The Nams tomato plants are growing luxuriantly, full of fruit, but the buzz of insects is absent: ‘Polly’, a robot, has taken care of pollinating the flowers. The greenhouse of the Finnish agricultural company ‘Agrifutura’ is the first in the world to use robotic pollination technology thanks to robots from the Israeli company ‘Arugga AI Farming’. Polly replicates the ‘buzz pollination’ practised by bumblebees: the insects vibrate the flower, causing pollen to be released. Equipped with cameras with artificial intelligence-based vision, Polly recognises flowers ready for pollination and subjects it to pulses of compressed air that stimulate an insect-like vibration. In Finland, with longer, darker days and the need for artificial lighting, Polly has enabled a 10% increase in yield compared to bumblebees, which also require constant management. There are also ongoing experiments for vegetable harvesting and for monitoring and combating pests: the use of robots reduces the use of chemicals, thus improving the sustainability of production. Are robots the future of greenhouse horticulture? Beyond high environmental and animal welfare standards and practices, the Finnish agricultural sector is already characterised by the use of modern technology, but it also has significant profitability challenges. Finland is proportionately the most forested country in Europe, with 75% of its land covered by forests: 95% of Finland is categorised as ‘rural areas’, hosting around 39.5% of the total population, and there are around 44500 agricultural holdings, with an average farm size of 51 hectares (Agrifutura is 4,6 hectares). Around 14.4% of Finland’s agricultural land is dedicated to organic farming.
Read more on Nams.fi, Arugga.com, Agriculture.ec.europa.eu
