The technological advancements within this industry which Service Dealer is lucky enough to report on, truly are at the cutting edge of science and innovation.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was talking about how the commercial groundscare industry is likely to see an increased use of robotics to assist their work. In public green spaces, the sight of a lone robot, quietly trundling around, going about their grass-cutting business, looks like becoming increasingly common.

In the agricultural machinery industry of course, high-tech, precision farming technology is already the norm. But a story caught my eye this week which is taking it to another level.

In a world-first, members of Harper Adams University engineering staff, supported and led by precision farming specialist Precision Decisions Ltd, are attempting to grow and harvest a hectare of cereal crops - all without stepping a foot into the field!

The concept is that an entire field will be farmed solely by robots.

The project entitled ‘Hands Free Hectare’ has recently got underway, with the team having to create their first autonomous farming machinery, ready for drilling a spring crop in March.

Kit Franklin, one of the researchers, said, “As a team, we believe there is now no technological barrier to automated field agriculture. This project gives us the opportunity to prove this and change current public perception.

“Previously, people have automised sections of agricultural systems, but funding and interest generally only goes towards one single area. We’re hoping to string everything together to create one whole system, which will allow us to farm our hectare of cereal crop from establishment to harvest, without having to go into the field."

If they pull this off, this will be a remarkable achievement. Surely just a few years ago, notions such as this would've been dismissed as being from the realms of science fiction?

But with experts such as these pushing research in the labs, and with manufacturers now looking to develop smarter, more precise machinery (rather than just going for bigger and bigger), these ideas are now very much part of the real world. The students in this case will be using small-scale machinery that is already available on the market, and adapting them in the university’s engineering department ready for the field work.

I suppose a justifiable fear many people have when hearing about increased automation though, in any industry, is the cost this has on jobs which were previously carried out by, you know, humans. We all know what it's like in airports and supermarkets nowadays, row and rows of machines and just a solitary person hanging around waiting to help if the machine goes wrong.

The team of this new project argue that it's not as simplistic as that though. It's about adapting people's roles to fit in with this advanced technology,

Kit Franklin said, "It’s not about putting people out of jobs; instead changing the job they do. The tractor driver won’t be physically in the tractor driving up and down a field. Instead, they will be a fleet manager and agricultural analysts, looking after a number of farming robots and meticulously monitoring the development of their crops."

Which is great to hear not only because people will be keeping their jobs, but also because concepts like this must surely be appealing to young people looking to start a career? The brightest and the best, graduating from university now will be able to view the agricultural machinery industry, and indeed the grass machinery industry, as a viable, vibrant sector worthy of their talents,

As long as someone tells them about it of course!