Robot technology is all set to significantly shake up one of the oldest economic activities on Earth – agriculture, sooner than later.

The continuous innovations and research into workable robots have lowered the prices continuously and hence human labor is set to get increasing competition from robots even though employing robots is still relatively costly, according to a note prepared by Lux Research.

Tasks like pruning grapevines, fruit picking, cultivating lettuce and moving potted plants around greenhouses could be increasingly be done by the use of robots, said the emerging technologies research firm.

“Currently robots often aren’t affordable — cost remains the most significant barrier to adoption. However, the costs of many systems are coming down, while wages rise due to labor shortages in some areas, and the benefits robots bring in the form of increased accuracy and precision will start to pay off in coming years,” Lux Research analyst, Sara Olson, said.

Automated driving systems for tractors or combine harvesters have reached market penetration of around 10 percent in the U.S. as robots are already in use in typically large U.S. corn plantations.

“The gap between labor cost and Autosteer- or Edrive-assisted labor in U.S. corn farming is relatively small and will become negligible by 2020,” Lux Research.

Lux Research claims that if the ‘bots are shared between multiple farms, using robots to harvest strawberries is roughly cost-equivalent to human labor in Japan.

“With strawberry-picking being slow and labor-intensive, and labor scarce and expensive — the average agricultural worker in Japan is over 70 years old – the robot is quickly likely to become the cheaper option,” it said.

It is forecast that by 2028, the European lettuce-growing — a major industry on the continent, would become automated, said Lux Research.

“Automated lettuce weeding is already competitive with human labor in Europe, thanks to regulatory limitations on agrochemicals. Lettuce thinning is still accomplished manually at lower cost, but robots are likely to reach breakeven with human labor in 2028,” it said.

According to Tractica, a market intelligence firm, there would be a unthinkable jump of more than 2000 percent in the global market for agricultural robots which is expected to explode to $73.9 billion by 2024 from just a meager $3.0 billion 2015. The most revenue for this industry would be generated by driverless tractors which would amount to about $30.7 billion by 2024 and the most unit shipments would be of that of agricultural drones, the firm forecasts.

For the purpose of monitoring crops and livestock, drones with specialized cameras are increasingly being used. While being relatively expensive and currently only used by large farms, a newer use is crop spraying — which can be dangerous for laborers due to the chemicals used.

“As technology continues to evolve, farmers and ranchers will reassess in order to make the most practical decisions for their bottom line,” the president of the U.S. National Farmers Union, Roger Johnson said.

(Adapted from Reuters)