Western Australia's largest blueberry grower is turning to artificial intelligence and autonomous technology to reduce labour costs and ease the challenge of finding enough workers during the peak harvest period.
Earlier this year, Australia's food producers raised concerns about the federal government's slower visa processing times and limits on working holiday maker numbers, saying the changes could reduce access to seasonal labour.
Western Berry's blueberry operation is 100 kilometres north of Perth and spans 120 hectares.
This year it will produce just under 1,500 tonnes of blueberries bound for supermarkets across Australia and Asia.
Its owners, the Kwiecien-Fisher family, are in a significant expansion phase and hope to triple production in the coming years.
But producing more fruit will also require more workers, something many horticultural businesses say is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive.
Technology part of the labour solution
The family hopes innovations like driverless tractors, machine harvesting and eventually artificial intelligence will help ease the challenges.
Operations manager Marek Kwiecien-Fisher said the company was trialling autonomous technology as much as it could on the property.
It is using driverless, self-navigating tractors to do foliar spraying of the berries and laser-guided "green on brown" weed control on the ground, and to perform tasks such as hauling berries from the field to the pack house.
"Then in the packing we use a lot of autonomy in photographic packing, grading solutions and autonomous punnetising," Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said.
With autonomous technology now more accessible than ever, farmers across various food industries are determining how self-guided machinery can fit into their businesses, and the balance between people and machines on the farm.
Driverless tractors use GPS mapping, sensors and cameras to navigate predetermined routes and can also be operated remotely.
Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said they were an expensive outlay and time consuming when learning how to set up and operate, but he believed they had a firm future on the farm.
Data generated from the pack house is also proving invaluable.
"Even things that we didn't think that we were gaining data on has the ability to show us how we'll operate next year, and what areas we could fill the gaps in, either our production or our supply models or our customer requirements," Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said.
Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said future options for technology use on the property could go as far as humanoid robots pruning plants and AI modelling of future crops.
"If we can teach an AI model where to prune and how to prune, and if that can teach a humanoid robot where to prune and how to prune, you basically get rid of any damage to your drip lines, trellising, your pruning equipment, your plants and it becomes a very precise farming technique," he said.
"The pruning basically sets how much fruit we're going to pick next year, so it's one of the largest indicators of how we can forecast our volumes and our production for the coming season.
"We're [also] looking at autonomous mowing, flower counts and crop health detection systems, so cameras that look at the crop [can] check for poor irrigation."
Growing in the family
While technology is playing an increasingly important role in the business, Western Berry remains firmly family-run.
Almost 30 years ago Derek Fisher and his wife Barbara wanted space for their young family and purchased what is now one part of the farm.
It was a former ostrich property that they initially planted with olives in 2001, but a successful trial of one hectare of blueberries resulted in them changing course and moving into the blueberry industry.
Now their three sons, Adam, Marek and Tom Kwiecien-Fisher, run the business. Adam is in charge of supply chain and packing, Tom oversees the design and construction of new farm areas, and Marek manages operations.
In 2021, the family struck an agreement with global agricultural company United Exports and Oz Varieties, giving them access to the unique OZblu blueberry genetics.
Ripe berries fall off the plant easily, but not before they are ready, which is key for successful machine harvesting.
The property is working with two harvesters. The latest model is battery-operated, solar-powered and controlled via remote control, collecting fruit and stacking trays by itself.
"Eventually, we will be using AI learning to make this machine autonomous so we can press a button and it drives itself," Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said.
A harvesting machine can pick up to 6 tonnes of blueberries a day at a cost of about 50 cents a kilogram, compared with about $6 a kilogram for hand picking.
He said machinery and autonomous technology service provision was creating a new employment industry within agriculture.
"There's a huge opportunity for computer science specialists, people that actually understand how to operate AI, people that understand how to operate those machines."
But Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said at most half of their crop would be machine harvested, and pickers remained a very important asset to the business.
Western Berry employs more than 200 people to pick its crop, making it one of the largest employers in the region.
"We are growing at a rate and expanding at a rate that our full employment numbers are growing faster than tech is replacing jobs, and just because we have tech doesn't mean that workers aren't required," Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said.
