Initially Agco made the somewhat surprising decision to introduce it first for John Deere 8R tractors, rather than one of its own. Now the system is compatible with the Fendt 900 Series tractors as well.

Tillage capability goes commercial

When OutRun was first shown, Agco said it would eventually expand the system’s capabilities to include autonomous tillage. This year, that system becomes commercially available on the Fendt 900 tractors. This fall, it will also be available on the larger 1000 Series Fendts.

“We started with the 900 Series first,” says Brandon Montgomery, Fendt’s brand manager. “It’s available in the grain cart version and tillage. Our next phase is the 1000 Series.”

Montgomery said the 1000 Series will come unlocked from the factory for OutRun, so customers can order it with the system, but the remaining components will need to be physically installed at the dealership. Those parts will be available this fall.

Works with any implement

The system can handle implements with working widths up to about 55 feet, a limitation tied to the vision range of the camera system the tractors use to navigate. However, there are no restrictions on which implements are used or from which manufacturer — the system works with any tillage implement from any brand.

The post Agco’s OutRun autonomous tillage system now commercially available for Fendt 900 tractors appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

WHY IT MATTERS: Autonomous equipment is advancing quickly on roads, but farm fields present a different set of challenges.

The work was discussed during a recent presentation at St. Jean Farm Days in early January. Researchers with the project are focused on the challenge of uncertainty in agricultural environments, and obstacles to realistic adoption of the technology.

“We want the robot or tractor or any machine working in the agriculture field to follow the design path as accurately as possible,” said Jay Wang, an assistant professor with the University of Manitoba’s faculty of mechanical engineering.

Many modern road vehicles are now equipped with some form of autonomous control. With that in play, people may tend to think that fields, with their wide open spaces free of pedestrians or heavy traffic, would be a comparative slam dunk.

But Wang, who also heads up his department’s Robotics Lab, points out that farms present unique problems:

• Fields are bumpy
• Conditions are constantly changing
• Precipitation can change ground texture
• Crop residue can create obstacles
• Soil compaction differs across the field

By contrast, a flat, hard road, defined by lane markings and supported by traffic signals and signage, is much easier terrain for artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate.

Searching for autonomous adaptability

The University of Manitoba research looks at ways machines can adapt to that volatility in field conditions. The approach takes traditional engineering models, contrasting it with collected data as equipment moves through the field. That data is then processed through machine learning or artificial intelligence.

“The AI tool we use is called Gaussian process,” Wang said. “It is used to correct the discrepancy between the physical-based model and the actual observed data.”

To test the concept, researchers are using small robotic platforms equipped with GPS and other onboard navigation sensors like LiDAR and RTK, “basically, so the robot knows where it is in the real-world environment,” said Wang.

The experiments were conducted on University of Manitoba agricultural plots. The robots follow set paths while collecting data on how their real-world movement differs from expected behaviour. That information is then used to refine how the machine responds in different field conditions.

Bringing autonomy to the farm

Commercial autonomous farm systems already exist, but they typically work within tightly defined tasks and operating conditions, and require human supervision. Wang’s research, by contrast, is looking at ways to reduce the need for operators to compensate when the ground doesn’t behave as expected.

The work is still in its early stages and Wang doesn’t expect it to translate into near-term, farm-ready technology. However, he said the work is ultimately intended to benefit farmers.

“We want to use AI to boost agriculture,” Wang said. “That’s the whole reason we’re interested in it.”

The post Autonomous machinery still struggles in the field appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

WHY IT MATTERS: Today’s farms generate more data, use more technology, incorporate more computers and connectivity and have more digital sophistication than at any point in history.

At Brandon’s Assiniboine College, Chris Budiwski, the interim dean of the Russ Edwards School of Agriculture and the Environment, has seen the shift firsthand.

“Agriculture is often an early adopter of innovation and technology, and the skill sets are changing,” Budiwski said during a Dec. 4 Manitoba Agriculture webinar.

The event tackled agriculture’s growing automation and technology skills gap.

That gap has underpinned the college’s agriculture-related expansion in the last few years. Assiniboine College is in the last push to a new home for its ag-related programs, the Prairie Innovation Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. Expanded syllabus and research plans (some of which have already launched) span digital agriculture training, mechatronics, greenhouse horticulture, and other tech-heavy areas. That’s on top of existing programs like GIS (geographic information systems) and communications engineering technology programs.

Local agribusinesses have also been brought on during program development to help tailor the material to increasingly sophisticated labour needs.

“We’ve always said we’re Manitoba’s ag college, and we’re really doubling down on that,” Budiwski said.

It’s a problem for productivity, an area where Farm Credit Canada (FCC) worries Canadian agriculture has slackened pace considerably. After hitting two per cent growth rates two decades ago, the sector managed only 1.3 per cent growth in the 2010s and could dip below one per cent without intervention, said a Dec. 2 report.

The agency identifies two major obstacles to productivity: companies aren’t investing enough in agricultural research, and venture capital backing for ag-tech startups remains weak.

“There’s fewer and fewer people that understand kind of the robotics and barns and the sensors that are being used,” Ashton said.

RBC recently invested $5 million in Manitoba agriculture, including funding for hackathons and micro-credentials to help attract students to the sector, whether or not they come from a farm.

“We’re hearing that there’s more and more demand for action on exposing more people to the agricultural career opportunities, but then also ensuring that we’re preparing the students that are entering the agricultural workforce have the right skills and are really actually job ready,” Ashton said.

“Agriculture sector technology has advanced more rapidly than many sectors out there,” he said.

These include incoming technologies like AI-driven sprayers that can target individual weeds and a fully autonomous tractor that John Deere revealed at Consumer Electronics Show 2022. John Deere has said that by 2030, a complete fleet of autonomous equipment will be available for purchase, including self-driving machines.

With machines evolving at that pace, dealerships need people who can diagnose electronics and software.

“There’s less wrench turning work and more diagnosing computers, electronics and controllers,” Bohn said. “We don’t even rebuild engines anymore. They all come as remanufactured engine(s) from the factory, and then they have them bolted and take it out and put the other one in.”

Budiwski agreed the shift is happening across agriculture. Dairy barns, hog barns, vertical farms and greenhouses now run on sensors and automation.

“They’re not your traditional romantic pitchfork and red barn imagery. It is computer science. It is programmable logic controllers and being able to diagnose these systems on different platforms,” he said.

Increasingly, agriculture is becoming just as much about prioritizing problem solving, communication, critical thinking and technical know-how as it is familiarity with farming.

“We need to take these people with zero background, or next to zero background, and give them a little bit of an introduction to agricultural fundamentals,” Budiwski said.

One teacher told him several students changed their university plans after seeing the equipment in action.

“Seeing has such a greater impact than just talking,” he said.

There’s a big opportunity to invite people into agriculture who may not think of themselves as “ag” but are passionate about the food system, Ashton said.

The post VIDEO: Technical skills gap looms for agriculture appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

They included mowers and small sprayers at one end of the spectrum to numerous units that do everything from tillage to sensing high-value crops to row-crop units with more than 200 horsepower.

WHY IT MATTERS: The glut of options and innovation in autonomy feel like a tipping point, and over the next few years, the most valuable uses of autonomy will be sorted out.

Then there are the big players, that continue to work toward autonomous operation of their largest cabbed equipment.

The biggest companies, such as John Deere, Claas and Amazone, were clear that each year they announce something new, it’s a step in the continuum to autonomy.

All the major companies are working on autonomy, but a common question is if the implements will be ready to help the power units make the decisions needed to fully replace a human.

Market leaders in autonomy

AgXeed reportedly has more than 100 units in the field, SwarmFarm has 150 and FarmDroid has sold close to 1,000 of its solar-powered, slow-moving vegetable planting, weeding and tilling machines.

AgXeed and SwarmFarm are power units, similar to conventional tractors, which pull implements similar to those now used in the field, whereas FarmDroid is an all-in-one system.

SwarmFarm, an Australian company, works directly with implement makers, especially in the spraying and spreading areas to build an ecosystem in which the implements are designed for autonomy.

AgXeed, a Dutch company, is closely tied to German agriculture equipment leaders Claas and Amazone in a partnership called 3A, and it’s no surprise to see AgXeed autonomous units running the field with Amazone implements.

Slow and deliberate progress

Jahmy Hindman, John Deere’s senior vice-president and chief technology officer, said at Agritechnica that the company’s work over the past almost 30 years has been a pathway to autonomy, from the beginnings of GPS tracking with the company’s acquisition of NavCom in the 1990s.

Since then, parallel tracking, AutoTrack, section control, AutoTrack turning control and AutoPath, planning software for autonomy, have been steps toward autonomous operation of farm equipment.

John Deere has made acquisitions where it could more easily purchase technology than create it, such as Bear Flag Robotics, GUSS automation and artificial intelligence visioning company Light.

John Deere is working to automate its largest tractors, with the 9R and 8R tractors being the first with in-field autonomy in limited production.

Hindman spoke to media in front of an autonomy-enabled 9R tractor at Agritechnica. Cameras and sensors sprouted from the top of the machine, which also includes significant in-field processing capabilities.

Claas’ s new Axion 9 tractor includes autonomous operation options, as long as the operator is in the seat. The routing can be pre-planned. That means it’s a Level 2 autonomous vehicle.

The tractor includes Claas’s Auto Load Anticipation, which helps the tractor learn when more engine power and r.p.m. will be needed. The tractor automatically adjusts for those situations, such as when implements are about to be lowered after turning on a headland.

It also has some autonomous guidance features, created with the co-operation of AgXeed.

However, a Claas spokesperson said during an international press tour that full autonomy is another leap for large tractors, including the need for specialized braking systems and more sensors on board.

“Level two is the next step for many farmers, from the current system with automation like asset management to the next step here with task management,” he said.

John Deere’s 8R and 9R tractors are at Level 4 and can be used without an operator in the seat.

The operator would get the tractor ready in the field to pull a tillage tool, unfold the tillage tool, leave the tractor cab and from the ground start up the autonomous operation that’s been preplanned in John Deere’s Operation Center, says Hindman.

“When it’s done, it will notify the operator that the operation is done and will come and park itself in a location,” he said.

Sixteen cameras cover 360 degrees around the tractor. The automation software recognizes vehicles, humans and fences and learns what it should do to manage around those objects, says Hindman.

John Deere runs Graphics Processing Units with Nvidia chips, running at about 80 watts of processing power to interpret all the information coming from the cameras.

Kubota is taking a difference approach, becoming an investor, supporter and dealer for some autonomous solutions. A Kubota-orange Robotti unit was on display in the Kubota booth, as the Robotti are now available through European Kubota dealerships.

Earlier in the development process, with Kubota as a partner, is the Kitler robot from Norway, which does autonomous spot spraying of high-value crops.

Kubota also had a cab-less orchard sprayer and an M7004 conventional tractor set up for autonomy on display at the show.

Getting implements ready

Amazone, the large German manufacturer of fertilizer spreaders and sprayers, also highlighted its march to autonomy at Agritechnica.

The company has won awards at the past nine Agritechnicas for its increasing automation, including a silver award in 2025 for its AutoSpread technology, which detects fertilizer spread and makes adjustments so the optimal spread is achieved.

“All the research in there is optimized for a perfect pattern in the field,” says Markus Strobel-Froschle, the head of Amazone’s spreader application service.

He’s spent years with the company refining spreader technology to get to the AutoSpread level, including other innovations that manage wind, headlands and edge of field automatically.

A fertilizer spreader with AutoSpread is equipped with radar that monitors the spread of the fertilizer and automatically adjusts it for uniformity. The spreader software knows the usual spreading range of many kinds of fertilizer, so it will tell the operator to check to type of fertilizer if there’s been a mistake.

Who wasn’t there?

It’s worth noting that two of the companies with the most-developed autonomous products at Agritechnica 2023 were not exhibiting at the 2025 show because of financial difficulties.

Naio, which makes several autonomous tools for farms — the Ted and the Oz were the ones most seen in the Canadian market — looks like it is emerging from court supervision in France but wasn’t at Agritechnica.

Monarch tractors, one of the most mature electric and autonomous tractors in the global marketplace, has laid off staff and stopped manufacturing tractors. Its assembly partner, Foxconn, sold its Ohio plant, and it’s becoming a data centre.

The company is also being sued by a dealer, claiming that the tractor did not function autonomously as claimed.

Looking head

The next few years will be fascinating in the autonomy space with the current rate of innovation. The overexuberance can’t last, and there will be a rationalizing of the companies that will be around to supply autonomy in the long term.

There will be some surprises, but there will also be tough times for some companies, as the fortunes of once-market-leaders Naio and Monarch illustrate.

For farmers, this will mean a clearer choice about how autonomy will fit on their farm.

The post The long march to autonomy appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

I spent four days at the show, putting many kilometres on my shoes, and I had the blisters to show for it.

Here are five things I observed at the show:

Autonomous options will be ready when the farmers are: All the major equipment manufacturers are working on autonomy for farm equipment.

John Deere is moving slowly, making sure the solution is well tested in the field, and is starting with its largest machines, the 9R and 8R lines. Other companies are moving quickly, and there were many autonomous machines at Agritechnica from yard maintenance to more than 300 horsepower.

Most of these autonomy solutions won’t survive. The major equipment companies, with their larger development budgets, established distribution and customer trust, will win. There’s not enough differentiation in core autonomy for autonomy-specific companies to win in this area.

“Most of these autonomy solutions won’t survive.”

— John Greig

I’m a bit concerned about interoperability and the fact that implement automation hasn’t reached the level of sophistication of the power unit.

Equipment electrification is advancing in many ways: This includes diesel-electric engines that provide copious power for data gathering, precision agriculture functions and cameras, a new ISOBUS standard that will increase data traffic between equipment and tractors by 4,000 per cent, the power of cameras to do everything from safety to guidance to helping corn headers reduce harvest loss and electrification of farm equipment.

Chinese machinery has arrived and is now leading in some areas: Watch for the increasing influence of Chinese-built machinery around the world. They are building machines with better fit and finish and are more willing to push boundaries, whether that’s on powertrains or autonomy.

Agriculture around the world is big bucks: The 2,800 companies exhibiting at Agritechnica all sell products, many of them worth a lot of money. I had multiple discussions with people about the sheer volume of equipment and technology. It’s impressive and inspiring. If you’re in agriculture, remember you’re part of something big and important.

Canadian participation: Canadian companies showed up to Agritechnica in a bigger way than ever before, and people from other countries are very interested in investing in and engaging with Canada as a trusted, reliable, predictable partner. The United States is being isolated.

The post Five lessons from Agritechnica 2025 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

So many autonomous options

Two years ago at Agritechnica there were a handful of autonomous robots and power units. They were one of the most-talked-about parts of the show.

In 2025, I counted 29 different units that ranged from small soil sampling or yard care robots, to the full-sized tractor-type units with over 200 horsepower.

CNH, John Deere, Claas, Agco and Kubota all showed mature autonomy systems, both newly designed units without cabs, and autonomy retrofit options for tractors with cabs.

CNH debuted a concept autonomous robot called the R4. It’s a diesel-electric hybrid that also has a three-point hitch to attach implements for tillage and spraying. It’s designed for use in orchards and vineyards. While just a concept for now, Luca Ferrari, global manager of robotics for CNH, estimated that it could come to market in the next five years.

Agco’s Fendt brand showed off its Xaver autonomous unit, which looks nothing like the company’s tractors, but can handle tillage jobs.

Small-scale tillage and weeding are the most common use of autonomy as companies have built integrated systems that address labour shortages and the need to reduce the use of herbicides.

Most of the autonomous units won’t make it to the market, especially because the major players in the equipment business all have advanced autonomy hardware and software. They’ll have the scale to produce and the network to market them. There’s also the question of ust how many farmers will adopt autonomous solutions in the near term.

Where some of them will survive is when the autonomy is part of the entire product and an integrate autonomous solution is part of the value proposition.

It is exciting to the proliferation of ideas and invention that’s bringing so much autonomy to the marketplace. We will learn from many of them, even if they don’t make it to the market.

Nexat targets Canada

Nexat, the giant one-carrier vehicle for all crop needs, is eagerly looking to build its market in Canada.

Robert Krause, head of marketing for Nexat, says the company is creating parts and service infrastructure around Regina, Sask., as it believes the Prairie grain production system, with wide open fields, is ideal for the Nexat.

Krause says the system makes sense for farms with about 4,000 acres.

The carrier unit can be fitting with a seed drill, sprayer, fertilizer and harvest units.

At Agritechnica Krause pointed out the Canadian partners with implements attached to the two Nexat carrier units on site. They included K-Hart drill row units and a MacDon header on the giant combine harvester unit.

Krause said Nexat is pushing the boundaries of seeder width on the unit and hopes to get to 29 m or about 90 feet, making it more competitive with Prairie air seeder widths.

Steel and aluminum tariffs a disruptor

A panel at Agritechnica heard about the amount of challenge and confusion the United States’ unpredictable tariffs are causing.

Janine Pelikan, who works with the Thunen Institut für Marktanalyse, an analysis organization that operates at arms’s length from government, Régis Legendre, owner of Lucas G and Donna Boyd, CEO of the Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada, were on the panel, moderated by Guido Honer, of Landwirtschaftsverlag.

Legendre lauded how easy it is to do business with Canada. Indeed, the head of the family-owned manufacturer of livestock feeding systems, recently moved to Toronto to oversee the company’s expansion into North America.

The tariffs on steel are having more of an impact than their 25 per cent of 50 per cent. It’s almost impossible to determine what that tariff rate should be based on a large piece of equipment with thousands of metal components. Is the tariff on raw steel? Is it on the value added manufactured steel parts? Or is it on the whole product? The appear to few answers from the American side.

Numerous companies are just avoiding the American market for now. Krone, which makes large and complex forage harvesters recently announced it wouldn’t be sending its machines to the U.S. due to the complexity of managing the tariffs.

Legendre says Lucas G has received some interest from the United States, but it will concentrate on the Canadian market in the near term, where it has seen an increase in sales since it arrived about two years ago.

“It’s easy to work with Canada,” he says. “It’s tough to work with the U.S.A.”

Legendre pointed out the increasing volume of trade between Canada and France, but also called for France to ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) the trade deal between Europe and Canada.

Boyd pointed out that 10 of 27 countries still haven’t ratified the agreement.

The post VIDEO: Robots and more robots at Agritechnica 2025 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Since then, the system has seen a few changes.

“We’ve taken that system and converted it to look at it as an autonomy platform,” says Dinen Subramaniam, product launch manager for Outrun at PTx Trimble.

“So instead of a tillage and grain cart product, we’re really thinking about it as you buy one Outrun intelligent system and then you extend it for different tasks.”

The company expects to expand its use to other field operations in the future.

WHY IT MATTERS: Innovations around autonomous farm equipment are among the technological advances promising more efficient and productive farming in the future.

At this stage, Outrun is still focused on applications using John Deere 8R tractors, and is available in limited release for pulling a grain cart in the field this year.

In August, the company expects to announce limited release of the tillage application with both uses expanding to work with Fendt 900 Series tractors as well as the Deeres.

“The tillage system and the offering for the Fendt 900 series, we’ll start beginning (at the Farm Progress Show in Illinois in late August) for customer use in 2026,” says Subramaniam.

“Right now, our support is for the John Deere 8R with IVTs. We may also catch the 1000 Series (Fendt) tractors next year, but that’s up in the air.”

There have been technical changes to Outrun as a result of a year’s worth of field trials. It now uses the Nav 900 GPS and RTK system from PTx Trimble. The vehicle-to-vehicle communications system has also changed.

“Previously, the two systems communicated over an independent radio system,” he says.

“We’re now communicating over Starlink. So the two are connected, but farmers can also log in and see how things are going.”

When Outrun was first shown to the media last year, Agco executives said they expected to sell the system to farmers on a subscription basis with costs dependent on how many hours or acres each subscriber used it for.

However, Subramaniam now says the company has rethought that and decided to go with a more conventional subscription model with a fixed per-year fee.

“We had a usage-based model previously, but we’ve shifted our plan to a more traditional model as of this spring.

“Right now, the the hardware components will be a one-time cost, somewhere in the range of $50,000 to $60,000. Then an annual service cost of $15,000 per year. That includes correction for the receivers, satellite connection through Starlink, AI compute costs, cloud costs and everything else. There are no additional costs.”

The development of Outrun can trace its engineering origins to 2013, when some of the basic technologies were initially developed. Since then, those systems have been refined and improved. Dedicated work on the Outrun project began in 2018.

“All of that technology has come along to the point in 2018 when we started specifically working on the system,” says Subramaniam.

“We were building on top of the 90 per cent of the iceberg you don’t really see.

“It really is a relatively long story of development and team building, lessons learned, all to the point of getting this product out in a mature capacity.”

As a recognition of the engineering team’s achievement in creating the system, Outrun has garnered a few engineering awards over the past year, starting with an AE50 award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in the U.S.

“We were selected for the Davidson Award out of that, and there were only three honourees,” he adds.

“And recently we were selected for the Fast Company World Changing Ideas award as well.”

While many farmers may not be aware of the significance of an engineering team raking in awards like that, Subramaniam says is makes a big difference to the people working on the project.

“It is really important. It’s a tough problem we’re tackling. From a morale point of view, it’s great for the team to be recognized that way. It’s important to recognize these awards are also focused on the story and potential, the difference (it makes) in communities and farmers’ lives around the world. I think that part is very gratifying as well.”

The post Agco autonomous farm equipment rig ready for limited release appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Stefan Graner, an organic farmer near Paddockwood, Sask. has been utilizing FarmDroid, an autonomous seeding and weeding robot, for four years. Its efficiency and accuracy have proven to have strong economic benefits for him.

At between $150,000 to $180,000 they’re not cheap investments, even with federal funding available. But for Graner’s operation, the technology has been such a great addition that he now has three of the robots.

WHY IT MATTERS: A farm robot is proving to be an economical investment.

Graner and his wife made the switch to organic farming in 2018, after beginning their farm in the 1990s.

“We’re relatively small-scale,” he shared at the Saskatchewan Organics field day on July 31.

“I probably do a total of 750 acres myself. Of that, some is in cover crops, and maybe four to 500 or 450 are in crop this year.”

Typically, Graner seeds a crop for two years and follows with two to three years of cover crops. But the field he showed off at the field day had been cropped for four years, starting with mustard, then hemp, oats, and now black lentils.

The lentils were seeded by the FarmDroid, and have been weeded by it too. The robot has had its work cut out for it, though, as Graner shared there’s been plenty of volunteer oats in the crop and alfalfa — which was his cover crop from five years ago.

Weeding and seeding

It works best when weeds are smaller, since the machine has arms which act like “knives” to eliminate any weeds between the plants. But if the plants are too large, they can catch on the arms and be pulled out.

The best part of this for organic and horticulture producers is that, not only does it get between the rows but between the plants themsleves.

This severely limits the robbing of moisture that weeds typically do in a crop.

Additionally, the arms only go into the soil about a half inch, so deep rooted weeds aren’t easily eliminated. Because of this, Graner typically pairs it with and interrow cultivator to limit large weeds between the rows.

When it comes to seeding, the machine works pretty smooth. It will seed approximately 1.25 acres per hour — as it has a max speed of one kilometre per hour — only stopping if seed is empty, battery is low, or weather conditions prevent seeding.

“These can have an additional battery pack and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Mark Weber, FrontLink territory manager and a FarmDroid distributor.

“The solar panels, typically, especially at this time of year, they’ll easily fill up the batteries and keep you running. Most guys, if they’re running two batteries, they’re getting till two, three in the morning, it stops and then, usually within half an hour of the sun being up, it’ll fire itself back up, and away it goes.”

The seed hoppers, of which there is four, each holds six liters. With this capacity, if Graner is seeding mustard, lentils, or hemp he’ll fill it in the morning and once at night.

More efficient

He’s noticed that with the robot, less seed is being used. After seeding his lentils, he was still left with a partial bag, even though he’d done his calculations correctly.

Weber added that this has been noticed by other producers as well, both small scale and horticultural producers. He explained that due to the advanced precision, the FarmDroid is able to ensure greater accuracy resulting in less seed.

And, thus far, there’s been no effect to yields. Rather, Graner and Weber’s other clients have all said they’ve seen an increase when compared to conventional seeding practices. Between the accuracy of seeding and precision of weeding, there’s an overall better use of both land and moisture.

But there are problems with the robot when it comes to larger seeds like oats, peas, and even wheat. The largest possible seed size, currently, is eight millimeters. Last year, Graner tried to use it to seed wheat but ran into some issues.

“I wanted to seed it just like I’d seeded the lentils in pods of one to three seeds every six inches, roughly, or so,” he said. “I would have seeded one little pod of seeds, just so I get, for sure, a plant growing. And after a few meteres or so, it plugged. The seeds were too big, the valve didn’t open, and the robot said, ‘no, not going to do it.’ It sent me a text message and stopped.”

After going back and unplugging it three times, Graner fully opened the seed valve and set it to a two-inch seed placement. While this got the seeding done, it didn’t allow for the robot to go back to weeding between the plants since the rows were no longer even.

Setting it up

Graner has had quite the learning curve with the robot, but he’s figured out the best ways to utilize his equipment for his operation.

On a smart phone, producer’s can use the machine’s camera to watch what’s happening, turn it on and off, receive notifications when it stops, and are told the reason for stopping.

Once he got the hang of it, Graner said it’s been super easy to program. If a producer know how to set up an auto-steer program, they’ll be able to do this.

It’s also very simple to input “obstacles” such as bush, sloughs, or driveways. These can even be added in after the initial programming, such as in cases of heavy rains that leave standing water.

The post Robot seeder and weeder efficient for organic crops appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Cellular service in rural areas has improved over the years, but there are still significant gaps in coverage, to the point where machinery brands now find it necessary to address that problem themselves.

Last year, John Deere announced it was partnering with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service to provide enhanced connectivity for its machines.

The service kicked off in Brazil, where a widespread lack of connectivity is a major problem for farmers, and in January the brand announced the satellite service would be made available as a backup connection to cellular in the U.S. Deere has now made that service available in Canada, too (see below).

In mid-May, CNH said it will address the connectivity concern in the same way, by inking its own agreement with Starlink. The manufacturer had announced a similar agreement in 2024 with Virginia-based Intelsat.

“This collaboration will provide customers of CNH brands, Case IH, New Holland and Steyr, with robust and affordable high-speed connectivity, further unlocking the benefits of a fully connected fleet, even in the most remote rural locations around the world,” the company said of the Starlink agreement in a news release.

CNH’s FieldOps digital platform will sync seamlessly with the Starlink service and provide enhanced data transfer capabilities.

Starlink is widely considered to be the company most capable of providing the service, as a leader in the satellite-based connectivity business. Even governments around the world have chosen to contract with it.

It’s estimated roughly half a million Canadian households also get their internet access through Starlink’s service.

However, while it has become the global go-to provider, there are now growing concerns about the implications of leaning too heavily on the provider. None of those reasons have to do with technical ability, but rather its corporate leadership.

SpaceX’s owner, Elon Musk, and his political association with U.S. President Donald Trump in the first months of Trump’s second administration, have raised wariness around the service, particularly for those relying on it outside the U.S.

In February, Global News reported U.S. negotiators attempting to reach a minerals agreement with Ukraine threatened to cut off that country’s access to Starlink communications as a negotiating threat.

In a CTV News online post in late March, Dwayne Winseck, a professor of journalism and communications at Carleton University who has studied Starlink, told the network he thinks Canadian governments must do the maximum possible to disentangle themselves from the company.

In a March 4 public announcement in response to U.S. tariff threats and Musk’s involvement in government affairs, Ontario Premier Doug Ford did just that, cancelling the province’s $100 million Starlink agreement to provide services to remote regions of the province.

The European Union is also reported to be looking for alternatives to Starlink, citing both security and reliability concerns as well as a need to avoid reliance on foreign systems in a time of growing political uncertainty.

In early March, Musk reposted a message on X in which he said he should cut off British Columbia from Starlink service because the province excluded his Tesla brand cars from provincial rebate eligibility.

An April 2025 report from the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project also suggests relying on Starlink presents a serious reliability risk for Canadian subscribers, citing Musk’s role in the Trump administration.

“The fact that Musk controls Starlink’s entire value chain raises urgent questions about national sovereignty and security,” it read, in part.

There are other satellite service providers out there, such as Eutelsat from Europe and Canada’s Telesat — but both apparently have some way to go to match the level of service Starlink can provide.

“We do have the ability to build our own infrastructure in Canada, and we have the expertise,” CTV quoted Winseck as saying. “We should be building our own economy, our own industries to do it, rather than outsourcing it to a foreign company.”

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Qiang Zhang, biosystems engineering professor at the University of Manitoba, asked that question during a university-hosted event that explored technological advances in the livestock sector.

Why it matters: Digital technologies promise more efficiency for the livestock sector, but financial risk still stands in the way of “smart barns” becoming the norm.

Zhang’s work often revolves around development of better, more effective barns. That includes farm adoption of livestock farming technology.

There are many examples of early adoption and emerging technologies in that space. In the dairy sector, there are fully autonomous milkers that recognize specific cows. Last year, one Manitoba hog farm tried a robotic washer to save on labour while maintaining sanitation.

Other innovations include smart weighing and handling systems, precision feeders that tailor rations to different animals and networks of barn sensors tied into data management programs, some of which incorporate artificial intelligence to better analyze and act on the dizzying flood of information.

The list of companies promising their product will help farmers streamline operations, reduce costs or provide data validation is long, and growing longer every year.

“If you don’t do anything, you’re going to be left behind,” Zhang said.

A third green revolution

The advent of smart farming has created a new green revolution wave, he told attendees.

The green revolution typically refers to mid-20th-century advances in irrigation, plant breeding, mechanization and ag-related chemistry that underpins much of the current cropping system. Zhang said the turn of the century saw a second green revolution with advances in genetics like glyphosate-resistant crops.

That makes digital farming the third revolution.

“We’re moving from a mechanical analogue system to a digital technology system. That includes the internet and mobile devices, social networks, cloud computation and, more recently, artificial intelligence.”

He differentiates between the automated farm and the “smart farm.”

“If I put a thermostat in the barn and set the temperature at 24 degrees, the heater will be turned off automatically every time the temperature gets below that, but that’s not a smart system,” he said. “If I put a smart system in the barn, I don’t have to set the temperature. I just tell the system to make my pigs comfortable and happy.”

That simple request involves a lot of data. In a pig barn, it could include analyzing pictures (one system highlighted by Glacier FarmMedia earlier this year, for example, records pig weights via images captured with a 3D camera), recording their sounds and monitoring their movement.

“When we put all that information together, it ought to give the system enough information to make a decision,” said Zhang. “That is considered to be a smart system.”

Putting it together

The modern livestock farm has a lot of moving parts, Zhang noted. Operators must manage costs, including labour, energy and feed. They must ensure animals are healthy and disease-free. They want the best genetics for the best quality meat and the most return, and have to know what’s happening in the markets.

Handling that complexity is where the smart farm approach comes in, he said. It gathers all that information and streamlines the decision-making process.

Zhang cited three components that make up any smart system. The first is information gathering with various types of sensors and the second is communication and data transfer, whether that be via cellular, WiFi, or Bluetooth. The third component is information processing and integration.

For a smart livestock farm, integration could mean the system sends suggestions to the farmer to take action, or it could need no human action, with recommendations automatically triggering equipment in the barn to take action.

A well-designed smart farm can increase efficiency, reduce farmer workloads, improve productivity, reduce costs, minimize environmental impacts and improve animal health and welfare, Zhang said.

“The bottom line here is to increase the economic return of farming.”

That also adds value to the supply chain, he added.

“It goes from meat processing to the consumer.”

Zhang pointed to one European study that found consumer perceptions of smart livestock farming are very positive, largely because it offers food product traceability and transparency.

Digital twin

One smart farm concept, known as the “digital twin,” is particularly exciting for Zhang.

“A digital twin is just a digital mirror of a physical system,” he said.

In the context of creating a digital twin of an animal, data would be gathered by sensors that could include a mix of wearable, swallowable or external technology. That data would be aggregated to create a baseline snapshot of the animal at a given time.

The process would then continue to monitor the real animal and compare results with the baseline.

“The most important thing here is that you have bi-directional data flow and intelligent feedback,” said Zhang. “So your digital twin talks to the real system in real time.”

Modern pacemakers work on a similar feedback loop. The technology can monitor heart activity, adjust pacing based on physiological feedback and store data for health care providers.

Ideally, the farmer would create a digital twin for the whole barn.

“Then you also have a picture of things like the ventilation and temperature monitoring systems and you can put all those things together,” Zhang said

The “resolution” of the digital twin depends on the depth of the data — the number of data points being monitored. Zhang expects that resolution will increase over time as sensor technology advances. Eventually, a high-resolution, true digital twin may become achievable.

“It’s complicated stuff. I don’t know how many years it will take, but I see a big future.”

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