{"id":16274,"date":"2018-10-22T08:31:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T15:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/?p=16274"},"modified":"2018-10-22T08:31:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T15:31:25","slug":"first-robotic-farm-in-country-in-sf-bay-area-from-the-sf-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/10\/22\/first-robotic-farm-in-country-in-sf-bay-area-from-the-sf-chronicle\/","title":{"rendered":"First robotic farm in country in SF Bay Area – from the SF Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Photo from the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

By Jonathan Kauffman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angus doesn\u2019t look like your normal farmer. He\u2019s more of a giant, docile rectangle, built to lift 800-pound containers filled with water and seedlings and wheel them over to his partner robot, which looks like a giant arm with twin cameras set next to its gripping fingers.<\/p>\n

\n
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It has taken a San Carlos company named Iron Ox three years to build these two core pieces of technology. As of Wednesday, they\u2019re officially at work at the country\u2019s first robotic farm.<\/p>\n

Founders Brandon Alexander and Jon Binney met at the influential Silicon Valley robotics lab Willow Garage and quit their jobs in 2015 to dive into the farming world. \u201cLet\u2019s not build robots until we talk to a bunch of farmers,\u201d Alexander said the pair decided. They road tripped all over California, asking farmers what their biggest point of concern was.<\/p>\n

The answer was clear: labor scarcity.<\/p>\n

According to a 2017 survey of 762 farmers conducted by the California Farm Bureau Federation, 55 percent of those polled reported labor shortages, and that figure was closer to\u00a070 percent for those who relied on seasonal workers. Many had raised wages in an effort to\u00a0attract laborers, but 33 percent of farmers said they were also turning to automation.<\/p>\n

For California\u2019s $54 billion agriculture industry, change is coming. \u201cLabor-related tasks are\u00a0kind of a big factor in what\u2019s motivating farmers,\u201d said David Slaughter, head of UC Davis\u2019\u00a0Smart Farm Initiative. Many aspects of grain or cotton production have long been automated,\u00a0but perishables \u2014 tree fruits, berries, lettuces \u2014 require the human touch.<\/p>\n

Some robotics research is focused in the area of weeding and pruning, others on harvesting\u00a0apples or strawberries. In the Salinas Valley, some\u00a0lettuce growers have adopted\u00a0automation in the form of high-pressure \u201cwater knives\u201d that move along the rows, cutting the\u00a0bottoms of the heads and feeding them up to workers via conveyor belts, a process that eases\u00a0the burden on workers\u2019 backs.<\/p>\n

Fully articulated robots like the ones operating at Iron Ox are rare.\u00a0\u201cWhen it comes to automated, advanced mechanization, and specically\u00a0robotics, we\u2019re very\u00a0early in the game,\u201d said Dennis Donohue, director of the Western Growers Center for\u00a0Innovation and Technology, an agriculture-tech incubator program.<\/p>\n

Watch video of a farm robot at work<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to market research, about $1.1 billion of investment has been\u00a0poured into agriculture tech this year, up from $73.5 million in\u00a0years before. Robotics still represents a small sliver of that funding.<\/p>\n

Alexander and Binney have required only $6 million to build Iron Ox, after graduating from\u00a0the incubator Y Combinator in 2016. The company has since graduated from its initial\u00a0research and development facility to an 8,000-square-foot warehouse with a smooth poured concrete door,\u00a0a gated area filled\u00a0with engineers, plant scientists and their computers, as well\u00a0as a reception room with cafe tables and a window overlooking the 2,000-square-footgrowing area.<\/p>\n

Iron Ox\u2019s goal is to create a replicable and scalable model that can produce vegetables for Midwestern Costcos rather than for four-star restaurants. The company\u2019s prototype farm consists of several dozen containers in which greens and herbs grow in about a foot of nutrient-dense water: butterhead lettuce and basil, sure, but also dinosaur kale and upland\u00a0cress.<\/p>\n

Despite their size, the containers can be closely spaced, since Angus can maneuver \u2014 all by itself \u2014 down the rows to pick up the ones it (or its programmers) wants.\u00a0For now, humans take readings to adjust the nutrient balance in the water, and humans\u00a0harvest the greens when they\u2019re fully mature. But Iron Ox has automated many of the other\u00a0repetitive, back-bending tasks. The biggest challenge isn\u2019t getting robots to pick up 800-pound containers. It\u2019s training Angus to move the container without splashing, and\u00a0programming the arm to gently maneuver around tender leaves.<\/p>\n

Growing vegetables hydroponically in indoor greenhouses saves 90 percent on water and avoids the need for pesticides or herbicides, Alexander said. Because the robots can constantly shift the plants around so they\u2019re spaced farther and father apart over their four to\u00a0six weeks of growth, Alexander estimated that Iron Ox will be able to produce 30 or 40 times\u00a0what a conventional greenhouse of the same size could, operating year round.<\/p>\n

Two other Silicon Valley companies \u2014 Crop One and Plenty \u2014 are building \u201cvertical farms\u201d to\u00a0grow lettuce in enclosed warehouses under LED lighting. (Neither is selling to retailers, but\u00a0you can find\u00a0Plenty\u2019s spring mix at Creator, the San Francisco hamburger-cooking robot\u00a0restaurant that opened to the general public last week.)<\/p>\n

Iron Ox said that its goal is first\u00a0to move into a local greenhouse with natural light \u2014 the sun is\u00a0cheaper than LED lights \u2014 and then expand to greenhouses all over the country, bringing\u00a0freshly grown produce to regions with short summers as well as rural areas with little access\u00a0to grocery stores.<\/p>\n

The company is not building fleets\u00a0of Anguses for other farmers: It\u2019s selling the greens itself.\u00a0Iron Ox has no current customers, but as of Wednesday (Oct 3), it\u2019s inviting professional chefs to tour\u00a0the farm. The anticipated price of a head of lettuce? A dollar, as close to the industry standard as possible.<\/p>\n

The Bay Area is an ideal testing ground for robotic farms because of the proximity to Silicon\u00a0Valley\u2019s engineers and capital. At the same time, when it comes to salad greens there are few\u00a0more competitive markets on the planet. The company has hired plant scientist Nicole\u00a0Bergelin to diversify what the farm produces. She has added purple bok choy, fenugreek\u00a0greens and broccolini, helping the engineers train the robots to work with each. \u201cAll the\u00a0robots in the world don\u2019t matter if we can\u2019t grow great produce,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n

Watch video of a farm robot at work<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

Link to story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jonathan Kauffman Angus doesn\u2019t look like your normal farmer. He\u2019s more of a giant, docile rectangle, built to lift 800-pound containers filled with water and seedlings and wheel them over to his partner robot, which looks like a giant … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\r\nFirst robotic farm in country in SF Bay Area - from the SF Chronicle - CDFA's Planting Seeds Blog<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/10\/22\/first-robotic-farm-in-country-in-sf-bay-area-from-the-sf-chronicle\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First robotic farm in country in SF Bay Area - from the SF Chronicle - CDFA's Planting Seeds Blog\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Jonathan Kauffman Angus doesn\u2019t look like your normal farmer. 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