Small Robot Company - An opportunity for farmers to own shares in us

[Devil's advocate]

Quad bikes are surprisingly unstable in my experience.

fair comment

 

[Fuzzy]

yes 2012 it seems - wonder why it didn't take off ?

https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/fendt-demos-driverless-tractor

Everyone switched to Direct Drilling !!!

and it makes for one hell of a nightmare when you need to move between say 6 blocks of land(or fields) with them all about field 3 miles apart, with only one driver available !!

 

[Exfarmer]

Everyone switched to Direct Drilling !!!

and it makes for one hell of a nightmare when you need to move between say 6 blocks of land(or fields) with them all about field 3 miles apart, with only one driver available !!

Wouldn’t the second one just follow? Not sure what her majesty’s finest would think though

 

[Clive]

Everyone switched to Direct Drilling !!!

and it makes for one hell of a nightmare when you need to move between say 6 blocks of land(or fields) with them all about field 3 miles apart, with only one driver available !!

If I was following a plough with a cultivator etc it would be a no brainer but you are right more people moved towards one pass direct drill type systems etc

You would think it would have been ideally for the veg guys though ? bedtillers etc running autonomously ahead of a destoner etc ?

Did it actually make commercial reality in the UK ? the article suggests it did but I cant recall ever being aware ts was something I could buy ?

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Well done for trying

I think however you need to make some fundamental adjustments to your concept to stand any chance of it working. Wheat farming is a broad acre occupation and the weed burden is high and interspersed with the growing crop. Take a look at a picture of black grass in wheat. The idea that you can have a robot take high resolution imagery across thousands of acres, process that data using image recognition technology and then send out another robot to zap the weeds electronically is nonsensical.

1. The precision required would be in the mm range way beyond current DGPS
2. A growing crop is dynamic. By the time you get the imagery, process it and come back to do the zapping the image will have changed
3. It actually takes a lot of electric to kill a plant. Take a look at where an electric fence touches grass. It goes yellow but then recovers. Your battery might last 1m2 with the power required.
4. The data storage requirements and processing capacity is of the chart.

I think if you changed your mindset to a broad acre approach that recognized weeds or disease in generality and applied varying rates of herbicide and fungicide real time without a second pass you could be more successfull.

Also the amount of vegetables grown may be lower than cereals but the demand to reduce Labour is exponentially higher. The majority of cereal farmers will not part with their tractors. The majority of vegetable growers would send their Eastern Europeans home tommorow even if the technology came at a premium.

PS. If you could develop a robot that recognized stones and zapped them into thin air you would be an absolute legend.

Thanks for the detailed response. These are all sensible objections and clearly all things that we will need to overcome if we are to be successful. We think we have good answers to all of your four key issues, and the other key point I would re-iterate is that technology is developing so quickly that certain things we think are going to be huge issues today end up not being a problem.

I would also re-iterate that, in our view, the goal for robotics and AI is digitisation, not labour automation. Even though labour automation is the obvious big issue at the moment, long term the gains possible with a digital farm are far greater.

However, you may well be proven to be 100% right on all of the above points. What I hear very little disagreement on from farmers is that IF we were right and we could do everything we are aiming for, then our farms would be better. I prefer to start out with a bold vision and be open minded as to how that idea develops.

The feedback is massively appreciated.

 

[oil barron]

Thanks for the detailed response. These are all sensible objections and clearly all things that we will need to overcome if we are to be successful. We think we have good answers to all of your four key issues, and the other key point I would re-iterate is that technology is developing so quickly that certain things we think are going to be huge issues today end up not being a problem.

I would also re-iterate that, in our view, the goal for robotics and AI is digitisation, not labour automation. Even though labour automation is the obvious big issue at the moment, long term the gains possible with a digital farm are far greater.

However, you may well be proven to be 100% right on all of the above points. What I hear very little disagreement on from farmers is that IF we were right and we could do everything we are aiming for, then our farms would be better. I prefer to start out with a bold vision and be open minded as to how that idea develops.

The feedback is massively appreciated.

I agree that digitization potential is huge. But for wheat it is on the macro level looking at say 50m2 and varying inputs based on image recognition, weather patterns and historic data. Trying to do it down to the plant level in wheat is obscene

 

[radar]

Hi - I'm Sam, fourth generation arable farmer and co-founder of Small Robot Company.

We're a really exciting British AgriTech Startup trying to change the way we think about and manage our farms.

When I founded this business in 2017, I wanted farmers to be right at the centre of everything we do, to make sure that we are really solving problems for farmers.

We've come a long way in the last two years, but we still have a lot of development work to do before we get there. Which is why I am asking farmers to support us.

There's loads happening in AgriTech at the moment, but it is very rare that farmers get the opportunity to buy shares in these new businesses or to have a say in how these new technologies shape their industry and their businesses.

We don't think that that's right.

At Small Robot Company, you can do both. Very soon, there will be an opportunity to buy shares in Small Robot Company. As an investor, you can also join the Small Robot Company "100 Club" and be one of our first 100 customers, with a chance to get involved in deciding how these robots work on your farm.

We will shortly be launching a Crowdcube campaign, but you have to be on our mailing list to get first access.

If you're interested, send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll send you all the details you need.

Please leave a comment on this video or get in touch if you have any questions. I'll post another video with more details soon.

Hi - I'm Sam, fourth generation arable farmer and co-founder of Small Robot Company.

We're a really exciting British AgriTech Startup trying to change the way we think about and manage our farms.

When I founded this business in 2017, I wanted farmers to be right at the centre of everything we do, to make sure that we are really solving problems for farmers.

We've come a long way in the last two years, but we still have a lot of development work to do before we get there. Which is why I am asking farmers to support us.

There's loads happening in AgriTech at the moment, but it is very rare that farmers get the opportunity to buy shares in these new businesses or to have a say in how these new technologies shape their industry and their businesses.

We don't think that that's right.

At Small Robot Company, you can do both. Very soon, there will be an opportunity to buy shares in Small Robot Company. As an investor, you can also join the Small Robot Company "100 Club" and be one of our first 100 customers, with a chance to get involved in deciding how these robots work on your farm.

We will shortly be launching a Crowdcube campaign, but you have to be on our mailing list to get first access.

If you're interested, send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll send you all the details you need.

Please leave a comment on this video or get in touch if you have any questions. I'll post another video with more details soon.

Hi - I'm Sam, fourth generation arable farmer and co-founder of Small Robot Company.

We're a really exciting British AgriTech Startup trying to change the way we think about and manage our farms.

When I founded this business in 2017, I wanted farmers to be right at the centre of everything we do, to make sure that we are really solving problems for farmers.

We've come a long way in the last two years, but we still have a lot of development work to do before we get there. Which is why I am asking farmers to support us.

There's loads happening in AgriTech at the moment, but it is very rare that farmers get the opportunity to buy shares in these new businesses or to have a say in how these new technologies shape their industry and their businesses.

We don't think that that's right.

At Small Robot Company, you can do both. Very soon, there will be an opportunity to buy shares in Small Robot Company. As an investor, you can also join the Small Robot Company "100 Club" and be one of our first 100 customers, with a chance to get involved in deciding how these robots work on your farm.

We will shortly be launching a Crowdcube campaign, but you have to be on our mailing list to get first access.

If you're interested, send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll send you all the details you need.

Please leave a comment on this video or get in touch if you have any questions. I'll post another video with more details soon.

Hi Sam
Just heard an interview with you on Lincs FM farming programme and my ears pricked up when I heard the name Watson Jones and Shropshire.
Back in 1973 I worked as a student on the Plymouth Estates nr Ludlow with an other student Andrew Watson Jones -relative- father or god forbid grandfather I assume?

 

[yellow belly]

Robotic weeding in wheat for herbicide resistant weed control
Will be needed within 10 years or so when flufenacet and Avadex has resistance issues
Pendemethalin may be gone within 2 years
It would also fit in with bean crops which have limited weed control chemicals

With the likely removal of chlothanilal and resistance of single site fungicides and no likely replacement disease control will be from variety resistance and later planting
So the crop sprayer may be a rare sight in a couple of decades

 

[Farmer-George]

Following

 

[SmallRobotCo]

Hi Sam
Just heard an interview with you on Lincs FM farming programme and my ears pricked up when I heard the name Watson Jones and Shropshire.
Back in 1973 I worked as a student on the Plymouth Estates nr Ludlow with an other student Andrew

Hi Sam
Just heard an interview with you on Lincs FM farming programme and my ears pricked up when I heard the name Watson Jones and Shropshire.
Back in 1973 I worked as a student on the Plymouth Estates nr Ludlow with an other student Andrew Watson Jones -relative- father or god forbid grandfather I assume?

Yes that was Dad - he often talks about the great times he had on the Plymouth Estates and I rib him for not even managing to leave the county on his gap year... I'm sure he'd love to be put back in touch - send me a message with your e-mail and I'll pass it on.