If a herbicide ban ever arrives, who you gonna call? Something mechanical this way comes…very slowly

It’s an early summer’s day in north-east Germany. Steadily, steadily, an odd little machine clacks its way down sugar beet rows, extending hoe blades into the gaps between young beet plants to chop out weeds. It’s toiling for organic farmer Matthias Saudhof, an organic farmer who normally relies mainly on a hoeing gang for weed control; these days that’s hard labour, expensive at up to 100 manhours/ha. Reason enough, then, for him to try a Danish made FarmDroid FD20 robot.