New Holland is taking another step towards autonomous equipment through its partnership with Bluewhite, an autonomous technology company. Bluewhite has designed and developed an aftermarket kit customers can install onto a New Holland tractor to make it autonomous. “This is particularly for vineyard and orchard growers,” Paul Welbig, director of precision technology for New Holland Agriculture North America, told the Farms.com Precision Ag Digital Digest. “It’s a slick solution to be able to retrofit existing tractors to help solve labor issues.” To briefly put labor challenges into context, surveys of U.S. farmers showed the percentage of producers reporting labor shortages increased from 14 percent in 2014 to 41 percent in in 2018. And in Canada, reports project a domestic labor gap of more than 100,000 people by 2030. Bluewhite estimates its autonomous technology can provide up to 85 percent savings in inputs, labor and maintenance costs. Bluewhite’s system is ideal for tractors in New Holland’s T4 F/V Series. 04 NEW HOLLAND AND BLUEWHITE JOIN FORCES The Partnership Will Allow Some New Holland Tractors to Operate Autonomously DIEGO FLAMMINI FARMS.COM
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