Japanese agricultural startup AGRIST unveiled their intelligent harvesting robot “L” at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The robot can move through layered leaves and pick peppers.
Junichi Saito, CEO of Agrist, said, “We want to solve the problem of labor shortages in agriculture by automating harvesting with robots equipped with AI capabilities. Our “L” robot autonomously harvests bell peppers, and combined with proprietary AI algorithms, the robot is able to identify and pick harvestable peppers through layered leaves with millimeter-level precision.
The robot patrols farms daily, monitoring crop growth and providing farmers with optimal farm management recommendations. A patent is pending for a suspended robot that moves along wires without the pressure of running on the ground.
Agrist shares how they rent robots to growers. “The initial cost of setting up a harvesting robot on a farm is about 1.5 million yen, which is about 10% of total agricultural sales.”
With this business model, they hope to help growers in Japan, whose average age is 67 years old, who are facing a shortage of manpower. “Farmers spend more than 50% of their time harvesting crops. Due to low yield, high operating pressure, inadequate on-site environmental management, and the spread of pests, farmers are trapped in a vicious circle, facing the anxiety of labor shortages and the risk of pests, which in turn prevents them from scaling up production.” With automatic harvesting robots, the yield can be increased by more than 20%.
We plan to sell packages to countries such as China and India. “These facilities will be powered by solar energy for environmentally friendly horticultural cultivation. The data obtained from the harvesting robot will be analyzed by AI and used to solve existing agricultural challenges. “