HERE COMES THE INVISIBLE FARMER

Farming tech plows into the future with tractor drones

Autonomous machinery stands in for hired hands

 

   WILLIAMSBURG, Iowa — What Roomba has done for vacuums, Kinze Manufacturing hopes to do for tractors.    Last month the 46-year-old farm implement company demonstrated to dealers its new “autonomy” system developed with Jaybridge Robotics of Cambridge, Mass., which uses guidance communications systems to allow tractors to run without human operators. (click below to read more)

     For two years Kinze and Jaybridge tested the system for detecting obstacles such as fence posts, stand pipes, farm animals and other vehicles.    But according to Susanne Kinzenbaw Veatch, vice president and chief marketing officer at Kinze, the spark for the autonomy system came from her dad, one in a long line of Iowa farmers and tinkerers.    “About 10 years ago, Dad started thinking that the future of agriculture wasn’t necessarily in bigger equipment, but in autonomous drones,” Veatch said.    Farmers already use global positioning systems, or GPS, to guide tractors and combines, but that technology is available only to those sitting inside the vehicle. While operatorless mining and construction equipment and military aircraft have become more common, drones haven’t advanced into remote-controlled tractors that could move across the fields.    Beyond demonstrating the technology to its dealers, Kinze isn’t saying when the system will be available or for what price. But when the Kinze autonomy system arrives, it will be aimed at solving one of farming’s most persistent problems: the scarcity of good help.    “When you talk about good farm help these days, you’re talking about more than just a hired hand,” said Kinze’s founder and owner, Jon Kinzenbaw. “The farm worker has to be very mechanically and technically skilled. There’s not a lot of those folks around.”    Veatch said the autonomy system holds the possibility of 24-hour planting during often rare good-weather days in April. “We’re farmers, and we understand that farming is all about production, whether corn sells for $3 per bushel or $7,” he said. “With Iowa weather, there are only narrow windows for planting and harvesting. You need more innovative equipment for more production.”    Kinze dealers appear willing to give the drone systems a try.    “I can see farmers interested in this kind of system because of the difficulty in getting help at harvest time,” said Tim Seubert, whose S&S Equipment in Lawton, Iowa, sells Kinze carts and planters.    Remote-controlled tractors are far removed from the little welding shop Kinzenbaw opened in Ladora, Iowa, in 1965, when he leveraged $5 in cash and a $3,655 bank loan into what now is one of the nation’s largest farm implement companies.    Veatch, Kinzenbaw’s daughter, is now in charge of the privately held company, and Kinzenbaw comes in once a week for management meetings. But otherwise he is retired and tending to his 2,000-acre farming operation in Iowa County.    On the day the autonomy system was rolled out, Kinzenbaw reflected on changes in agriculture.    “I was sure proud of how quickly the farmers in Iowa were able to get the corn crop planted this spring,” he said, knowing that many were out in the fields before sunrise or after sunset using 24- or 36-row planters. “We only had one good week in April, and we got almost 70% of the corn in in that week.”    Then he laughed and said, “Sure, I guess I’d like to say that I could have seen it all coming 40 years ago. But agriculture is all about innovation.”