Modern Agriculture: Automation's Impact on Crop Production

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of automation in modern agriculture and crop production. It begins with an introduction to the changing landscape of agriculture, driven by technological advancements and the need to meet rising global demands. A literature review explores the benefits of automation systems in modern agriculture, including enhanced planting and seeding, automated irrigation, and improved crop maintenance. The report addresses the research question of how automation influences modern agriculture and crop production. The methodology section is not included in the provided text. The report discusses the factors of traditional crop production, technological advancements in crop production areas, and the current state of automation, including the use of IoT sensors and predictive analytics. The benefits of automation systems, such as improved planting, automated irrigation, and crop maintenance, are also discussed. The report emphasizes the efficiency and productivity gains that automation technologies offer, highlighting the potential for increased crop yields and reduced labor costs. The report also acknowledges challenges, such as the initial investment costs of automation systems.

Running head: IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
Impact of Automation in Modern Agriculture and Crop Production
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1IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Literature Review........................................................................................................................3
2.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2.1 Factors of Traditional Crop Production.................................................................................3
2.3 Technological Advancements in Crop Production Areas......................................................4
2.4 The State of Automation in Modern Agriculture and Crop Production................................5
2.5 Benefits of Automation Systems in Modern Agriculture......................................................6
3. Research Question.......................................................................................................................9
3.1 Aims and Objectives of the Study.........................................................................................9
4. Methodology..............................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................13

2IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
1. Introduction
With the changing scenario of automation and the rise of technology, there have been
major changes that are facing the agricultural sector. The rising population in the global sector
has affected the supply chain, impact the proper delivery of food products and the pricing-based
strategies. The changing and growing demands need to be met by the agricultural industry, which
in the present times is facing rising costs and shortages in labors for farm-based work (Kamelia
et al. 2018). There are many farmers who are facing a major kind of dilemma between the facts
based on determination of proper workers and producing high-quality crops.
The tension based on performing work over the agriculture has been a predominant factor
in the history. Hence, the factor of agricultural production has been forming a major factor with
the addition of new labors and bringing new tools based on performing the job efficiently. The
aspect of modern agriculture does implies different procedures based on bringing in better
quality of crop production by enhancing the modern agricultural techniques (Sarkadi 2019). With
the increase in the shortages of labor, the farmers are in the process of adopting modern
agricultural techniques that would help them in bringing better productivity in the field of
farming. The rise of automation-based techniques would bring in efficiency within the farms and
further automate the cycle of crop production.
In the present discussion, the purpose of the research is focused over understanding the
major impacts brought by automation within modern agriculture and in crop production. One
such aspect that would be in discussion is to understand the investment strategies adopted for
automation sector. The other aspect that would be discussed is based on considering of

3IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
automation as one preferable option in present times. Moreover, the areas of benefits that would
be supported in crop production with the impact of automation technologies would be discussed.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
The introduction section of the literature review presents a brief understanding of the
impact of automation in the agricultural sector. The area of agriculture is primarily dependent on
the improved farming methods that should be improvised for providing the most important
benefits to the sector. The use of automation system in the areas of crop production could lead to
better and significant impacts over the sector. Different challenges faced by farmers might be
based on affordability of such high-cost computing systems in their fields (Onwude et al. 2016).
The literature review would thus put emphasis over the necessary areas in agriculture that could
be linked with automation and the kind of benefits that could be reaped from them. The literature
would also discuss the type of investments, which have been made by countries to bring in
impact over this sector.
2.1 Factors of Traditional Crop Production
The sector of farming is considered as a traditional industry that has undergone numerous
changes in the recent past. This further puts interests based on allowing the production of crops
in an affordable and abundant manner. According to the discussion presented by Prathibha,
Hongal and Jyothi (2017), the massive breakthroughs in the recent past have led to the
development of automated technologies such as the introduction of GPS and robotics. The
development of such form of technologies further leads to the production of substantial
quantities of major crops, which would be produced on the basis of decreased labor and cost
factors. Amidst the vast progresses in the field of crop production and modern agriculture, the

4IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
looming future of agriculture is based on the introduction of autonomous tractors, drones,
automated irrigation facilities and many others.
The aspect of crop production within the agricultural sector continues to be a wide topic.
Hence, the studied literatures would majorly focus over the specific areas and link them with the
aspect of the impact of modern agriculture with the use of automation. The growing forms of
investment in the field of technology that would further be focused over the agricultural domain
have increased in the recent past years. Carolan (2020) discusses over the fact that in the year
2017, the total value of investment made over automation technology by the government of
various countries had reached US $1.5 billion, which was the result of a contribution made by
160 startup industries. The technological advancements made by the startups have helped in
addressing the major areas of crop production for the agricultural sectors.
2.3 Technological Advancements in Crop Production Areas
Among the various discussed technological advancements made in the areas of crop
production, one of the most important aspect is that some startups help towards the placement of
remote sensors in agricultural fields for the collection of local data about the understanding of
growing patterns of crops. Hung et al. (2015) have presented their focus on the various other
aspects in the field of agriculture that are considered as important is based on the efficient use of
software, which are based on management of seeds, fertilizer usage, understanding soil
conditions. Based on the understanding and consideration of the facts based on the idea
presented by startups, it can also be discussed that farmers with the use of automation
technologies could be helped by making predictions about proper yield and timing for crop
production.

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According to the discussion presented by Sharma and Mathur (2018), one other way in
which the startup companies could help towards increasing the production of crops is based on
the impact of drones that could be used for crop monitoring. The status of crops that would be
presented to the farmers after the monitoring process would help them to apply pesticides,
fertilizers and other modes of crop treatment. High rises in the number of startups focusing over
the field of crop production are majorly progressing over the developmental works based on
automated technologies.
2.4 The State of Automation in Modern Agriculture and Crop Production
Khattab, Abdelgawad and Yelmarthi (2016) have been focusing on the discussion over
the present state of automation, which focuses over the data collected from Internet of Things
(IoT) sensors, is combined with fertilizer, seed, rainfall patterns, pesticide and different factors.
IoT, which is combined automated algorithms embedded within the software installed in the
tools helps in presenting a compelling use case towards the optimization and prediction of
favorable growing conditions of crops. A complex operation within the agriculture sector is
within the aspect of running the entire operations of a farm. According to the discussion
supported by the authors, it has been understood that there are several factors, which affects the
productivity of crops at every moment. With the rising number of data within the farms that are
collected and increasing on a yearly basis, the complexity among software algorithms increases
based on predictive analytics. The use of predictive analytics within the techniques for smart
agriculture would help farmers in deciding the needs of farming applications, use of pesticides
and fertilizers, type of irrigation methods and other specific farming needs.
However, on the other hand, Balaji et al. (2018) have focused over the aspect of farm
management and IoT comprised software are growing in popularity and sophisticated. The next

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frontier in the field of agricultural automation is robots and machines, which would be able to
perform the work by humans. Although the currently designed applications are not available on a
commercial basis or are considered to be expensive, yet there are many companies, which are
mostly racing towards the development of autonomous software and machines (). These
automated systems would be highly cost-effective and reliable for performing their works
throughout the cycle of crop production.
Moreover, Medvedev et al. (2015) have presented their discussion on the use of
automated software that would be embedded within the tools of agriculture could help in the
performing of agricultural tasks based on crop management and resource tracking. As an
instance, there are some automated applications and software that enable crop growers for
recording data collected from all kind of field applications and then perform tracking of
resources. These resources would be further collected from the field and then be transferred to
various storage locations. The data based on resource management could be considered as highly
powerful based on performing functions based on agronomics within the farm, thus helping
towards the creation of marketing value towards the food companies and differentiating
themselves.
2.5 Benefits of Automation Systems in Modern Agriculture
The understanding over the discussion supported by the different authors have helped
towards the extraction of important benefits that could be derived from the impact of automated
systems in modern agriculture. Some of the specific areas in which the use of automation
technologies could majorly help the farmers towards the production of crops are:
1. Planting and Seeding – In the traditional period, the process of sowing seeds was
majorly considered as a laborious process. The process of modern agriculture methods based on

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crop production highly improved with the impact of seeding machines that had the major
capability to cover more areas on the ground as compared to human used techniques.
Ampatzidis, De Bellis and Luvisi (2017) have been in the process of discussing that the
automation technologies that are used within the farm mostly use scatter algorithmic method,
which is considered as wasteful and inaccurate as the seeds might get spread apart from the
optimal location.
On the other hand, Liu et al. (2016 ) discusses that effective methods of seeding however,
would require the control over two different variables. This includes the plantation of seeds at the
appropriate soil depth. The spacing between the plants would also fall at an appropriate distance
based on allowing optimal crop growth. An equipment focused over the use of precision seeding
could be designed in such a manner based on maximizing the variables every time. The
combination of sensor data and geo-mapping that would further detail soil density, soil moisture,
soil quality and levels of nutrients would include a guesswork process based on seeding.
2. Automated Irrigation and Watering – One of the primary and relevant irrigation
method is known as Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI). The SDI method majorly helps farmers to
control the amount of water that might be received by the crops. Kansara et al. (2015) has
presented their focus over the pairing of SDI systems with IoT sensors, it could be continuously
used for monitoring the level of soil moisture and health of crops. Farmers would be able to
intervene with the factor of crop production, which would otherwise allow the system to operate
in an autonomous manner. Although the SDI systems cannot be determined to be robotic in
nature, they would be able to operate in an automated manner in the context of a small farm.
3. Crop Maintenance and Weeding – Redbond (2015) in his discussion has discussed
about the methods of pest control and weeding are considered as most critical aspects based on

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maintenance of plants and tasks that would be perfect to be performed by autonomous robots.
Some of the prototypes that have been already developed includes Bonirob, which is a product
from Deepfield Robotics. This is considered as an automated cultivator that is a major part of
research initiative by UC Davis Smart Farm.
The Bonirob robot is based on the size of a car that could navigate in an autonomous
manner through the field. Vagulabranan, Karthikeyan and Sasikala (2016) have focused on a
robot that makes specialized use of LiDAR, satellite based GPS technique and video tools for
navigating across the field. The robot also employs machine learning techniques for teaching the
robot for the identification of weeds before further removal. Based on the impact of such robots,
the machines could fully replace the human needs for monitoring of crops and manually weeding
them. On the other hand, the prototype model for UC Davis operates in a different manner. The
cultivator is facilitated with towing facility at the backside of the tractor. It is also equipped with
major imaging systems that would be helpful for the identification of fluorescent dye that are
coated on the body of seeds (Manikandan and Rajaram 2016). The dye is further been transferred
to the young plants during the process of sprouting and growing conditions. The cultivator would
further cut down the non-glowing weeds.
4. Real-Time Analysis and Monitoring – The use of drones could also be used for
performing the functionality of performing remote monitoring and analysis over the crop
production and fields. However, Cambra et al. 2017 have discussed about the real benefits of
drones could be determined by a group of farm workers who spend long hours in the field. The
effort of the workers could be replaced by the fleet of drones based on travelling all across the
field based on visually checking the conditions of crops. In such cases, the connected farm
comes into effect. Farmers would be able to perform review over the collected data. Hence, they

9IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
would only perform personal trips to the fields whenever any specific issue would be faced that
would draw their attention.
Based on the discussion over the literature review, it can be understood that the literature
focuses over the type of impacts that would be made with the growth of automation technologies.
The challenges faced in this review are based on understanding of automation models that would
be based on crop production. The above discussion of the literature review section discusses the
kind of investments made over the agricultural areas. The other parts of the review also
emphasizes on the discussion of the most important areas in which automation technologies
could place their impact.
3. Research Question
The research questions that would help towards progress over the research work are:
1. What are the present standards of investment made by startups to bring in automation
in the crop production industry?
2. Why are the present state of automation-based impacts in modern crop production?
3. What specific benefits can be supported in crop production with the impact of
automation technologies?
3.1 Aims and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the research is focused on understanding the major impacts that are brought in
with the rising effect of automation systems in modern crop production.
The objectives of the research are:

10IMPACT OF AUTOMATION IN MODERN AGRICULTURE AND CROP PRODUCTION
1. To discuss the relevant areas in which impact could be made with the rise of
automation systems.
2. To discuss the most appropriate research methodology that would be able to support
the research.
4. Methodology
According to different researches made by previous authors, it has been discussed that
most of these researches have focused on the impacts made by automation systems in various
areas of agriculture. In these studies, the qualitative researches have been formed. In the present
discussed work of research, the approach that would be followed is based on the use of collection
of interviews from farmers and technologists (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). Hence, the
use of primary data based on collecting information from the farmers and technologists would
help in analyzing and understanding over the next works over the research.
Research Methodology – The process of data collection is termed as the process of
collecting and gathering every single piece of information from the various relevant sources
based on finding the answers to specific research problems. The methods based on collection of
data could be further categorized under two categories (Palinkas et al. 2015). This includes the
primary and secondary methods of data collection.
Quantitative Methodology – According to the process of collection data from primary
sources, it can be discussed that data would be collected from various primary sources. This
includes the use of different methods based on surveying, preparation of questionnaires and
interviewing people who are primarily involved in the farms (Cyr 2016). The data collected from

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the various sources is thus considered to be highly reliable in nature as it would be devoid of any
form of subjectivity on the part of respondents.
Qualitative Methodology – The process of collecting secondary data for research would
be considered as the process in which the collected data would be sourced from various
published books, journals and research papers. This data is readily presented as they are mostly
utilized in different scientific-based research studies (Johnston 2017). This method of collecting
data is mostly preferable for various researchers as there is a major possibility that huge amount
of research work has already been presented and thus the data is conveniently available.
Selection of the Appropriate Method – In the case of the concerned research work, the
process of conducting qualitative research is mostly followed. Under this approach of research,
data collected from the interviews would be analyzed using a data analysis tool. The data
collected from the interviews over farmers and automation experts would be analyzed with the
use of SPSS tool. After the analysis over the data, a conclusion would be reached whether
automation supported techniques would be able to impact the area of crop production.
In the certain case, a researcher who would perform the research work would directly
establish a communication with farmers who are working in the fields and understand the type of
difficulties being faced by them. However, automation technologists would also be interviewed
about the present impacts that could be designed by them for helping the farmers (Burgess et al.
2017). In the present case, a sample size of 100 would be chosen. The primary data would be
collected from 100 participants who would be comprised of farmers and technologists. The
farmers and technologists would be surveyed and thus the data presented would be analyzed and
monitored. Questions related to traditional farming methods and the necessity of automated
farming procedures would be asked. Moreover, the technological experts would be also asked