Robotics transforms farming, addressing safety concerns

[October 01, 2022]  By Zeta Cross | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – As farming advances with technology, so do the dangers that come with it.

Many believe that farming is still stuck in the past but the future is already happening. Robotics and new technologies are transforming agriculture. Tractors that don’t need drivers are already out in fields. There are drones and self-driving equipment of all sizes and shapes.

“It’s really, really exciting. In the next 10, 20, 30 years, agriculture as a whole is going to shift,” Salah Issa, assistant professor in agricultural & biological engineering at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, told The Center Square. “There is so much technology, so much innovation, that is focused on agriculture.”

Issa’s specialty and focus is understanding agriculture safety and preventing farm accidents. Issa said the research and development stage is the time to incorporate safety and accident prevention in the high-tech farm equipment that is currently on the manufacturers drawing boards.
 

The last time technology transformed farming was in 1896, when the first tractor was introduced, Issa said. It took years for farmers to give up their horses and mules. By the late 1930s, most farmers finally transitioned to tractors. Unfortunately, it took 40 years of tractor accidents and fatalities for tractor rollover prevention (ROP) to be mandated for manufacturers in the 1970s.

However, half of the tractors currently in Illinois still do not have ROP.

In the past 20 years, 200 farmers in Illinois have lost their lives in tractor rollovers. Many have sustained severe injuries. Issa does not want to see safety and accident prevention lag behind in the same way as new high tech farm equipment is being developed.

“What is important to me, as we are adopting all this incredible technology, is that we don’t forget about safety,” Issa said.

As Issa and his colleagues work to develop best practices and help design safer equipment, they are seeking input from farmers and farm operators. Issa is one of the organizers of the Safety for Emerging Robotics and Autonomous Agriculture Workshop, which will be held in Urbana on Nov. 9-10. The workshop will include farmers, academics, equipment manufacturers and government regulators. Topics include research needs, gaps in knowledge, risk, insurability, regulations and policy.

More than 80% of the new digital technologies are still in the research and testing phase. That means there is a unique opportunity to figure out how to make the new equipment safer before it hits the marketplace.

"When people hear that 10 people in Illinois are killed every year in tractor accidents, that is deceiving," Issa said. “There are severe injuries and amputations as well as fatalities. We do not know how many there are because there is no database.”

When one fatality occurs in a community, it causes a ripple effect, Issa said. That death impacts the farmer and the family and the community. Lives are changed. People feel the impact of that death for years, Issa said.

“The goal is to reach zero fatalities,” he said.