Berry Farms Are Employing Robots With Very Gentle Hands To Pick Raspberries

Fieldwork Robots, a spin-out company of the University of Plymouth, has developed two robots that are gentle enough to pick raspberries. The robots are employed in a field down in Odemira in southern Portugal by Summer Berry Company, a British brand.

The berries that have been harvested are currently being sold in supermarkets around Britain.  

Standing at five feet and 11 inches, it uses its octopus-like 3D-printed plastic arms to gently pick raspberries. Raspberries have incredibly soft skin and grow on tall bushes. This gentle nature of raspberries means that they are notoriously hard to harvest.

Costing £2 million (US$2.5 million) to develop, their main purpose serves as a filler for the seasonal shortage of workers throughout Europe. The UK intends to issue 30,000 visas lasting six months for the horticulture industry. However, the trade body of British Summer Fruits claims that the number of visas is too small and is insisting another 10,000 be issued, according to Grocery Gazette.

Each robot can currently pick up to two pounds of fruit in an hour, and the company is working hard to boost that number up to eight pounds. This would significantly increase the number of raspberries picked to 25,000 a day by a robot, which is 10,000 more than a human could.

This potentially raises the question if these robots will eventually take jobs away from honest workers. But as farmers are finding a hard time in finding harvesters during off-seasons, could there be a happy middle for both? 

[via The Guardian and Grocery Gazette, cover image by the University of Plymouth]