What's incredibly scummy about this is that, this company is charging their customers high a subscription to datamine the farmer's hard won expertise and skills and selling this whole concept as they're doing the farmer a favor. What would be much more impressive is if they bring this subscription down and simplify serviceability. This just seems like they are trying to copy what John Deere is doing by boxing farmers in their tech and exploiting farmers.
What was also funny is when he said that there is a shortage of farmhand workers. It’s more of farmers not being able to afford to pay for these workers not a shortage
to add on to what you said which is very tru..their idea is not novel at all..its the setting that's different that's all. the underlying tech, big data, AI, EV is now widely understood and improving all the time..
As an American dairy farmer I do think large farms are operated like factories we study manufacturing techniques and we have used things like GPS 25 years ago and we milk cows with robots and clean barns and feed with robots on more and more farms. We have specialized labor more and more and drastically increased workers marginal productivity. I work in agtech as well and i am always amazed how far behind general public and VC are when they talk about production ag.
Agtech is a disgrace, it has yet to open the market to small scale farmers... it's only focus is commercial farmers so don't pretend as if agtech does anything for farmers but screw them over
Does your dairy belong to a co-op? If so, do they limit the production of your farm? How does that effect your farm? Have you explored selling to other markets?
@@RicksPhatPharm-vw2lb like what companies? I know plenty of more software Agtech software companies that target small farmers instead of large farmers cuz they charge a subscription and there are so few large farms it makes much more sense to sell to smaller farms. And even if some tarket big farmers instead why is that bad? Lol Companies can't segment and target ideal customers just like what all farmers do?
@@carterchedester1901 Yes DFA largest dairy co-op and yes currently thinking of processing our own and selling locally and online. Around here (northern NY) we have way to much milk for our processing capacity we need to exspand or build new capacity. DFA doesn't limit milk production they just have to then truck it very far and this pay us much less per unit when we sell much over our basis. It's still absolute cake marketing dairy compared to starting any other type of business where you don't have an instant gurentee market for a huge amount of a valuable product. I always laugh when farmers complain about the price, like no one forced you to be a farmers don't like it sell out and try another business.
You understand how Forbes views business practices and morals when they see scummy software subscriptions as a business model as “saving America”. I imagine their business model also includes selling the Geo-agricultural data of farmers to interested companies. The software should be included in the price of the tractor when you purchase the tractor.
Then it'll cost 10x more to pay for their workers for the next 30+ years . Updating software and maintaining servers cost money compared to the very limited amount of farmers that need that hardware.
@reekid5183 ...it costs money to have programmers program. It costs money to own buildings, buildings that host physical computer hardware in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. It costs money to hire maintenance workers for the buildings and servers.... I mean, how do you go through life if you think things just poof into existence? John Deere and New Holland, for instance, spent 3.8% - 4.2% of their GROSS REVENUE into research and development. This accounts for $1 billion in New Holland and $1.5 - $2 billion for John Deere.... every single year. Last I checked, John deere isn't running around every year releasing the new iPhone of tractors.
Once fully tested and scaled up. One of the BIG Tractor companies like Massey Ferguson; Case IH; John Deere or Mahindra will buy them and adapt the new Technology. It will be too good to pass up.
Again for commercial farmers so no it won't take traction as commercial farmers are coming under fire in a huge way. It can't be that a handful of farmers screw everyone else. Farming is the life blood of all economies.. good luck thinking AI can replace farmers
23:10 For a solo electric tractor riding along spraying herbicides, pesticides, would mean that there has to be a tractor wash, to scrub away all the chemicals too, once it's back in the parking bay. To reduce exposure to the human personnel who will be in contact with it for servicing, recharging, etc...
An autonomous tractor is far down the priority list of what farmers need right now. I hope they succeed but I imagine their journey will be long and difficult.
@@slozenger9000 I’m a farmer and am well informed on the agtech industry actually. My point is that, although I’m hoping for their success, I believe this company will struggle for the foreseeable future because farmers won’t prioritize this solution above many other needs they have right now. Farmers will pour their money into harvest solutions first as harvest is by far the largest labor expense. They also need data collection/analytics to optimize labor and also pruning solutions. The expense of operating a tractor to spray, mow, fertilize etc. is low in relation to these other aspects of farming. Farmers do not have capital to invest in all of these areas so I don’t believe autonomous tractors will be high on any farmers list at this point in time. In the future, of course, these will be used and that’s why I’m glad/appreciative they’re working on this. In the near term, it will be hard and that’s was all I was trying to say.
The tractor is no even innovative in what it suppose to do for the farmer. It is just able to pass between the trees. That is so cheap to do just by driving a normal tractor with a person. And far less expensive that buying and using the high-tech tractor.
not even 50 sec in and they are talking about a subscription service. LOL, no thanks. I will stick to making ethanol and wood gas to power my grandads old equipment once they have outlawed gasoline.
Good luck at selling to farmers. I worked in DigitalAg and even if we give very accurate predictions, today I know farmers want get stuff done and guarantees to harvest good crops. All in between dont interest the mass, maybe just the tech interest once. Valuation means nothing as we learned in the last few years. Either the take off real work and proove it or save time - everything else is hot air…
Thats an ignorant statement, you should see the profit margins of the farmers before speaking ill about them. Theyre not the ones making the money its the equipment providers ie CAT, John Deer, Kubota etc and the suppliers ie the ones who by the raw product from the farmers
This Tractor are really a game changer for farmers since it can keep them more safe and it less pollute to the environment that allows more room for more efficient approach this can really bring the shift change into the world. Help bring awareness to farmers so they can the equipment they need to better protect them and give them the tools they need to be successful and to help the future of farmers can have a more healthier impact in the later coming years.
It has revenue of only $22m, valuation of $271m, sold to investors for $116 likely more than half the company for a lawn mover and data collector? I do not see how this will scale...
Valuation means nothing... it's a speculative figure for how much, currently, one WOULD have to pay to buy out the entire company. There is likely plenty of shares still not purchased which is what that valuation is based on.
John Deere has been working and developing this for years as well. Their tractors are much bigger and can cover more acres. This competition is great for the farmers and consumers. May the best company win.
....farmers can unionize and just... not produce food until the law is fixed. It's a contract law issue that needs to be fixed. For instance, my grandparents are dog breeders and have a contract for that sale that prevents the customer from selling the dog, bringing it into another country, or even putting it down without my grandparents permission. The contract even requires them to make the dog infertile to prevent the customer from breeding more dogs. Point is, if it's in a contract, it's 99% of the time legally binding no matter how crazy is sounds.
Save americas farms? Farmer here. Last thing we need is another 8000 dollar per tractor subscription with weekly service fees from the robotics geek to come out to the farm and fix the damn thing. No thanks. Give me back my 1980s equipment.
I just dont see how you can automate tasks that require operators to get off and check how the machine is doing without actually having the driver there. How do you check the depth of seed, the cutting height, or the rate of application of manure when solely relying on what the sensors are telling you at home. The quality of the end result will be lower for sure. Also its all well and good in a vineyard the size of a suburb to turn around but how does it cope when reversing a trailer- a very difficult task for new drivers? Has this been proven yet? Also at 8k per year yes the cost is lower than paying a worker, but while this machine may identify "5 areas to improve" in the field, a human on the ground will notice EVERYTHING as you're eyes are on your task and paying attention to your surroundings will do so intrinsically. Also- a tractor with a cab drastically reduces exposure to the chemicals that are sprayed in vineyards, and if youre not spending 80k dollars in ten years for software support you can then afford to put glass on the cab. Yes this company has potential, and yes autonomous tractors are already the present with GPS guidance and RTK, but damn most of the points they make in this video are painfully redundant.
The distrust towards corporates in agriculture is understandable. Farmers have burnt their fingers quite a few times already. But I hope these people succeed as I have seen first hand the skill shortage in Agriculture even in populous countries like India. This solution if available at decent costs will be of immense help especially to farmers in western countries like USA.
Full disclosure, I write embedded software for John Deere. That being said you’ll get right to repair with things like diagnostics software and hardware, but I can never see right to modify (I.e open source). Most controllers these days come with hardware security to see if the software on the controller has been modified. Lots of system engineering goes into controller/actuator interfaces to ensure they’re safe. I think unfortunately the day has arrived that modern equipment really is too complicated to be safely open for modification. That being said I don’t think this is a good thing, and understand the desire of operators to be able to repair their own equipment. I don’t at all blame people who want to buy purely mechanical equipment that they know how to keep running
more technological progress is not gonna save the destructive farming practices, that pollute water, soil and humans its based on ecological principles, from there tech can be implemented... not the other way around then its just about making money, which is a futile thing to do, and rips you of your own Soul, you can eventually see it in there eyes, a empty glace of superficial satisfaction
Why an open cab and not enclosed? Sure you can remove the operator during chemical applications but it still will get on the seat and controls that the operator will come in contact with later. Why not solar panels on the roof as well?
The people bitching about the software forget how expensive stuff is in agriculture. I live in the midwest and study at a school there that gets john deere pretty often to recruit. They bring their newer models of the bigger tractors. And they cost millions. Yup, millions. 8 grand a year a drop in a bucket. It costs way more to hire machine operators. Unfortunately, most of whom are undocumented. So both risk and cost intensive. Because of this, many farmers still use 30 - or 40 - or 50 year old equipment. This is one thing I want to be different. For them to produce a machine that runs for decades without becoming outdated or unusable like general consumer electronics.
So ok, beyond all that Silicon Valley "we save the world" talk within a vineyard, it is a tractor company that encourages the usage of autonomous systems and information gathering. How in the world is that special? Every major tractor company goes down that road. It's also not special to electrify your vehicle fleet, it's not special to add gps, cameras and lidar to your system. Seriously, autonomous tractors have existed for years. And farmes are a conservative customer base outside of california when it comes to sharing information about their crops. There is a range of other providers that allready give you autonomous add-on capabilities like iQuus for your existing tractors without gathering data and sharing them with your competition. - This idea of "sharing tractors or farm equipment" is also a bunch of bullshit. First of all you need the logistics to be even sharable. Nobody is hauling a tractor 200 miles to your doorstep. - Someone has to make the first inital investment anyway and why should any farmer provide farming equipment to one of his competitors? Do you know a car manufacturing company that provides it's facility to a competitor? No farmer will lease out their equipment without serious compensation, clarified business deals and service agreements. Farmers are businesses with competition. - The other point is timeliness; everyone has to farm their crops basically at the same time. There is the perfect time to farm your crops and you do not want to go beyond that day. This means at the end all the equipment has to be available and bought anyway. - Also there is the question of interoperabilitiy. When I buy a tractor from Fendt, for example; I have a piece of equipment that can do a wide range of tasks from mowing, crop protection, collecting, combine harvesting and more. They provide an ecosystem to a farmers needs. And on top of that if you opt-in for one manufacturer you are provided with discounts. So Why should I of a suden change to Monarch and loose my discounts with my existing farming equipment provider? Monarch would have to build up this ecosystem to be a serious competitor to all the existing equipment manufacturers. -Last, why do these people in Sillicon Valley belief that farmers are high marging customers? Farmers are not the people you can milk for cash, neighter are poor farmers in Asia, India or Africa. Even in America where the farmers are "rich" compared to others around the world, you see a major movement to right for repair, autonomous add-on kits and an opposition to subscribtion based offerings and closed of systems like John Deer provides. And this is the reason why they have to bring up this "We safe the World" talk because it doesn't really add up when you crunch the numbers. I'm not saying their tech is bad or that their equipment is bad or that their business model is not adding up positively in the end. I'm just saying it's not a billion dollar company when you have not even sold 100 tractors. What they REALLY should sell are add-on Kits like these Sensor-Fortress-Rooftops they equip their tractors with. They should partner up with serious equipment manufacturers like John Deer, Fendt, Escorts, Tafe, Kubota etc. 1. They would lower their industrial base; instead of manufacturing tractors and additional farming equipment ecosystem they "only" have to manufacture flexible rooftops equiped with a wide range of sensors. 2. They would not have to provide Infrastructure for service stations all around the world when tractors break down. Because the next tractor mechanic is around 5 miles away from me, I do not see how Monarch will be able to provide such a service network in the near future. 3. They actualy could help farmers around the world without the need to replace their existing equipment. You could still give some discount when the customer has an electric tractor if you really want to save the world. 4. They could focus on beeing a digial service provider that really focuses on a farming knowledge management plattform.
Using an electric tractor doesnot necessarily means reducing emissions. More like shifting or transferring emissions. If the country as a whole is not producing electricity through renewables then using an electric or diesel tractor doesnot make a difference. If a farmer uses solar panels to charge the tractors then its a new story but a farmer also have to consider the bottom line because he also has to make a living and the capital cost of solar panels doesn't make it feasible to install a solar plant on the farm big enough to run tractors and other heavy machinery.
These entrepreneurs look like office workers who make another hype project to sell to retail and forget until another one. They seem to have never worked on a field but have “great ideas” . There are tons of such ideas Which went bust after being sold to the public.
Yes, you may have a better understanding of how to run a company and what constitutes a good idea compared to a group of specialists and farmer partners LOL
I worry about farmers right to repair something like this. It is very expensive to bring a tractor to a repair shop so I hope they can have repair specialists that will go to the farms instead of burdening the farmers.
That's a law issue, not a company issue. I can sell you a dog and stipulate that only I can do any medical care on the dog... if you sign the contract, YOU have to abide by it. Don't like it, use a different company.
How does selling smart tractors that need a subscription actually save American farms? Wouldn't more private programs that provide beginning farmers loans' to rent/buy land and equipment actually get more younger people involved in farming? In Iowa, there are guys who farm "the back 80" and others who farm 20,000 acres. Roughly 60% of the land in Iowa is rented out and the average age of landowners over 65 is around 67% (these numbers are based on an Iowa State University paper I read a while back). It is my opinion that those percentages will only increase. There has been ground selling for $16-17,000/acre in my own county. Now 20% down on a 40 acre farm selling for $16,000/acre is $128,000 not including associated fees/taxes (I have never purchased a farm). There are currently programs that exist to help beginning farmers. 10 minutes of the video, I had these thoughts. A farmer using this smart tractor will benefit his operation by: managing more land efficiently and precisely, won't need a man in the machine to conduct hazardous spraying (it is an open cab...) or any monotonous tasks, and have smart data taken from an actual person running the equipment with the ability to learn from a human. My concerns: cost of a machine and subscription, needing a specialized service tech to deal with computer and mechanical problems, parts availability, no history of wide scale use of the tractors so there could be bugs that haven't been found yet, liability of a "rouge" machine, any additional insurance is the machine doesn't do what it is supposed to do, additional cost of electricity and the availability of electricity in some areas. These machines could fill a niche in specialized industries and add additional safety, data collection abilities and efficiency to an operation. Disclosure: I am in no way an expert on smart farming. I grew up on and around row crop and livestock farms. I studied Agronomy at Iowa State University. If you have read this far I'd be interested to hear your thoughts wether you agree or disagree! Thanks for your time.
Minus all the marketing and business jargons this project reminds me of time when I was young, I made a robot gripper for NASA complete with machine vision to identify ripeness and cutting and capturing systems to harvest broccoli and cherry tomatoes on simulater Mars based Green house. Unfortunately there was no need to go to Mars anymore in a short period after which the entire mission was scrubbed probably makes sense just rocks out there...
What farmer has enough money to pay an 8,000 subscription? I can tell you don't need to be charging 8,000 a month. There is no way your cloud costs are that high. They also have to buy the tractor? I think the concept is cool, but I don't think the market your targeting was thought through. They already are making vertical farms. I don't see the merit in this especially if farmers can't afford your equipment. Maybe people who are just starting off in farming can buy your equipment instead. But, watching the video more, apparently people are buying their equipment. Honestly, there wasn't really any need for this. Horizontal farming is inefficient, and uses to much land. Vertical farming is the future.
I cannot wrap my head around how is this a 30 minute video. It has the informative value of a 3 minute video and the CEO is argumenting in a way that: "Yeah so what that its expensive, people buy expensive things all the time!" This is not making farming affordable, this is making farming less possible by individuals. It seems like we need an open-source ai powered farming option. If you look into the world of robotics, there is ROS - the Robot Operating System, that is completely open source, free and run in the same spirit as Linux. I believe open source farming might be the way actually.
Data is gold but not everything. Large scale could solve the issues but small scale will be burn out of money. No sustainable will be achieved. These will be made cheep with big company. These will not go beyond some time , I think big players will acquire these.
Very interesting tractor! I am a farmer and would like to buy an electric tractor. Unfortunately, the tractor looks like a child's toy! Farmers need a machine that radiates power, quality and reliability.
Thoroughly enjoy how the holier than thou comment section is talking about "lost jobs." Buddy, most farm jobs are worked by migrants, including child labor. And yes, I'm talking about in the United States. Your main issue should be right to repair and the subscription fee.
as much i would like it say its great idea . at some time i wouldnt buy such equitment sounds to me its like your hooked being subscribe for paying for the software update and uses each month on top all other cost
Carbon credits could be thw new revolutionised way of the futuristic initiatives for sustainable energy resources and sustainable environment 😮😮😮😮..... Which we now ging to face in future soon in next decade ....
Tell this CEO, not to loot farmers. The subscription he is charging them should be for a 5 yr period. As he won't give them dividends for tge data is mining through their farms. - It shows how kess the govt cares for its farmers to allow such an exploitation. It's not mechanical but ICT company too. They are fooling everybody in low taxes as a tractor company and the farmers.
Making tractors even more complicated than they need to be and just like modern cars, will cost a fortune to fix. Can't wait for AI to replace all these coders who are single handedly turning the world into a corporate for-profit dystopia. Sure we save on labor costs, but are we looking at the human cost? What will be the cost of having thousands of unemployed people who otherwise would look to jobs like this to enter the labor market? What's the world going to look like in 10-20 years when taxis, trucks, farming all use robots? We need an earnest evaluation of the impact to society and we just can't keep this up saying "progress cannot be stopped". Seems like the only ones who wants this so called progress are the corporate bosses.
i think you have a massiv misunderstanding of results of Automation. 1. the working population is shrinking in nearly every industrialized country. So automation is just a way to reduce the Defizit of workforces and keeping the standard of living high at the same time. 2. Automation is mostly just killing "bad" jobs and creating "good" jobs. The easiest to automate are simple repetitive task. Those are neither high paying nor popular. So why do u want to keep those jobs? At the same time it creates jobs like mechanics, because someone has to repair the Roboter. 3. Its already happening for hundreds of years. The whole industrial revolution was about replacing people with machines and guess what? That's the reason why we live longer, are healthier and happier. Compared to the years before our Standard of living basically exploded since the 18. hundreds.
The only people entering the workforce through machinery work are mainly teenage high schoolers, immigrants, or family members on the farm. The family members can go somewhere else on the farm, high schoolers can find work elsewhere, as can the immigrants. In rural areas, there are plenty of ok jobs, the COL is low.
What the US needs is more productive technology. Yes, we lead the world in social media, apps, phone design, etc. But as we have seen since the China Trade Wars, COVID and the sanctions on Russia, is that we need manufacturing back. And of course we won't be able to compete in wages - these cost less than 10% in other parts of the world - so we need to develop manufacturing technology.
What's incredibly scummy about this is that, this company is charging their customers high a subscription to datamine the farmer's hard won expertise and skills and selling this whole concept as they're doing the farmer a favor. What would be much more impressive is if they bring this subscription down and simplify serviceability. This just seems like they are trying to copy what John Deere is doing by boxing farmers in their tech and exploiting farmers.
What was also funny is when he said that there is a shortage of farmhand workers. It’s more of farmers not being able to afford to pay for these workers not a shortage
after my experience with uber i never trust this companies that say they are here to help.
to add on to what you said which is very tru..their idea is not novel at all..its the setting that's different that's all.
the underlying tech, big data, AI, EV is now widely understood and improving all the time..
@@jamessitati7396 lool Uber is a normal job like a taxi not a startup to help self employed people downsize their companies
I see potential in the technology, ideally in the future people will buy their own electronic tractors and cut out the middleman.
As an American dairy farmer I do think large farms are operated like factories we study manufacturing techniques and we have used things like GPS 25 years ago and we milk cows with robots and clean barns and feed with robots on more and more farms. We have specialized labor more and more and drastically increased workers marginal productivity. I work in agtech as well and i am always amazed how far behind general public and VC are when they talk about production ag.
Agtech is a disgrace, it has yet to open the market to small scale farmers... it's only focus is commercial farmers so don't pretend as if agtech does anything for farmers but screw them over
Does your dairy belong to a co-op? If so, do they limit the production of your farm? How does that effect your farm?
Have you explored selling to other markets?
@@RicksPhatPharm-vw2lb like what companies? I know plenty of more software Agtech software companies that target small farmers instead of large farmers cuz they charge a subscription and there are so few large farms it makes much more sense to sell to smaller farms. And even if some tarket big farmers instead why is that bad? Lol Companies can't segment and target ideal customers just like what all farmers do?
@@carterchedester1901 Yes DFA largest dairy co-op and yes currently thinking of processing our own and selling locally and online. Around here (northern NY) we have way to much milk for our processing capacity we need to exspand or build new capacity. DFA doesn't limit milk production they just have to then truck it very far and this pay us much less per unit when we sell much over our basis. It's still absolute cake marketing dairy compared to starting any other type of business where you don't have an instant gurentee market for a huge amount of a valuable product. I always laugh when farmers complain about the price, like no one forced you to be a farmers don't like it sell out and try another business.
@@Ryanrobi Why not join UNC?
You understand how Forbes views business practices and morals when they see scummy software subscriptions as a business model as “saving America”. I imagine their business model also includes selling the Geo-agricultural data of farmers to interested companies. The software should be included in the price of the tractor when you purchase the tractor.
Then it'll cost 10x more to pay for their workers for the next 30+ years . Updating software and maintaining servers cost money compared to the very limited amount of farmers that need that hardware.
@ryanthompson3737 ?? Why would the software be hard to update that make no sense
@reekid5183 ...it costs money to have programmers program. It costs money to own buildings, buildings that host physical computer hardware in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. It costs money to hire maintenance workers for the buildings and servers....
I mean, how do you go through life if you think things just poof into existence? John Deere and New Holland, for instance, spent 3.8% - 4.2% of their GROSS REVENUE into research and development. This accounts for $1 billion in New Holland and $1.5 - $2 billion for John Deere.... every single year. Last I checked, John deere isn't running around every year releasing the new iPhone of tractors.
Why should the software be free? It's not like they can advertise to grapevines and tomato plants.
good point
Stopped listening when i heard the words Mckinsey & Co
Once fully tested and scaled up. One of the BIG Tractor companies like Massey Ferguson; Case IH; John Deere or Mahindra will buy them and adapt the new Technology. It will be too good to pass up.
I DONT THINK SO
@@AufBerghofNAM they have more capital and can develop these technologies in quick
Again for commercial farmers so no it won't take traction as commercial farmers are coming under fire in a huge way. It can't be that a handful of farmers screw everyone else. Farming is the life blood of all economies.. good luck thinking AI can replace farmers
technology should not end million jobs for making few people rich.
100% - Agco / JD will buy them and bury that tech
And will farmers have the right to repair their own tractors? If not, then you're just adding to their costs.
I think they've made it so that only specialized shops will be able to.
I believe at some point they will add regulations to allow for personal onsite repairs or at least they will be brought up in debates. .
23:10 For a solo electric tractor riding along spraying herbicides, pesticides, would mean that there has to be a tractor wash, to scrub away all the chemicals too, once it's back in the parking bay. To reduce exposure to the human personnel who will be in contact with it for servicing, recharging, etc...
An autonomous tractor is far down the priority list of what farmers need right now. I hope they succeed but I imagine their journey will be long and difficult.
You clearly know nothing about agriculture. Automation has been the only thing, since the industrial revolution.
@@slozenger9000 I’m a farmer and am well informed on the agtech industry actually. My point is that, although I’m hoping for their success, I believe this company will struggle for the foreseeable future because farmers won’t prioritize this solution above many other needs they have right now. Farmers will pour their money into harvest solutions first as harvest is by far the largest labor expense. They also need data collection/analytics to optimize labor and also pruning solutions. The expense of operating a tractor to spray, mow, fertilize etc. is low in relation to these other aspects of farming. Farmers do not have capital to invest in all of these areas so I don’t believe autonomous tractors will be high on any farmers list at this point in time. In the future, of course, these will be used and that’s why I’m glad/appreciative they’re working on this. In the near term, it will be hard and that’s was all I was trying to say.
The tractor is no even innovative in what it suppose to do for the farmer.
It is just able to pass between the trees.
That is so cheap to do just by driving a normal tractor with a person.
And far less expensive that buying and using the high-tech tractor.
@@argotcalo5575labour Shortage left the chat
Not every farmer needs an auto tractor - but some certainly do.
not even 50 sec in and they are talking about a subscription service. LOL, no thanks. I will stick to making ethanol and wood gas to power my grandads old equipment once they have outlawed gasoline.
This sounds like an infomercial….
Dull, dirty, dangerous... and low-paying! Pay the workers more!
Back in india modern farmers are spraying fields using drones. 😆
It would have been nice to hear a farmers perspective.
You obviously dont understand how VC lying works ...
Good luck at selling to farmers. I worked in DigitalAg and even if we give very accurate predictions, today I know farmers want get stuff done and guarantees to harvest good crops. All in between dont interest the mass, maybe just the tech interest once.
Valuation means nothing as we learned in the last few years. Either the take off real work and proove it or save time - everything else is hot air…
Thesecare not family owned but large farms owned by gates
If you spray poison onto food, maybe rethink your practice.
He is a farmer? I doubt he has ploughed anything and not even worked for one season on a farm
Monarch you say.. eh! Those fields are probably over a bunch of giants.
Not really a shortage of farmhands it's farmers not willing to pay a decent wage for them hence why most farm hands are immigrants.
Agree 100% Also its a hard labor with no growth!
Thats an ignorant statement, you should see the profit margins of the farmers before speaking ill about them. Theyre not the ones making the money its the equipment providers ie CAT, John Deer, Kubota etc and the suppliers ie the ones who by the raw product from the farmers
This Tractor are really a game changer for farmers since it can keep them more safe and it less pollute to the environment that allows more room for more efficient approach this can really bring the shift change into the world. Help bring awareness to farmers so they can the equipment they need to better protect them and give them the tools they need to be successful and to help the future of farmers can have a more healthier impact in the later coming years.
It has revenue of only $22m, valuation of $271m, sold to investors for $116 likely more than half the company for a lawn mover and data collector? I do not see how this will scale...
Data is gold
Some scammers trying to make a quick buck. And Forbes spreading their lies and bs.
Valuation means nothing... it's a speculative figure for how much, currently, one WOULD have to pay to buy out the entire company. There is likely plenty of shares still not purchased which is what that valuation is based on.
@@MrBemnet1 Farmers should get paid to give this "valuable" data to this company. Honestly.
John Deere has been working and developing this for years as well. Their tractors are much bigger and can cover more acres. This competition is great for the farmers and consumers. May the best company win.
Yet a lot of farmers still buy green. You would think farmers would switch to Case, Claas, Massey, New Holland, AGCO.
did they obey the right to repair?
Farmers problem is Bill Gates
Subscription costs will be a deal breaker for many
Can we program the tractor without paying a fee every year?
im 100 pre cent sure john deere are 20 years ahead of this company
The key farmers can fix it easy... If u done same business practices like jhon Deere ure done...
It’s fun until you cant fix certain things due to the software unless you take it into their shop
....farmers can unionize and just... not produce food until the law is fixed. It's a contract law issue that needs to be fixed.
For instance, my grandparents are dog breeders and have a contract for that sale that prevents the customer from selling the dog, bringing it into another country, or even putting it down without my grandparents permission. The contract even requires them to make the dog infertile to prevent the customer from breeding more dogs. Point is, if it's in a contract, it's 99% of the time legally binding no matter how crazy is sounds.
116/271 = 42% of the company, there is no way they can reach $1Bn valuation now, no one going to invest $500M on it.
Mind-blowing, milestone reporting!! Thank you so much!!
None of the people in this video are farmers. 😂
Exactly
'Monarch' is the worst naming possible.
Nice idea but these corporate clowns are so full of VC language bs.
Solar panels would be nice if they were a little more powerful in pulling in energy
This is I loved to do. As software engineer with Agriculture degree. Haha where is the job section? Awesome work….
Ain’t no way I’m getting rid of my old diesel tractor 🚜💪🏼
This is incredible! Wishing them great success!!
Save americas farms? Farmer here. Last thing we need is another 8000 dollar per tractor subscription with weekly service fees from the robotics geek to come out to the farm and fix the damn thing. No thanks. Give me back my 1980s equipment.
Impressive tech'.
Nicely presented.
But the potential ramifications and connected issues I find scary.
What issues?
room for many improvements to come but importantly and more focus demand into the design and Manufactuing.
I just dont see how you can automate tasks that require operators to get off and check how the machine is doing without actually having the driver there. How do you check the depth of seed, the cutting height, or the rate of application of manure when solely relying on what the sensors are telling you at home. The quality of the end result will be lower for sure. Also its all well and good in a vineyard the size of a suburb to turn around but how does it cope when reversing a trailer- a very difficult task for new drivers? Has this been proven yet? Also at 8k per year yes the cost is lower than paying a worker, but while this machine may identify "5 areas to improve" in the field, a human on the ground will notice EVERYTHING as you're eyes are on your task and paying attention to your surroundings will do so intrinsically.
Also- a tractor with a cab drastically reduces exposure to the chemicals that are sprayed in vineyards, and if youre not spending 80k dollars in ten years for software support you can then afford to put glass on the cab. Yes this company has potential, and yes autonomous tractors are already the present with GPS guidance and RTK, but damn most of the points they make in this video are painfully redundant.
The distrust towards corporates in agriculture is understandable. Farmers have burnt their fingers quite a few times already. But I hope these people succeed as I have seen first hand the skill shortage in Agriculture even in populous countries like India. This solution if available at decent costs will be of immense help especially to farmers in western countries like USA.
We need open source software for the hardware, if someone develops it will be not so hard to fit the regular tractors with controllers and actuators.
this is important.
Full disclosure, I write embedded software for John Deere. That being said you’ll get right to repair with things like diagnostics software and hardware, but I can never see right to modify (I.e open source). Most controllers these days come with hardware security to see if the software on the controller has been modified. Lots of system engineering goes into controller/actuator interfaces to ensure they’re safe. I think unfortunately the day has arrived that modern equipment really is too complicated to be safely open for modification. That being said I don’t think this is a good thing, and understand the desire of operators to be able to repair their own equipment. I don’t at all blame people who want to buy purely mechanical equipment that they know how to keep running
one thing most farmers i know is someone whos got a name they cant fuckin pronounce, and this man will definitely be at the top of their list.
I see ZED depth camera at work there. Great stuff 👍🏽
I love how they talk about making farming safer for workers - but then all that toxic spray gets passed on to consumers!
Too fancy at much higher cost but they don’t tell what problem they solve.
The first thing that's come to my mind when I see these electric tractors, is what are there capabilities in sand muddy soil ?
more technological progress is not gonna save the destructive farming practices, that pollute water, soil and humans its based on ecological principles, from there tech can be implemented... not the other way around then its just about making money, which is a futile thing to do, and rips you of your own Soul,
you can eventually see it in there eyes, a empty glace of superficial satisfaction
Why an open cab and not enclosed? Sure you can remove the operator during chemical applications but it still will get on the seat and controls that the operator will come in contact with later. Why not solar panels on the roof as well?
The people bitching about the software forget how expensive stuff is in agriculture. I live in the midwest and study at a school there that gets john deere pretty often to recruit. They bring their newer models of the bigger tractors. And they cost millions. Yup, millions. 8 grand a year a drop in a bucket. It costs way more to hire machine operators. Unfortunately, most of whom are undocumented. So both risk and cost intensive. Because of this, many farmers still use 30 - or 40 - or 50 year old equipment. This is one thing I want to be different. For them to produce a machine that runs for decades without becoming outdated or unusable like general consumer electronics.
The most dangerous place on the farm is the seat of the tractor.😂😂😂😂 These guys are certainly not farmers.😂😂😂😂
So ok, beyond all that Silicon Valley "we save the world" talk within a vineyard, it is a tractor company that encourages the usage of autonomous systems and information gathering. How in the world is that special? Every major tractor company goes down that road. It's also not special to electrify your vehicle fleet, it's not special to add gps, cameras and lidar to your system.
Seriously, autonomous tractors have existed for years. And farmes are a conservative customer base outside of california when it comes to sharing information about their crops. There is a range of other providers that allready give you autonomous add-on capabilities like iQuus for your existing tractors without gathering data and sharing them with your competition.
- This idea of "sharing tractors or farm equipment" is also a bunch of bullshit. First of all you need the logistics to be even sharable. Nobody is hauling a tractor 200 miles to your doorstep.
- Someone has to make the first inital investment anyway and why should any farmer provide farming equipment to one of his competitors? Do you know a car manufacturing company that provides it's facility to a competitor? No farmer will lease out their equipment without serious compensation, clarified business deals and service agreements. Farmers are businesses with competition.
- The other point is timeliness; everyone has to farm their crops basically at the same time. There is the perfect time to farm your crops and you do not want to go beyond that day. This means at the end all the equipment has to be available and bought anyway.
- Also there is the question of interoperabilitiy. When I buy a tractor from Fendt, for example; I have a piece of equipment that can do a wide range of tasks from mowing, crop protection, collecting, combine harvesting and more. They provide an ecosystem to a farmers needs. And on top of that if you opt-in for one manufacturer you are provided with discounts. So Why should I of a suden change to Monarch and loose my discounts with my existing farming equipment provider? Monarch would have to build up this ecosystem to be a serious competitor to all the existing equipment manufacturers.
-Last, why do these people in Sillicon Valley belief that farmers are high marging customers? Farmers are not the people you can milk for cash, neighter are poor farmers in Asia, India or Africa. Even in America where the farmers are "rich" compared to others around the world, you see a major movement to right for repair, autonomous add-on kits and an opposition to subscribtion based offerings and closed of systems like John Deer provides.
And this is the reason why they have to bring up this "We safe the World" talk because it doesn't really add up when you crunch the numbers. I'm not saying their tech is bad or that their equipment is bad or that their business model is not adding up positively in the end. I'm just saying it's not a billion dollar company when you have not even sold 100 tractors. What they REALLY should sell are add-on Kits like these Sensor-Fortress-Rooftops they equip their tractors with. They should partner up with serious equipment manufacturers like John Deer, Fendt, Escorts, Tafe, Kubota etc.
1. They would lower their industrial base; instead of manufacturing tractors and additional farming equipment ecosystem they "only" have to manufacture flexible rooftops equiped with a wide range of sensors.
2. They would not have to provide Infrastructure for service stations all around the world when tractors break down. Because the next tractor mechanic is around 5 miles away from me, I do not see how Monarch will be able to provide such a service network in the near future.
3. They actualy could help farmers around the world without the need to replace their existing equipment. You could still give some discount when the customer has an electric tractor if you really want to save the world.
4. They could focus on beeing a digial service provider that really focuses on a farming knowledge management plattform.
CHANGE the farm bill subsidies,. that would help farmers and the environment NOW!
Using an electric tractor doesnot necessarily means reducing emissions. More like shifting or transferring emissions. If the country as a whole is not producing electricity through renewables then using an electric or diesel tractor doesnot make a difference. If a farmer uses solar panels to charge the tractors then its a new story but a farmer also have to consider the bottom line because he also has to make a living and the capital cost of solar panels doesn't make it feasible to install a solar plant on the farm big enough to run tractors and other heavy machinery.
Awesome 👍😎
These entrepreneurs look like office workers who make another hype project to sell to retail and forget until another one. They seem to have never worked on a field but have “great ideas” . There are tons of such ideas
Which went bust after being sold to the public.
Yes, you may have a better understanding of how to run a company and what constitutes a good idea compared to a group of specialists and farmer partners LOL
All I want to know is if and when are they going public
why not just employ few drivers and give them employment? I'm sure it would be way cheap and also great for economy too.
Actually creating low paying casual jobs is bad. Productivity creates wealth. Learn economics
@@patrickbateman1660 People becoming jobless and starving is not good for society. Keep your economics with you. Use it to maximize your profits.
I worry about farmers right to repair something like this. It is very expensive to bring a tractor to a repair shop so I hope they can have repair specialists that will go to the farms instead of burdening the farmers.
That's a law issue, not a company issue. I can sell you a dog and stipulate that only I can do any medical care on the dog... if you sign the contract, YOU have to abide by it. Don't like it, use a different company.
fair point@@ryanthompson3737
McKinsey? Really? 🙈
How does selling smart tractors that need a subscription actually save American farms? Wouldn't more private programs that provide beginning farmers loans' to rent/buy land and equipment actually get more younger people involved in farming?
In Iowa, there are guys who farm "the back 80" and others who farm 20,000 acres. Roughly 60% of the land in Iowa is rented out and the average age of landowners over 65 is around 67% (these numbers are based on an Iowa State University paper I read a while back). It is my opinion that those percentages will only increase. There has been ground selling for $16-17,000/acre in my own county. Now 20% down on a 40 acre farm selling for $16,000/acre is $128,000 not including associated fees/taxes (I have never purchased a farm). There are currently programs that exist to help beginning farmers.
10 minutes of the video, I had these thoughts.
A farmer using this smart tractor will benefit his operation by: managing more land efficiently and precisely, won't need a man in the machine to conduct hazardous spraying (it is an open cab...) or any monotonous tasks, and have smart data taken from an actual person running the equipment with the ability to learn from a human.
My concerns: cost of a machine and subscription, needing a specialized service tech to deal with computer and mechanical problems, parts availability, no history of wide scale use of the tractors so there could be bugs that haven't been found yet, liability of a "rouge" machine, any additional insurance is the machine doesn't do what it is supposed to do, additional cost of electricity and the availability of electricity in some areas.
These machines could fill a niche in specialized industries and add additional safety, data collection abilities and efficiency to an operation.
Disclosure: I am in no way an expert on smart farming. I grew up on and around row crop and livestock farms. I studied Agronomy at Iowa State University. If you have read this far I'd be interested to hear your thoughts wether you agree or disagree! Thanks for your time.
Farmers need simple all mechanical tractors that they can fix themselves
hahhahah spraying chemicals with an electric tractor, future generations will laugh hard (sustainable farming ;)
Impressive tech, hope they succeed
Another Indian origin 🔥.... 💕
Minus all the marketing and business jargons this project reminds me of time when I was young, I made a robot gripper for NASA complete with machine vision to identify ripeness and cutting and capturing systems to harvest broccoli and cherry tomatoes on simulater Mars based Green house. Unfortunately there was no need to go to Mars anymore in a short period after which the entire mission was scrubbed probably makes sense just rocks out there...
Ive been watching these guys for a while and am so happy to see them being acknowledged. The tractor just looks a bit weird when driving
Security cameras are cheaper now, not more expensive due to increased technology.
That was a really poor example.
I can already see the scene from Interstellar happening..."One by one, they've been peeling off the fields and heading over!"
What farmer has enough money to pay an 8,000 subscription? I can tell you don't need to be charging 8,000 a month. There is no way your cloud costs are that high. They also have to buy the tractor? I think the concept is cool, but I don't think the market your targeting was thought through. They already are making vertical farms. I don't see the merit in this especially if farmers can't afford your equipment. Maybe people who are just starting off in farming can buy your equipment instead. But, watching the video more, apparently people are buying their equipment. Honestly, there wasn't really any need for this. Horizontal farming is inefficient, and uses to much land. Vertical farming is the future.
I cannot wrap my head around how is this a 30 minute video. It has the informative value of a 3 minute video and the CEO is argumenting in a way that: "Yeah so what that its expensive, people buy expensive things all the time!" This is not making farming affordable, this is making farming less possible by individuals. It seems like we need an open-source ai powered farming option. If you look into the world of robotics, there is ROS - the Robot Operating System, that is completely open source, free and run in the same spirit as Linux. I believe open source farming might be the way actually.
Data is gold but not everything. Large scale could solve the issues but small scale will be burn out of money. No sustainable will be achieved. These will be made cheep with big company. These will not go beyond some time , I think big players will acquire these.
All this technology and the prices in the store is higher, not lower. Intentions are not to help but to hurt.
Very good initiative
It will take time but after some modifications as per practical use, these tractors will make sense in many parts of the world
not a single farmer interviewed in this doc….. like what?
Also the reason they only make small tractor is all electric vehicles way a lot and a big electric tractor is going to crush the land.
Thank you!
8:27pm 8-27-24
Very interesting tractor!
I am a farmer and would like to buy an electric tractor.
Unfortunately, the tractor looks like a child's toy!
Farmers need a machine that radiates power, quality and reliability.
My question is if more and more ppl live on earth but less and less labour is available, where are those people?
Renting software? Is this a good idea? What are the advantages to this?
Thoroughly enjoy how the holier than thou comment section is talking about "lost jobs." Buddy, most farm jobs are worked by migrants, including child labor. And yes, I'm talking about in the United States.
Your main issue should be right to repair and the subscription fee.
This whole thing of replacing people is not well thought out….
Sir which Indian Village has just two tractors?? I would like to personally know
US farmers should buy Mahindra Tractors because they can be easily repaired.
If I had a dollar for every story about a farmer dying because of a tractor operation mistake... if I had a dollar, I'd be able to pay attention.
Only have to pay 8,000 a month for their subscription service. Yeah ok
Meanwhile millions are out there without jobs. Give people opportunities man, not machines. WTH
as much i would like it say its great idea . at some time i wouldnt buy such equitment sounds to me its like your hooked being subscribe for paying for the software update and uses each month on top all other cost
Carbon credits could be thw new revolutionised way of the futuristic initiatives for sustainable energy resources and sustainable environment 😮😮😮😮.....
Which we now ging to face in future soon in next decade ....
Tell this CEO, not to loot farmers. The subscription he is charging them should be for a 5 yr period. As he won't give them dividends for tge data is mining through their farms.
- It shows how kess the govt cares for its farmers to allow such an exploitation. It's not mechanical but ICT company too. They are fooling everybody in low taxes as a tractor company and the farmers.
Yay, robots spraying poisons rather than people spraying poisons.
Making tractors even more complicated than they need to be and just like modern cars, will cost a fortune to fix. Can't wait for AI to replace all these coders who are single handedly turning the world into a corporate for-profit dystopia. Sure we save on labor costs, but are we looking at the human cost? What will be the cost of having thousands of unemployed people who otherwise would look to jobs like this to enter the labor market? What's the world going to look like in 10-20 years when taxis, trucks, farming all use robots? We need an earnest evaluation of the impact to society and we just can't keep this up saying "progress cannot be stopped". Seems like the only ones who wants this so called progress are the corporate bosses.
Youre thinking of the logical next step. But first, let the people suffer through garbage like this ...
i think you have a massiv misunderstanding of results of Automation.
1. the working population is shrinking in nearly every industrialized country. So automation is just a way to reduce the Defizit of workforces and keeping the standard of living high at the same time.
2. Automation is mostly just killing "bad" jobs and creating "good" jobs. The easiest to automate are simple repetitive task. Those are neither high paying nor popular. So why do u want to keep those jobs? At the same time it creates jobs like mechanics, because someone has to repair the Roboter.
3. Its already happening for hundreds of years. The whole industrial revolution was about replacing people with machines and guess what? That's the reason why we live longer, are healthier and happier. Compared to the years before our Standard of living basically exploded since the 18. hundreds.
The only people entering the workforce through machinery work are mainly teenage high schoolers, immigrants, or family members on the farm. The family members can go somewhere else on the farm, high schoolers can find work elsewhere, as can the immigrants. In rural areas, there are plenty of ok jobs, the COL is low.
This can revolutionize agriculture ...... only when mass produced ...... but not when they are vanity projuects
All electric Good for Valuation
If it is dangerous to be in the farm then what we eat is dangerous too. 🙏🏼
Save farms? Or sell robot tractors? I guess the first one sounds better.
Country's like africa
i think i have heard "monarch" somewhere
What the US needs is more productive technology. Yes, we lead the world in social media, apps, phone design, etc. But as we have seen since the China Trade Wars, COVID and the sanctions on Russia, is that we need manufacturing back. And of course we won't be able to compete in wages - these cost less than 10% in other parts of the world - so we need to develop manufacturing technology.
the pricing is outrageous
Wow❤❤❤❤ with satellite communication constellation this can be very cool cyber farmer to automation