When it comes to autonomy in agriculture, it can be a bit overwhelming when we go straight to imagining machinery driving itself with no supervision.
This is why Case IH’s messaging at Commodity Classic at Orlando, Florida, is to focus on the small things, in order to make autonomy a realistic goal.
The first step, says Kendal Quandahl of Case IH, is to understand that everyone’s individual path will be a bit different.
“Our intention is to take our farmers’ goals, our farmers’ plans for the year, and figure out how we can create solutions that help everybody,” she explains.
These solutions, as Case IH is referring to them as, are split into different categories. Inside that, each one of the categories breaks down some of the features and offerings from the company.
“The very first step in our path to autonomy is actually guidance. So we’ve had guidance for a long time — but maybe have overlooked that a little bit as an autonomous or automation feature. It’s about creating repeatable path over and over across the field with less operator input,” says Quandahl.
Another step is moving into something like AFS AccuTurn or AFS AccuTurn Pro, where the end-of-the-row turn has become automated. For many, besides GPS, this is their first introduction to automation that they really see as plausible.
“So now, the machine is turning around at the end of the field by itself, you accept the turn, one button pressed by the operator to say ‘Yep, this is good, we’re gonna make this happen.’ And the machine does that by itself.”
Check out the full conversation between Quandahl, and RealAgriculture’s Kara Oosterhuis, below:
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