Why UK growers need robots to survive

Producing fresh fruits and vegetables has always been a very manual process, involving thousands of seasonal workers during harvest season.

That way of working is now heavily challenged in the UK. Finding and affording seasonal workers is getting increasingly difficult for growers, leaving the industry with few other options than to automate to keep farms running and food affordable in the future.

“If nothing is done, it will start to put downward pressure on the volume of fruit that we can produce here in the UK,” says Nick Marston, chairman of British Berry Growers.

The challenges affect growers of all kinds in the UK’s horticulture industry, which relies on an estimated 70,000 seasonal workers annually – with 95 per cent coming from outside the UK. But since Brexit and Covid, finding these workers gets tougher every year.

Combined with sharply rising labour costs for national living wages and employers’ national insurance contributions, the cost of producing food is reaching new heights and squeezing growers’ profit margins.

“The cost of production has gone up substantially, by about 30 per cent, in just three to four years,” Marston says. “We rely almost exclusively on seasonal workers coming here on visa schemes, and that workforce is beginning to diminish.”

He points out how growers that used to get seasonal workers from countries like Poland now have to look as far as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan during the harvesting season. “We find ourselves going further and further overseas to source seasonal workers, which creates management challenges on top of the basic logistics,” he adds. “The next stage is robotics. In the long term, it is absolutely crucial.”

And he’s not alone in thinking this way. Robot adoption in agriculture is picking up speed worldwide, with sales jumping no less than 21 per cent in 2023, according to the latest data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

New automation opportunities

Robotics and automation technology are still new to most fresh produce growers. However, this is starting to change. From harvesting to packing, the range of applications that robots can handle is expanding rapidly, and the technology is becoming more robust, according to Mikkel Viager, principal advisor at HowToRobot, who frequently visits businesses to provide an impartial and objective assessment of their automation opportunities.

“Automation technology has recently become a lot more flexible and better at handling the typical variations in farm products,” he says, recommending that growers get an up-to-date view of what parts of their operation can be feasibly automated today.

“Tasks that may have seemed impossible to automate a few years ago are now feasible for more growers; it’s just about finding the best place to start and aiming for the right level of automation.”

The opportunities span the whole farm operation, from field to packhouse. Robots can now help with planting and pruning, spraying and weeding crops, and even picking delicate fruits.

Some are already working on UK farms, though adoption is still in the early stages. Other examples include UV treatment systems for disease management and automated systems for tasks like runner cutting.

“Even if you are financially restrained, you ought to go see the demonstrations and keep in touch with what’s going on, because it is definitely coming,” says Marston.

Understanding the potential

One of the biggest barriers to automation isn’t technology, it’s awareness, and many growers underestimate how much of their operation could already be automated with today’s technology.

There’s a surprising amount of potential already sitting on most farms. Often, it’s just a matter of knowing where to start and how to match the right tech to the operation.

While proven solutions exist for many farm operations, most growers lack the time and expertise to navigate the complex technology landscape. Through working with fresh produce businesses, HowToRobot has found that structured automation workshops over just a few days can dramatically accelerate the process.

What we’ve learned is that growers often get stuck trying to figure out where to start, which solutions might work, and whether they’ll be good investments. But when they get help to find and prioritise their opportunities, scope projects, and get budgetary quotes from multiple suppliers, it removes a lot of the uncertainty and makes the path to a solution much clearer.

Financing automation is also becoming easier. Instead of paying everything upfront, more growers are now leasing automation solutions – turning large investments into manageable monthly costs while still getting the full benefits.

The tools are already out there. The most important step is getting started.

Søren Peters is the founder and co-CEO of HowToRobot, a vendor-independent advisory and platform that helps companies succeed with automation and find the right suppliers and solutions