CES 2025: Deere goes driverless beyond US Midwest farms to ease labour crunch

‘Half of the tractor jobs are unfilled and it’s because the work is grueling and physically exhausting,’ Cafiero said of such roles at orchards in the key producing state of California, where the new equipment was first previewed in November. — AFP

Deere & Co, which has already introduced driverless ploughs to farm fields in the Midwest, now wants to bring autonomous machines to orchards, quarries and grassy lawns to help ease a tight labour market.

The world leader in agriculture equipment unveiled its new autonomous fleet at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Jan 6. The machines, painted in Deere’s iconic green and yellow, are designed to handle some of the hardest-to-fill jobs on the work site, from the seemingly endless spraying of fruit and nut trees to hauling massive rocks in dump trucks.