Robots Are Stepping Into One of Asia’s Dirtiest Farm Jobs
- Labor issues in No. 2 grower affecting global output
- Technicalities mean full automation remains years away
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A drone buzzes between trees on a humid Malaysian morning, monitoring the oil palm fruits as they ripen. Self-driving trucks rumble over the vast plantation’s uneven ground, laying fertilizer and picking up the densely packed harvested bunches.
These are just some of the robots the Southeast Asian nation’s top palm growers hope will take over the sector’s most difficult and dirty jobs, plugging chronic worker shortages that have disrupted supplies of the world’s most-consumed edible oil.