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A leading expert in AI and robotics has talked to a key BBC farming programme to introduce a week-long focus on the subject.

Throughout this week, Radio Four’s Farming Today will be examining the impact of AI on agriculture. From monitoring the health of crops to measuring their uptake of water and improving animal welfare, AI is already being used all around the country – and beyond.

To being their week-long focus, the programme spoke with Professor in Agricultural Engineering and Head of the Harper Institute of Technology, Fernando Auat Cheein, about ways the technology is being used now, current barriers to its take-up – and ways that it may be used in the future.

He said: “We cannot think of AI without robotics – so the main uses that we can find right now is about the use of sensors with AI applications and those using drones to get all the information – and then to provide a farmer with enough information for a decision.”

However, he emphasised that the diversity of agricultural tasks meant that – while the use of robotics and AI is growing across the sector– we remain some distance from having fully autonomous farms in every aspect.

He added: “The robot that we develop for harvesting apples is not going to be the same as the one we use to harvest, let’s say, berries, or spring onions, or any other speciality crop – and that is a big issue, because we cannot generalise.

“When we are taking about the lack of a human labour force and things like that, that is something that is happening worldwide: it’s not a UK problem only.

“We are far yet from reaching a solution in which we are going to have fully autonomous farms.

“I am talking about, for example, horticulture: arable land is easier to solve, we have many examples – but when we are talking about horticulture, everything becomes more difficult. Handling vegetables, you need a different robot for each one of the assets.”

However, he emphasised that robots are being used in a wide range of applications – such as a p[project he is working on pairing the technology with poultry farming.

He said: “We are actually working on poultry systems – we are deploying what are called legged robots, those are robots that are able to walk.

“The job of the robots is about checking the assets, collecting eggs, checking health – everything that is related to the wellbeing of the assets.

“When you enter into the poultry system, it is very unhealthy – so now you have a robot that is not affected by that environment, is not in contact with any other possible vector of contamination or whatever you want to call it - we have a robot that is immune, the animals react very well to the robot, unlike with a human - and it’s doing the job!”