry that has struggled to recruit the next generation of workers.
Tired: self-driving cars, Wired: self-driving tractors
Tractor giant Deere and software startup Agtonomy have emerged as some of the major players driving the autonomous revolution. While the two companies are focused on different sectors in agriculture, their end goals are the same: Helping farmers make more money by making smarter decisions about their operations.
“There’s obviously struggles with labor shortages around the country, and so people are always looking at ways to how they can get more done in the shortest amount of time,” said Micheal Porter, the go-to-market manager for large tractors at Deere.
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Jesse Klein 