Robotic research that could prevent weather from wiping out crops at risk of being cut

Severe weather can devastate crops and the solution could be a robot.

Robot can do what human farmers have never been able to do before: collect huge amounts of data on plants.

“We're personalizing drugs and treatments for individual cancer patients. Well, we’re doing the same thing in agriculture,” said Zach Brenton, a scientist with Clemson University. “We're individualizing plants for every single farmer and every single usage.”

Florida's citrus crop is always at risk of being destroyed by severe weather storms, cold or drought.

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A cold snap killed much of Georgia's 2017 peach production.

Robots could eventually protect produce from being wiped out by those kinds of extreme weather events.

“There’s going to be a significant impact on our ability to actually create climate resilient crops that has a huge impact to the general public,” said Dr. Joe Cornelius, program director for ARPA-E’s energy department.

But the future of this research is at risk

The robot research is funded by the Energy Department.

Advanced Research Projects Agency leads high risk research that can solve problems in the private sector.

But its budget was zeroed out in the president's budget blue print.

“I’m just a scientist, I’m not a politician, but what I would say is that the return on the investment for the taxpayer is really phenomenal,” Brenton said.

The government's own internal auditors at the GAO predicted in a report just last month that increases in extreme weather events will cost the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars.

Scientist say the program could help farmers adapt to climate change.

“The farmers can stay profitable. They can keep doing what they want to do and make a living,” said George Kantor, from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The new technology will help farmers keep this critical part of the American economy going into the future.

Cox Media Group