Driverless Tractors to Pave the Future of Chinese Agriculture?

A combine harvester buzzes across a field without a driver on board, chopping golden rice stalks and offering a glimpse of what China's authorities say is the future of the nation's agricultural sector.

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The Chinese Government is encouraging companies to develop, within seven years, a fully automated machine capable of planting, fertilizing and harvesting rice, wheat and corn.

This push for the introduction of science into traditional production is key, as China faces an aging rural workforce and a shortage of young people willing to endure the difficulties associated with working the land.

"Automated farming is the way to go and the demand here is huge," Cheng Yue, the Changzhou Dongfeng tractors manufacturer's manager, said.

However, the road to automation is still full of obstacles such as high costs, different types of land textures and farm sizes.

"I've heard of driverless tractors, but I do not think they're practical, especially the big ones," Li Guoyong, a wheat producer in Hebei Province, said and explained that farms in his area are only a few hectares in size.

To achieve the ambitious seven-year policy goal, the Chinese Government is pushing for local testing, which will be organized by the Telematics Industry Application Alliance (TIAA).

The conglomerate of TIAA companies includes YTO, a state-owned company which developed its first driverless tractor in 2017 and aims to start mass production soon, Lei Jun, an executive of the company's technology center, said.

"China is expected to climb the autonomous technological ladder very quickly, mainly because its companies can access the local navigation satellite system [Beidou], which gives them an advantage over their international peers,," Alexious Lee, head of China Industrial Research at Hong Kong brokerage CLSA, commented.

The agricultural uses of Telematics - a branch of information technology dealing with the long-distance transmission of information - will contribute to fulfilling 'Made in China 2025', a campaign to promote the vast majority of China's farm equipment being produced domestically by that year.