The global market for Autonomous Farm Equipment is projected to reach US$128.8 billion by 2025, driven by growing government and private sector investments in intelligent agriculture as the future of sustainable farming. Major factors playing key roles in catalyzing revolutionary changes in agricultural technologies include growing population and food demand; escalating shortages in arable land due to soil pollution and use of agricultural lands for industrialization and urbanization; need to increase yields per acre; shortage of labor; growing carbon footprint of agricultural activities; and rising urgency in addressing sustainability issues such as unacceptable rise in pesticide residues, soil degradation, water wastages, herbicide resistance in plants, and preventable losses in planting, growing, and harvesting. All of these factors catalyze the concerns surrounding food security, and opens up new revenue possibilities and opportunities for automation in agriculture. Achieving sustainable food security supported by self-sustaining agricultural mechanization strategy is emerging as the cornerstone for the growth of automation in agriculture. Benefits of mechanized agriculture practices include increase in crop yields per acre; increase in agricultural production; productivity enhancements; increased efficiency of farming; lower costs; improved farm profitability; enables more land reclamation; prevents soil erosion; enables the shift from ‘subsistence farming’ to ‘commercial agriculture; addresses the problem of labor shortages; and better use of land. All these benefits help in increased crop production thereby increasing food supply, the key to meeting food security goals. Read More...