Autonomous Growing: A Win-Win for Team and Company
More and more companies in horticulture are starting to use autonomous growing in their CEA operations. But why do they choose to work with artificial intelligence (AI) in the greenhouse from a business perspective? Three CEOs share their views.
Defining Autonomous Growing
Using AI makes it possible to grow crops in greenhouses autonomously. Village Farms, a company that grows tomatoes and cannabis on 92 hectares, uses autonomous growing in their daily operations. Since the lack of sufficient growers is a big problem in the United States and Canada, autonomous growing makes it easier to keep things moving in greenhouses.
Mike DeGiglio
“Finding world-class growers is an almost impossible task. Autonomous growing solves that problem, provided you get everyone within the organization on board,” says Mike DeGiglio, CEO of Village Farms. “Because it should not be imposed by the CEO of the company. Only if it is widely embraced and seen as an important tool for the future, it can be a success.”
Personal Service Feels Like a Partnership
“A bit of personal guidance from Blue Radix helps with this. They know how [autonomous growing] works and they can give the users that bit of extra confidence and support,” DeGiglio says. “Also, some growers are a little more conservative than others and need an extra push. In any case, it’s good if someone can look over your shoulder every now and then. But that personal service also ensures that the collaboration feels like a partnership that you enter together.”
DeGiglio has experience in the aviation industry, and he’s noticed parallels between his former career and autonomous growing. “Crop Controller is, in fact, the grower’s co-pilot who ensures that he is not alone. And that co-pilot will continue to develop. It’s collecting more and more data, and becoming increasingly smarter,” he says. “Ultimately, this should lead to the co-pilot developing into a captain and allowing you to hand over the stick at night, weekends and holidays for a more balanced life. This evolution requires some patience and trust.”
Better Yield
CEO Theo van Noord from Noordhuys Tomatoes in the Netherlands firmly believes in the potential of AI to enhance crop cultivation. “AI solutions can store and process more information and data than a human,” he says. “With this data, AI can make the best possible decision for the crop. A person is limited in processing information and therefore makes a decision with less complete information compared to AI solutions.”
Theo van Noord
Noordhuys Tomatoes has a total of 38.5 hectares of tomatoes spread over four growing locations. The company works with autonomous growing at these facilities, and Van Noord is enthusiastic about it.
“The system helps our growers manage more area than before. This is possible because AI ensures that the climate is controlled at least as well as a specialist can do this,” he says. “The grower also has more time for other tasks, allowing the company to work more efficiently. autonomous growing also realizes even better results in terms of yield. Based on more information, fewer mistakes are made which helps the crop specialist to have a better grow management of the crop. Production increases more and more.”
Marion van Gog, CEO at Van Gog Kwekerijen, agrees. The company grows cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and strawberries in Germany and the Netherlands. According to Van Gog, autonomous growing is indispensable to further scale up production in the coming years.
Marion van Gog
“Growers are becoming increasingly scarce and the people we employ are coming under increasing pressure. I therefore see autonomous growing as an important tool to support our growers in the greenhouses,” Van Gog says. “Because it’s more difficult to find new qualified people, we would like to keep our employees on board for a longer period of time. Thanks to Blue Radix’s Autonomous Growing system, our growers can occasionally go home an hour earlier or take a weekend off. Overall, we can reduce the burden on our specialists, while they can now manage 20 hectares instead of 5 hectares. A win-win for the employees and the company.”
Growers Enjoy Working This Way
Van Gog implies the company likes to be at the forefront of new developments, including autonomous growing. In 2023, the AI solution was rolled out in Germany, followed this year by locations in the Netherlands.
“We also explicitly involve our employees in these changes and see that they enjoy working in this new way. They do not see Artificial Intelligence as a threat, but rather as a support that only makes work more pleasant. The expectations for the coming years are therefore high,” Van Gog says. “One person can be responsible for more hectares. Repetitive tasks and analysis of data by employees will decrease and the system ensures fewer mistakes are being made. Yield results will improve even more.”
The social aspect of autonomous growing encourages entrepreneurs to take the next step. DeGiglio also points out the happiness of his employees as the main reason why he started using Crop Controller.
“You should not underestimate the work of a grower today. It is so comprehensive that it requires attention seven days a week. You can no longer demand that of people, they also have a social life,” he says. “We want our employees to enjoy their work and thanks to autonomous growing, we can take the pressure off. This allows them to be home more often. If the family is happy, the employees are too. That also has a positive influence on the company as a whole, because happy people tend to work more effectively, and we can prevent them from leaving us.”
Keep Making Progress
Van Gog envisions a future where climate, water, energy and CO2 come together, working seamlessly with all cameras and sensors in the greenhouse.
“We have to get the most out of AI together,” Van Gog says. “For me, the added value of autonomous growing is not so much in kilos of product, but more in making the work easier, so that we can continue to grow as a company even if we have fewer people available.”