OPINION The time may be right for a new kind of labour-saving device on Australian farms. Image courtesy Alamy
where’s HAL when you need him? With the cost of wages for skilled operators being one of the main outgoings in agriculture, it’s time we focused on developing autonomous solutions
Trevor Whittington – CEO WAFarmers
One would think that with Australia’s farm economics, we would have been at the forefront of the digital agricultural revolution.
24 TradeFarmMachinery.com.au
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H
istory tells us that crises drive revolutions. Just ask the Russians – they have experienced two major revolutions in the last 100 years: the emergence of communism and the collapse of communism. One led to the collectivisation of Russian agriculture into massive unproductive farms and the other to the establishment of some of the biggest privately owned and lowest cost farming operations in the world. In Australia we have our own crisis happening that should be driving a revolution in agriculture. We operate with the most expensive labour in the world, with our minimum hourly wage of A$19.84 set at nearly double that of the United States at US$7.25 (A$10.12) and 10 times that of Russia at US$1.50 (A$2.09), so it is with some surprise that I read that it is the Russians who are driving the race to automate farm machinery with self-driving, operator-free technology. As every high school history and economics student is taught, the first agricultural revolution witnessed the introduction of new technology, which saw labour being replaced by capital; driving increased productivity and reduced costs. One would think that with Australia’s farm economics, we would have been at the forefront of the digital agricultural revolution, developing autonomous driving technology to help replace the nearly $40 an hour (with on costs) to employ a skilled header driver, which is over 20 times what a similar Russian farm worker is being paid. Add to that the pressures that Australian farmers are currently facing due to the border restrictions being imposed by state and federal governments around COVID-19, and one would think that adding another computer to the header to replace a person would be a pretty attractive option. The fact that the Russians have a working solution in the form of technology called the Cognitive Pilot, which is being globally tested in markets that are our direct competitors, should send a signal to our government that all their talk of government support for local Ag Tech start-ups is not really hitting the mark and driving the development of local solutions.
One has to wonder why the Russians are not trialling their technology here, as I suspect there would be a willing cohort of farmers ready to recruit “HAL” to the coming harvest (for those who missed it that’s a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey – but hopefully their HAL is not quite so ruthless!). While many farmers might be wary of putting HAL straight onto the header unaccompanied, I suspect the risk would be less than putting in a completely unskilled driver, which is what many farmers will be facing in the next couple of months, as their calls for the borders to be opened to allow in skilled workers is falling on political deaf ears. In these times I marvel at the naïveté of politicians that have never been in a header and who confidently proclaim that farmers simply need to train unskilled workers. No doubt their thinking is that agriculture is going to help solve the looming unemployment crisis, but I suspect there are greater forces at play. What the COVID-created employment crisis is doing (not to mention JobSeeker, JobKeeper and high minimum wages) is fast tracking the introduction of autonomous solutions that will be a key part of the next great agricultural revolution. With the Russians having stitched up the autonomous header solution, Australian Ag Tech developers should be looking at getting HAL into the chaser bins, as the technology is well established to steer the tractor and header down the paddock in unison, leaving the last bit of the equation the round trip to the field bin. In Western Australia, the state government recently rushed out an announcement of funding to support a farm machinery driver training scheme, but like all governments they are playing catch-up and have missed the big play. What they should have been doing is funnelling serious funds into WA Ag Tech start-ups to help local developers race to catch up to the Russians. In the meantime, we continue on employing the most expensive labour in the world and wait for the next great revolution in agriculture to address one of our biggest costs.
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