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Robots in agriculture: prospects, impacts, ethics, and policy

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Abstract

Agriculture is both the site of development of important new technologies and a key area of application of technologies developed elsewhere. It is little wonder, then, that many thinkers believe that progress in the science and engineering of robotics may soon change the face of farming. This paper surveys the prospects for agricultural robotics, discusses its likely impacts, and examines the ethical and policy questions it may raise. Along with the environmental and economic impacts of robots, political, social, cultural, and security implications of the introduction of robots that have received little attention in the larger literature on agricultural robotics are considered. Key policy choices necessary to meet the ethical challenges likely to arise as agricultural robots start to become used more widely, and to maximise the social, environmental, and economic benefits of robotics in agriculture, are highlighted.

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Acknowledgements

Some of the research for this manuscript was conducted in the course of writing a working paper for the Australian Council of Learned Academies Horizon Scanning report on the Future of Agriculture Technology. This manuscript represents a heavily revised version of that working paper. Thanks are due to Joshua Hatherley for his assistance with bibliographic research for this paper.

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    Robert Sparrow & Mark Howard

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Sparrow, R., Howard, M. Robots in agriculture: prospects, impacts, ethics, and policy. Precision Agric 22, 818–833 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-020-09757-9

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