Automation in Agriculture Equipment and Technology
Farming generally constitutes of tedious and often repetitive tasks in a controlled area such as a paddy field which should be an ideal and efficient location for the automation of implementing autonomous machinery. This automation can arrive in multiple forms; transport and support vehicles such as tractors and pesticide sprayers are some of the few machines that are quite commonplace in any paddy-field across the island.
Learning that the automation of agricultural vehicles being used to increase productivity (Edan et al., 2009, p. 1112) is of no surprise as the paddy fields are often located in sprawling open spaces (as the farmers have chosen spaces with unobstructed sunlight for the crops) which allows ease of access to GPS and satellite images used in plotting navigation routes accurately for the machinery (Gan & Lee, 2018, p. 3). This leads to the labour of farmers being utilized efficiently but other factors that are less predictable than farming routes that require a different technological stack, namely pests, exist.
Farmers generally deal with pests on a situational basis of using sweep nets, beat sheets, and other such methods that often come at a cost to the plants as well (Slugging Costly Pests with Potential to Damage Plants and Contaminate Grain, 2020). Due to the lack of technology in Sri Lanka, one of the ways the farmers had to deal with the invasive species “Fall Army Worm, Lepidoptera; Noctuidae)” (MOYAL et al., 2011, p. 920) was to quarantine and set-ablaze to entire sections of crops (Rajapakse, 2019) which leads to not just the destruction of crops but also the livelihood of farmers, a more technical and focused approach is in dire need.
The technology of Computer Vision has developed at a rapid pace but identifying pests simply using the aid of natural light can be proven to be difficult due to the camouflaging of certain pests. This can be solved using NIR (Near-infrared) and UV (Ultra-violet) spectrums that provide easier contrast for identification (Liu & Chahl, 2018, p. 15). This Computer Vision technology can also be deployed to other areas such as “crop growth monitoring, disease control, automatic harvesting, quality testing, automated management of modern farms and the monitoring of farmland information with UAV” (Tian et al., 2020, p.
. This allows for early detection which supplements the farmers' continuous efforts in dispatching pests. One of the final but significant risks that farmers deal with are referred to as Acts-of-Gods in legal terms, being Climate Change and rapidly changing weather (Scialabba & Müller-Lindenlauf, 2010, p. 161).The increase of the unpredictability of weather due to Climate Change is the bane of the farmers worldwide but also disproportionately affects countries around the tropics which means the farmers of countries like Sri Lanka will have to face the severity of the issue at a unprecedented scale (Martin, 2020). The fact that Sri Lanka is ranked 6th on the Global Climate Risk Index of 2020, making the country extremely susceptible to extreme weather events does not provide any shelter from this crisis as well (Eckstein et al., 2019, p. 10). Artificial Intelligence-powered by Neural Networks used in other fields have more than a 99.3% accuracy in predicting weather results in short periods (Sabzehgar et al., 2020, p. 101629) and this can be translated into an Early-Warning System that could be used in helping the farmers brace for the impending crisis. This reduces the loss of crops for farmers and allows them to manage the growth of crows to a different weather pattern after data is collected continuously in the long term.
Dealing with the three issues of automation of labor, pests’ detection and weather prediction using technologies will be able to solve the unnecessary loss of food that Sri Lanka is facing now, especially during times when food security is an issue faced by the entire world (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations et al., 2020, pp. 1–3). Sri Lanka is poised to succeed with cutting edge technology since the ingenuity and determination of farmers was described by the popular Sinhala proverb as “ගොවියා මඩ සොදා ගත් කල, රජකමට සුදුයි” (/goviyā maḍa sodā gat kala, rajakamaṭa sudusuyi/) meaning, a farmer once the dirt is washed off, is suitable for royalty.
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