Kubota Invests In Californian Robotic Ag Technology Company Advanced Farm Technologies

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Kubota announced in late August that it has invested in Advanced Farm Systems, a California-based ag tech company that provide automated robotic strawberry-harvesting services to growers. (Photo courtesy of Kubota.)

In June, agriculture, construction, and specialty-crop equipment manufacturer Kubota created a new Innovation Center with the goal to “offer new value” to customers via “open innovation through collaboration with external partners.” One such partner is Advanced Farm Systems, an ag tech startup based in Davis, California—"the center of the universe in farming innovation”—that wants to bring “cutting-edge robotics to farmers everywhere.” Kubota announced an investment in the company in late August with the intention to assist farming businesses in the United States and elsewhere “in saving labor and increasing work efficiency.”

Open Innovation

Advanced Farm Technologies has also received backing from Yamaha. Currently, the company offers automated robotic strawberry-harvesting services to California growers in which robots “gently handle berries” so that the stem is off, calyx on, and they’re “ready to eat.” The company’s team members previously were involved in Greenbotics, a company that deployed solar panel-cleaning robots to solar farms around the world that SunPower acquired in 2013. Advanced Farm Technologies’ mission is to use robots to improve customers’ costs, quality, and throughput, as well as improve work conditioners and “elevate farm workers to create a generation of robotic farmers and equipment operators.”

Kubota says as part of its open innovation initiative, it’s focused on “harvesting services,” which it says are in high demand among fruit and vegetable farmers. The company says its investment in Advanced Farm Technologies will “strengthen its technological development for labor saving and automation of harvesting operations of strawberries and other fruits and vegetables” while simultaneously ultimately “contributing to labor-saving, efficient farm operations.”

Innovation At Work

While Kubota has established innovation centers in Japan and Europe, it says it’s also considering establishing centers in other regions down the road. The company hopes to advance open innovation through external partners to proactively engage with artificial intelligence, information and communication technology, and other advanced technologies, to speed up the formation of new businesses, products, and services.

You’ll find new and used Kubota farm equipment for sale every day on SpecialtyCropEQ.com.

Source: Kubota