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Ag equipment makers adapting to farm cost pressures

Some agricultural equipment companies are finding more affordable ways for farmers to upgrade technology.

“It’s moving fast and software and AI is moving even faster.”

Jeff Pettit with Canadian-based Haggerty AgRobotics says the best innovations incorporate the producer into development process.

“I’m putting my farmer hat on, we’re not jumping in with both feet to purchase something right away,” he says. “We need to make sure that it’s scalable, it works, ROI is there, it’s easy to use.”

The company uses innovation farms to demonstrate equipment in different farming environments and has formed an ag robotic working group to encourage better industry collaboration across Ontario.

Matt Mollard with India-based Niqo Robotics says its AI-powered spot sprayer and weeding implements are helping producers reduce inputs and labor needs without subscription services.

“We have a team of people in India that we turn algorithms and we can build new algorithms very quickly,” he says. “We can go into virtually any crop that a customer wants, the cameras scan the field as we drive.

Illinois-based ag equipment dealer Dane Watson with Watson Vegetable Equipment tells Brownfield more foreign manufacturers are looking to enter the U.S. market, but there are challenges.

“We need the certainty to understand what the environment is going to look like in two months, six months, a year to see for these manufacturers,” he shares. Does that local manufacturing justify the investment that they have to make to figure out how to make some more things here?”

Watson began selling this year for an Italian robotic company that retrofits mechanical planters with electronic systems for precision seeding.

He says manufactures are also shifting production of some smaller parts to the U.S., or designing equipment that can be assembled domestically.

Brownfield spoke with all during recent field days at Michigan State University’s Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center in Benton Harbor.