Swarms of autonomous robots are poised to change the future of crop production. But if you ask the co-founders of SwarmFarm Robotics, it's through collaboration and a shift in mindset that we'll farm better into the future.
SwarmFarm Robotics' collaborative journey to commercialisation started in a central Queensland paddock with a simple vision: unlock autonomous agriculture to create better farming systems.
Fast forward 12 years and this vision is a reality, with a fleet of more than 135 tailored SwarmFarm robots in the field. They've worked over 240,000 hours across 2.4 million hectares, and saved 6 million tonnes of chemicals.
Like the company's vision, the intention behind the bots is simple. Co-Founders Andrew and Jocie Bate developed them for farmers like themselves.
"The robots had to be indispensable – something farmers truly need and will actually use. We've designed them so farmers can repair them themselves, ensuring they stay in the field when it matters most," Jocie said.
But SwarmFarm's quest for simplification goes further than that.
"Since the tractor replaced the horse, it's been about industrialising agriculture, going bigger and faster, buying more acres," Andrew said.
"Over the years, our machines got so heavy. They became too cumbersome because they were so big. When we sprayed, we'd cut huge wheel tracks across our paddock, damaging the soil. The booms weren't stable like they used to be.
"Starting SwarmFarm was a step in the other direction. With our robots, we definitely use a lot less pesticides, and soil compaction and erosion has dropped exponentially."
For Andrew and Jocie, robotics brought about the prospect of using smaller, lightweight machines that have lower impact, and are simpler to use.
It also brought about the important question – how do we fit autonomous technology into our system to farm better?
It takes collaboration to be better farmers
The SwarmFarm journey to commercialisation is plotted with milestones made possible by collaboration.
In the very beginning, Andrew and Jocie partnered with 2 universities and used their own farming operations as a testbed to develop their first prototype.
Later, they welcomed over 400 people onto their farm to release the first generation of the technology. Since then, they've continuously involved and sought feedback from farmers to refine each advancement of their robots.
They've also worked with our Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre on many projects over the years. Their Quebec II robot was used for on-farm trialling, research and development at the centre, which is one of the many ways we work with AgTech providers to advance broadacre cropping.
More recently, SwarmFarm partnered with fellow industry leaders, DataFarming, and the team at the centre on a groundbreaking soil scanning process. The innovation is set to significantly help farmers make more informed decisions to improve irrigation and crop management.
SwarmFarm have taken their collaborative approach a step even further by developing a flexible, adaptable platform that's easy to integrate with a range of tech add-ons from other AgTech companies and machinery manufacturers. They've made the platform customisable so that SwarmFarm bots can do exactly what farmers need them to do.
"When you combine things like spot spray technology or computer vision-based spraying with autonomy, you get a result that's better than the 2 pieces of technology on their own," Andrew said.
Less about robots, more about how we farm into the future
Andrew and Jocie are seeing farmers grow crops and rotations they weren't growing before thanks to SwarmFarm robots combined with smart technology on board.
"But our technology isn't really about the robotics, it's about how we're actually going to farm into the future," Jocie said.
"To get to our vision, to make autonomy a reality for more farmers around the world, there's got to be a compelling value proposition and a realistic way to get these tools to the farmer and support them along the way," Andrew said.
Andrew and Jocie believe that takes a willingness from farmers to adopt autonomous farming systems, and for innovators and governments to collaborate and think through where their technology might fit into the existing system.
"It all comes back to truly understanding how this new way of farming fits into the farming system, and how that system can slowly be changed over time to fit the new capabilities these robots bring," Andrew said.
Contact
Email DPIAgTech@daf.qld.gov.au
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Last updated: 03 Feb 2025