While the use of new technologies to meet the demand for food from a growing global population seems to garner most of the attention these days, the more immediate challenge for farmers is coping with the growing labor shortages and the cost of regulations.

Robots are becoming uncaged, mobile, collaborative and increasingly intelligent and dexterous, moving beyond their traditional strongholds to bring automation to previously inaccessible tasks. Agriculture is also no exception and is being quietly transformed by this rising new robotics.

The market for agricultural robots is developing at a rapid pace, with a large number of established and startup agricultural technology companies developing, piloting, and launching an innovative range of robotic systems to tackle a wide variety of tasks.