Robots with AI brains now sorting tomatoes and garlic on farms
An Indian company is building smart machines that automatically sort and grade vegetables. The technology already works for onions and potatoes—now tomatoes and garlic are next.
A farm robotics company in Pune, India, is developing machines powered by artificial intelligence (AI)—computer software that can learn and make decisions like a human—to automatically sort and grade tomatoes and garlic.
Right now, sorting vegetables by quality is done mostly by hand. Workers look at hundreds of tomatoes or garlic bulbs and separate them into different grades based on size, color, and defects. It's slow, tiring work. The new machines use cameras and AI software to do this job faster and more consistently. The company, called Agrograde, already offers this service for onions, potatoes, apples, and arecanuts (a tropical nut). Now they're expanding to harder-to-sort crops like tomatoes and garlic.
Why does this matter? Farmers waste time and money on manual sorting. If these AI machines work well, they could save farmers hours of labor and reduce waste. For buyers—grocery stores, restaurants, and consumers—it could mean fresher produce and fewer bruised vegetables reaching supermarket shelves.
This is part of a bigger trend: artificial intelligence is moving beyond smartphones and computers into farms and food production. The real test will be whether these machines work reliably in real farm conditions and whether they're affordable enough for most farmers to use.
Original source: BusinessLine