Indoor farming is the practice of planting plants in a closed and controlled environment. Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic technologies enable reducing costs, saving resources, and boosting profits, which propels the adoption of robots for indoor farming. These robots are primarily equipped with cameras, sensors, and algorithms to automate labor-intensive tasks. Robots in indoor farming help in producing around 100-fold increase in efficiency to generate 10 times the harvest while using only 1/10th of the resources.
The various factors contributing to the high adoption of robots in indoor farming are growing population, lack of arable land, shortage of farm labor, and increase in the global demand for organic food. Furthermore, the servitization of agriculture bots is expected to act as an opportunity for companies operating in the global indoor farming robots market. However, limited awareness about agricultural robots among farmers is expected to act as a challenge for the players in the market. Also, high costs associated with indoor farming robots and lack of regulatory uniformity are factors expected to hamper the growth of the market in the coming years.
This study on the global indoor farming robots market provides detailed information about industry trends and dynamics, market size, competitive landscape, and growth opportunities. This research report segments the global indoor farming robots market by type, automation, application, and region/country. Based on type, the market has been segmented into robot gripper, cutting robot, robotic fodder, material handling robot, incubators, monitoring drones, and others. Among these, the robot gripper segment accounted for the largest market share of 26.1% in 2018, with a market value of USD 23.4 million, whereas the material handling robot segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 24.5%. By automation, the market has been segmented into semi-autonomous and fully autonomous. The fully autonomous segment is expected to show higher CAGR during forecast period. On the basis of application, the market has been segmented into fruits & vegetables and floriculture. The fruits & vegetables segment accounted for the larger market share of 58.4% in 2018.
The major vendors profiled in this study are Iron Ox, OnRobot, Visser Horti Systems BV, FodderWorks, Harvest Automation, Root AI, Javo, FarmBot Inc., and Metomotion. These market players are striving to adopt organic and inorganic growth approaches such as product launch, partnerships, agreements, and collaborations to improve their position and excel in the global indoor farming robots market.
