Robots are being used to commercially farm more than 405,000 hectares of Australian farmland, with growers seeing them as the answer to workforce shortages.
The Bundaberg region, about 400 kilometres north of Brisbane, is known as the fruit bowl capital of Australia and produces one quarter of the nation's fresh produce.
Growers there are investing in autonomous vehicles that can be programmed to slash and spray herbicides more efficiently.
Macadamia Farm Management agronomist Theunis Smit said his workplace was one of the first farms to bring in autonomous vehicles.
"We've been running the prototypes for quite a while," Mr Smit said.
Labour shortages and extreme weather have accelerated the company's investment in the vehicles in recent months.
"It's more a matter that reliability of machines far outweighs the reliability of people," Mr Smit said.
"They work 24/7 and just need a bit of fuel every now and again, and a good bit of reception."
He said it was what the future of Australian farming would be.
"I think in another three to four years we'll be seeing way more of these in the orchard than we do today."
Farming smarter not harder
Central Queensland farmer Andrew Bate established Swarm Farm robotics in 2012 with the aim of creating better farming systems.
He said autonomous vehicles were becoming mainstream.
"Most of these machines are extremely versatile," he said.
"In June this year, we cracked a million acres [405,000 hectares] commercially farmed in Australia with our robots, which is a huge milestone for our team that we're really proud of."
He said robots could do simple work such as chemical handling, spraying and mowing.
"There's lots of our robots in Queensland and New South Wales, and we're sending robots over to West Australia," he said.
The company builds robots that can be operated by a mobile phone app.
Mr Bate said there were environmental benefits in using the machines.
"We cut around about 580 tonnes of pesticide out of the environment here in Australia last year, across the fleet of all our customers," he said.
"On our own farm, we probably cut out around 15 tonnes of pesticide in the last 12 months alone."
Connectivity is the biggest challenge for growers wanting to invest in the machines.
"One of our biggest limitations to not just this technology, but all technologies is connectivity," Mr Smit said.
"The farm we're on today is one of the only farms we could choose because it had 4G reception."
More jobs, not less
Dean Collins from CQUniversity's Hinkler AgTech Initiative said while automated vehicles would replace workers in the field, there would be other jobs created in support roles.
"At the end of the day, we also need service industries, we need people to support these vehicles," he said.
"We need people who can know how to repair them, how to maintain them as well, and how to actually operate them."
Mr Bate said the technology would attract more young people into the agriculture industry.
"There's a really big bright future in agriculture in terms of new technology, new opportunities," he said.
"It's the sort of technology that engages the next generation and brings people back into agriculture."
