February 7, 2023

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

I’m sure at one point or another, nearly every farmer has wished they could clone themselves to accomplish all that needed doing. Now, with Agtonomy’s newest solution – TeleFarmer™ –  specialty crop farmers are one step closer to that reality. 

Based in San Francisco and Sonoma County, Agtonomy enables ag and land maintenance operators the ability to address skilled labor shortages with autonomous equipment. Through its innovative platform, the startup facilitates the availability of sustainable, autonomous machines that are affordable to the majority of the world’s farmers.

Four months after the startup announced it had raised $13.5 million in Seed III round funding co-led by Cavallo Ventures, the venture arm of Wilbur-Ellis, and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, the venture unit of South Korea-based Mirae Asset Finance Group, the company unveiled this solution platform that empowers specialty crop farmers to remotely execute labor-intensive field tasks such as weeding, spraying, mowing, and transporting. 

The global market for specialty crops, such as grapes and almonds, is expected to reach a value of $1.8 trillion by 2026 – up from a value of $1.5 trillion in 2020. Within the segment, the U.S. is the largest producer in the world with 184,000 farming operations producing these crops on 10.4 million acres, according to the USDA.   

And while these crops bring the potential for high margins, farmers growing them shoulder greater risk, due to their labor-intensive nature and the uncertainties surrounding available labor to do the critical work. 

Farmers – especially those growing labor-intensive specialty crops such as grapes, berries, and certain vegetable crops –  are facing ever greater challenges throughout their growing seasons. It is these farmers in particular – who widely depend on manual, repetitive labor – who employ the vast majority of farm workers in the U.S.

Although not a new problem, it is one that continues to accelerate. In the second half of the 20th century, the number of hired farm laborers declined by 52 percent, while the number of family farmworkers declined by 73 percent.

“As a farmer myself, I founded Agtonomy to use technology as a means to give farmers more control over the economics of their operation,” said Tim Bucher, co-founder and CEO, Agtonomy.

“Our new TeleFarmer™ solution is a suite of products that delivers farmers a remotely operated fleet to accomplish many of the most labor-intensive tasks on their farm and reduce dependency on the availability of labor.”

Filling the gap, and placing a measure of control back into the farmers’ hands, is TeleFarmer – a solution comprised of three components:

Software – A tele-guidance software system that converts a tractor into a remotely operated vehicle equipped with proprietary TrunkVision™, giving it the ability to safely navigate within centimeter-level precision of any specialty crop. 

Service – Through an app, farmers can plan and implement tasks such as in-row spraying, open-field mowing, or transporting of harvested crops. The service also provides monitoring notifications and other key information needed for farmers to remotely resolve issues as they arise, or to dispatch someone to resolve larger issues. 

Reference Tractor – A fully electric reference tractor that precisely accomplishes labor-intensive field work, even over the toughest terrain or during the night. 

“With TeleFarmer™, farmers can essentially clone themselves to plan and perform tasks in multiple locations and even troubleshoot those tasks from wherever they are,” said Bucher. 

“Using the app, they can follow along, track progress, check the health of equipment in the field and review reports to make changes for maximum efficiency on subsequent tasks.”

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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