Competing for talent is the top challenge noted by human resource professionals. Companies reported that finding applicants with the required skills was the top reason for their recruiting difficulties. Interestingly, providing an opportunity for employees to use their skills and abilities was noted as a top way companies create a more positive work environment.
Autonomous Tech
Navigating today’s agricultural workplace includes dealing with autonomous technology. Addressing that issue is an October 28, 2024, article titled, “Autonomous tech is coming to farming. What will it mean for crops and workers who harvest them?” Te article is a collaboration between Te Associated Press (AP) and Grist, an American independent media agency that publishes environmental news and commentary. Your editors chose to extract information from this article rather than the ag-related media resources we monitor to show how these two media outlets view tech on the farm based on the interviews they conducted.
A Florida farmer installed an automated underground irrigation system on his five-acre farm that uses a solar- powered pump to periodically saturate the roots of his crops, saving “thousands of gallons of water.” Although the system “may be more costly up-front, he sees such climate- friendly investments as a necessary expense—and more affordable than expanding his workforce of two.”
Automation in agriculture could ease the sector’s deepening labor shortage, help farmers manage costs, and protect workers from extreme heat. Automation could also improve yields by bringing greater accuracy to planting, harvesting, and farm management, potentially mitigating some of the challenges of growing crops in an ever-warmer world.
Barriers to adoption go beyond steep price tags to questions about whether the tools can do the jobs nearly as well as the workers they’d replace. Some of those same workers wonder what this trend might mean for them, and whether machines will lead to exploitation.
A cattle and crop farmer in northeastern South Dakota “swears by tractor autosteer, an automated system that communicates with a satellite to help keep the machine on track. But it can’t identify the moisture levels in the fields which can hamstring tools or cause the tractor to get stuck, and requires human oversight to work as it should. Te technology also complicates maintenance. For these reasons, he doubts automation will become the ‘absolute’ future of farm work.”
Suz Trusty is co-editor of Turf News.
A Midwest farmer reported extreme heat, drought, and intense rainfall have made the labor-intensive task of detasseling even harder. So he co-founded a farm tech company that created a tool a tractor can use to collect the pollen from male plants without having to remove the tassel. It’s efficient and reduces labor needs.
A former farm labor organizer, who now runs a nonprofit focused on farmworkers and technology, reported he had “heard from farm workers concerned about losing work to automation. Some have also expressed worry about the safety of working alongside autonomous machines but are hesitant to raise issues because they fear losing their jobs. He’d like to see the companies building these machines, and the farm owners using them, put people first.”
A New York farmworker appreciated the positive impacts of autonomous tech but noted it “… can reduce the number of people needed on farms and put extra pressure on the workers who remain.” And added, “Tat pressure is heightened by increasingly automated technology like video cameras used to monitor workers’ productivity.”
It’s all about Navigating
Today’s workplace requires intensive navigation techniques. Continuously changing technology combines autonomous equipment with artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that appeared impossible less than a generation ago. At the same time, a five-generation workforce presents the challenges of not only integrating a wide range of knowledge and skill sets but also balancing differing and often strongly entrenched attitudes. Te future will be interesting.
Agricultural employers need people, and keeping those they already have in place is a top priority.
TPI Turf News March/April 2025
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