Following the machines, people and ideas shaping agriculture. Selected developments, clear context and a link to the original source.
Robotics. Intelligence. Agriculture.
A Finnish project pilot connected machines from different suppliers through shared mission software, testing how farms, robot operators and AI providers could cooperate in the same agricultural workflow.
FAPESP reported a programme linking research, connectivity and training across Brazil’s five regions, with local agricultural districts designed to adapt digital technologies to small and medium farming businesses.
A final report documents how a pan-European network brought research groups, businesses and innovation hubs together to help agricultural and food-sector robotics move from technical ideas towards practical applications.
The CaSSECs collaboration examined drones as an intermediate observation scale between ground measurements and Sentinel-2 imagery, seeking better estimates of dry forage biomass across heterogeneous Senegalese landscapes.
The European Commission reported recommendations for a common agricultural data space that would build on existing initiatives while addressing governance, business models and technical interoperability around farmers’ needs.
CIRAD and partners examined digital use among 3,660 farmers in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin, finding that access, electricity and familiar communication tools strongly shaped practical adoption.
A European research project integrated positioning, perception and variable-rate spraying into the WETA robot, addressing the difficulties of moving and applying treatments in narrow, sloping vineyard environments.
The European project combined soft gripping and machine vision in a harvesting prototype, with trials in Greece and Ireland revealing both successful picks and the impact of real facility constraints.
The project’s April 2025 development update described farmer testing of a multilingual prototype, using feedback to refine an app intended to connect farm information with nearby services and communities.
The completed European project reported a robotic crop-care system that combines vehicles, implements and supervisory software, with field pilots examining both operational performance and barriers to adoption.
The European research project paired aerial crop observations with the Bonirob ground platform, exploring how information collected over a field could guide local mechanical or chemical interventions.
A Wageningen report on the European harvesting robot documented faster pepper picking while highlighting the continuing limits imposed by cycle time, foliage, clustered fruit and access within greenhouse rows.
