Agricultural Robotics on Commercial Farms: Emerging Deployment

The agricultural robotics (agri-robotics) market is expanding with many new technologies being developed in recent years. The 2026 Crop Robotics Landscape reported that more than 400 companies globally are developing robotics for food crop production, a 25% increase from 2024, with more than a third being new entrants. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) also reported a 21% year-on-year growth rate for agricultural robotics. These technologies can largely be classified based on their operational roles such as field robots (i.e. for automating sowing of seeds, weeding or pest control with precision spray application), harvesting robots (i.e. usually equipped with sensors and cameras to identify and pick ripe crops), and crop-monitoring robots (i.e. such as drones or ground robots that capture data on crop health and detect plant disease early). Some of these agricultural robotic solutions have already been deployed on commercial farms, for example: 

• FarmDroid FD20 is a solar-powered field robot that is capable of sowing seeds, removing weeds and spraying pesticides automatically in fields. The versatile, lightweight robot ensures precise seed placement in the soil with 8mm GPS precision while its weed system mechanically removes weeds in between rows and plants without waiting for crops to germinate. The robot, compatible with over 100 different crops, is also equipped with a targeted micro-spray system, enabling precise spraying of plant protection substances where needed thus reducing the use of chemicals by up to 94%. The company, FarmDroid, based in Denmark, has been building robots since 2018 and there are now over 500 FarmDroid robots working in fields across 26 countries. 

• Dogtooth Technologies, based in Cambridge, UK, has been developing robotic harvesting technologies since 2016 and is now selling its fifth-generation robots. In July 2026, the company secured more than £14 million in funding to accelerate the commercial deployment of its robotic harvesting technology across the world. The technology combines advanced computer vision, AI and precision robotic manipulation to reliably harvest strawberries grown in greenhouses and polytunnels on a commercial scale. Dogtooth’s robots have also been delivered to Dyson Farming and the trials of their fifth-generation robots there showed that the picking rates have increased from 1-2 berries per minute to more than 7 berries per minute.  

• DJI Agriculture was formed by DJI in 2015 to extend its drone technology for the agriculture sector. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, the company reported that over 600,000 of its agricultural drones are already being used globally by the end of 2025. In 2019, Corteva deployed more than 400 DJI drones for crop scouting, gathering real-time insights into plant and soil health to diagnose and correct agronomic, disease or pest concerns. DJI offers several drone models such as the P4 Multispectral, a high-precision drone capable of gathering plant-level data to provide insights into crop health, and in July 2025, DJI launched its new generation of crop spraying drones i.e. DJI Agras T100, DJI Agras T70P, and DJI Agras T25P, that have better capability to support spraying with higher efficiency. 

  

How Large Agriculture Companies Are Innovating with Agri-Robotics 

While many innovations in agri-robotics are being developed by start-ups, major agriculture companies such as Syngenta and Corteva are also investing in the space. Both companies have been working on robotic dogs that can navigate row crop fields without damaging plants and soil to capture crucial crop-level data, offering real-time, up-close views on plant health from the ground. 

Drones have already been widely adopted for crop health imagery at fields; however, drones have limited bird’s-eye view and imagery is lost when the canopy is closed thus data that would have been valuable underneath the canopy cannot be captured via drones.  

In 2021, Corteva announced that it was leveraging a Spot robot from Boston Dynamics, named Anatoly, or Annie, to walk between rows of corn and sunflowers to capture detailed imagery of crops. Gathering such data would help Corteva better understand complex phenotypes to support its R&D selection processes and the development of new crop protection molecules. 

“Annie” from Boston Dynamics

 

In January 2026, Syngenta introduced its Robodog technology, developed in partnership with the University of Nottingham. Robodog is equipped with high-resolution cameras for capturing precise, 3D plant imagery and has computer vision models for detecting weeds and other crop threats. The aim is to discover weeds, pests and disease threats early in crops while minimising manual human crop walking.  

Although both robotic scouting technologies are showing potential, these are still in their early stages, and it could take years before these reach commercialisation and adoption on farms.  

 

Why Commercial Adoption of Agricultural Robotics Remains Low 

 Although autonomous robotics are continuously being developed for agricultural applications, commercial adoption of these technologies is still rather limited to date. According to a 2022 McKinsey survey of 5,500 farmers across Asia, Europe, North America, and South America, responses revealed that the global adoption of such technologies was lagging at 5%, with many agri-tech start-ups still struggling to scale.  

One of the key challenges is to develop a versatile technology that can navigate the variable terrain or field conditions (e.g. muddy soil) and the different crop cultivation methods adopted on each farm (e.g. in rows, raised beds, outdoor, indoor/greenhouse, etc.) while being robust enough to withstand the harsh weather or changing lighting conditions. Most agri-robotics are designed to solve isolated tasks targeting specific field conditions and do not function as a complete system, making it difficult to scale economically. Developing such technologies requires high capital costs due to manufacturing complexity, and start-ups generally rely on government grants and venture backing, especially in the initial prototyping stage. 

 

Government Funding for Agricultural Robotics 

In August 2026, a new £20 million funding package was announced as part of the UK’s government Farming Innovation Programme, to be delivered by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) in partnership with Innovate UK. The aim is to accelerate the development of agricultural robotics and automation technologies that can plant, tend and harvest crops to tackle labour shortages on farms.  

Similarly, in February 2026, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that it will spend $100 million to advance next-generation weed management technologies (such as robotic weeding systems, electrothermal, electrical and thermal weed control solutions) to reduce reliance on chemical crop protection tools and improve human health. 

These government funds will no doubt help start-ups advance their technologies from prototyping and product development to scale-up, commercialisation and eventually widespread adoption.  

 

Strategic Allies: Partnering to Facilitate Innovation in Agri-robotics 

Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) has experience working with multinational clients across various industries who are interested in identifying and/or developing new and innovative robotic technologies. Within agriculture, we recently worked with an established ingredient manufacturer with large organic farming operations to explore robotic weed control technologies for deployment across their farms (see our case study: Organic Weed Control Solutions).  

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you to differentiate your offerings, find new technology partners and/or exploit new markets, please contact John Allies at john@strategicallies.co.uk.