Co-creation and trust to address regulatory, ethical and interactional challenges in Digital Farming

The prevalence of Digital Farming is growing with multi-robot systems, human-robot collaboration, and environment reconstruction and virtual farming systems. However, we are far from having fully automated farms, and there is still a need for making sure the interaction between human workers and robots or autonomous systems deployed in farms and fields is effective and successful. As with many situations where robots and humans may need to work closely, this presents us with regulatory, legal, ethical and interactional challenges.

Up to date, studies have focussed on either exploring farm-level adoption of precision and digital farming, or on agent-based models on the diffusion of agricultural innovations. However, studies bringing together both the human and technological components are uncommon, and none have been found considering the aspects that this project focuses on, nor studies following a co-creation approach with stakeholders and en-users. These approaches have been used successfully in other areas (e.g., educational robotics, assistive robotics), but not in digital farming or agricultural robotics.

This project aims to identify the main obstacles when it comes to the uptake of agricultural robots, and on how to improve the design of these and of their deployments, taking into consideration regulatory, legal, ethical, accessibility, and interaction related aspects. It will investigate the construct of trust in this area, exploring inhibitors and enablers that may help in creating an environment where trust levels are appropriate - avoiding under-trust and over-trust. It will be expected that the researcher will work closely with stakeholders and end-users from the beginning of this project, following a co-research and co-design approach.

Expected objectives:
Identify the main activity areas where the uptake of digital farming may be affected by regulatory, legal, ethical, or interactional challenges (e.g., harvesting, mapping and surveying, crop maintenance).
Focussing on the main activity areas, identify the challenges that are more prevalent and co-design strategies/design choices to overcome them.
Develop a design framework for the implementation of digital farming solutions in the main activity areas identified.

Methodology:
Co-creation with stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, industry representatives) and end-users (farm and field workers and managers) from the beginning of the project will be core to this project.
Mixed-methods approaches, following a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods will be expected to be used in the various studies part of the PhD project (e.g., questionnaires, observation, focus groups, interviews, workshops).

The proposed CDT provides a unique vision of advanced RAS technologies embedded throughout the food supply chain, training the next generation of specialists and leaders in agri-food robotics and providing the underpinning research for the next generation of food production systems. These systems in turn will support the sustainable intensification of food production, the national agri-food industry, the environment, food quality and health.

RAS technologies are transforming global industries, creating new business opportunities and driving productivity across multiple sectors. The Agri-Food sector is the largest manufacturing sector of the UK and global economy. The UK food chain has a GVA of £108bn and employs 3.6m people. It is fundamentally challenged by global population growth, demographic changes, political pressures affecting migration and environmental impacts. In addition, agriculture has the lowest productivity of all industrial sectors (ONS, 2017). However, many RAS technologies are in their infancy - developing them within the agri-food sector will deliver impact but also provide a challenging environment that will significantly push the state of art in the underpinning RAS science. Although the opportunity for RAS is widely acknowledged, a shortage of trained engineers and specialists has limited the delivery of impact. This directly addresses this need and will produce the largest global cohort of RAS specialists in Agri-Food.

The impacts are multiple and include;

1) Impact on RAS technology. The Agri-Food sector provides an ideal test bed to develop multiple technologies that will have application in many industrial sectors and research domains. These include new approaches to autonomy and navigation in field environments; complex picking, grasping and manipulation; and novel applications of machine learning and AI in critical and essential sectors of the world economy.

2) Economic Impact. In the UK alone the Made Smarter Review (2017) estimates that automation and RAS will create £183bn of GVA over the next decade, £58bn of which from increased technology exports and reshoring of manufacturing. Expected impacts within Agri-Food are demonstrated by the £3.0M of industry support including the world largest agricultural engineering company (John Deere), the multinational Syngenta, one of the world's largest robotics manufacturers (ABB), the UK's largest farming company owned by James Dyson (one of the largest private investors in robotics), the UK's largest salads and fruit producer plus multiple SME RAS companies. These partners recognise the potential and need for RAS (see NFU and IAgrE Letters of Support).

3) Societal impact. Following the EU referendum, there is significant uncertainty that seasonal labour employed in the sector will be available going forwards, while the demographics of an aging population further limits the supply of manual labour. We see robotic automation as a means of performing onerous and difficult jobs in adverse environments, while advancing the UK skills base, enabling human jobs to move up the value chain and attracting skilled workers and graduates to Agri-Food.

4) Diversity impact. Gender under-representation is also a concern across the computer science, engineering and technology sectors, with only 15% of undergraduates being female. Through engagement with the EPSRC ASPIRE (Advanced Strategic Platform for Inclusive Research Environments) programme, AgriFoRwArdS will become an exemplar CDT with an EDI impact framework that is transferable to other CDTs.

5) Environmental Impact. The Agri-food sector uses 13% of UK carbon emissions and 70% of fresh water, while diffuse pollution from fertilisers and pesticides creates environmental damage. RAS technology, such as robotic weeders and field robots with advanced sensors, will enable a paradigm shift in precision agriculture that will sustainably intensify production while minimising environmental impacts.