Robot Tractors to Grow by 24% in Next Decade

Greg Hyde

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7th August 2018

The driverless agricultural tractor market is set to grow by 24% inside the next seven years.

A report published by Allied Market Research suggests this technology was worth $648.9M in 2016 and predicts it will be worth $4,389.8M by 2025. It also claims rising global food demand has boosted the adoption of autonomous tractors and the vehicles will increase farmers’ incomes.

The report says there is an increased need for this technology because of agricultural labor shortages and farmers’ advancing ages. It cites Indian start-up AutoNxt, maker of the Hulk autonomous tractor, as a company that has developed technology which meets a labor market gap.

Allied argues that the technology will improve farmers’ productivity and accuracy, aiding crop preservation and boosting returns-on-investment. It highlights the fact that autonomous tractors can work around-the-clock and their auto-steering technology offers “superior reliability”.

The report says the market for autonomous tractors is separated into sensor, GPS, vision system, and other categories by component, and tillage, harvesting, irrigation, seed sowing, spraying, and fertilization by application. By component, GPS dominated the market in terms of revenue in 2016. Allied predicts this area of the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.5% by 2025. By application, tillage generated the highest revenue in 2016, and is expected to achieve a 20.7% CAGR in the coming years.