Workers Aren’t Being Replaced; They’re Being Repositioned
Automation isn’t removing people - it’s removing friction. Why the smartest farms use tech to upgrade labour roles instead of cutting headcount.
There’s a sentence I hear in agriculture more than almost anywhere else:
“Technology is going to replace workers.”
It sounds plausible. It may even sound inevitable.
But on real farms, in real seasons, under real labour law, weather risk, and market pressures, it’s mostly the wrong framing altogether.
What technology is doing, at scale, is not deleting people.
It’s deleting guesswork, paperwork, and repeatable drudgery.
And that changes what we hire for, what we train for, and what “good labour” even means.
Farm Progress put it bluntly: “…modern tools are removing repetitive tasks and elevating the role of people and their talents; but they also force a shift in skills and expertise.”
That’s the reality farmers are walking into right now.
Not labour replacement. But labour repositioning.
The labour economics are different, but the pressure is mostly the same
Let’s acknowledge the obvious: labour markets are not equal.
In Peru and South Africa, labour is often cheaper than Australia, and typically less expensive than many US and Chile contexts - just as an example. That changes the payback period for robotics and heavy automation. It also changes adoption pace.
But it does not remove the pressure.
It just moves it around.
Cheaper labour often comes with its own friction:
High turnover and inconsistent performance
Compliance exposure (wages, breaks, documentation, contracting)
Socio-political turbulence / disruption risk
Skills gaps that show up the moment you introduce a new system
Management bottlenecks: supervisors stretched thin across responsibilities/roles
Expensive labour markets feel a different kind of pain:
Labour scarcity; competition with other sectors
Wage inflation
Increased scrutiny, more formal HR systems, tighter process controls
A stronger business case for automation and “operator augmentation”
In both worlds, technology becomes a resilience tool. Only it’s applied differently.
“Automation” is not a single switch (ie. the farm is not a factory assembly line)
The best line I’ve seen on this came from a University of Wisconsin Extension piece on automation:
“Some producers imagine automation eliminates the need to hire and manage workers; that vision is unrealistic. You may end up with fewer or a similar number of workers, but doing different tasks.”
That “different tasks” part matters.
Because most farm work is messy. Variable. Context-heavy.
It involves judgement calls, timing, coordination, and responsibility.
So what new tech really does is carve out a set of functions that are predictable enough to digitise:
Tracking and reporting
Scheduling and task assignment
Time and attendance
Compliance calculations
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) and training delivery
Equipment telemetry and alerts
Workflow visibility across sites
This is why, even on farms that are adopting robotics and automation systems, the workforce simply shifts within the system rather than shrink (good news for workers).
The same Wisconsin Extension article mentioned above gives a concrete example:
“…the move toward high-tech create[s] new roles for farms - milkers can become robot operators or automation technicians; the job becomes more technical, not absent.”
If you want the truth; follow the admin load
One reason “replacement” narratives persist is that people confuse field labour1 with coordination labour.2
In larger operations, a surprising amount of labour is spent not in the orchard, but around the orchard: scheduling, timekeeping, payroll rules, compliance records, training logs, and day-to-day coordination (as an example).
Those hours add up quickly. And they are expensive.
This is where smart apps start winning, even in lower-cost labour markets.
Because they don’t only “save labour hours”; they compress the management overhead3 that makes labour hard to use well.
AgriWebb (writing from the livestock side of farming here) nails the people side of adoption. Change can feel threatening; farmers need to show how new tech benefits staff rather than making them obsolete; the more you include staff, the more likely adoption efforts will succeed.
That is operational psychology, not software marketing.
…farmers need to show how new tech benefits staff rather than making them obsolete; the more you include staff, the more likely adoption efforts will succeed.
Case study 1:
When a workforce app replaces paper, not people
Back in 2017, a FreshPlaza feature on PickTrace (harvest and workforce management) highlighted a problem many operations still face: time, attendance, and productivity tracking is messy when it relies on paper. By digitising those workflows, farms cut hours of manual data entry, while payroll rules and reporting were handled inside the system.
Notice what’s being “automated” there:
Not picking. Not pruning. Not driving of tractors.
It’s the admin drag around labour.
That’s why these tools show up in orchards and vineyards long before fully autonomous machines do. They make the existing workforce more usable. More accountable. Fairly managed, especially when the rules are consistently applied.
Case study 2:
Visibility is a productivity multiplier
In a Hectre orchard case study, the manager describes a simple but powerful shift:
“Being able to track employee locations is especially useful because we have multiple blocks spread out all over the place. It helps improve efficiency by allowing me to quickly locate a worker rather than driving around looking for them, which is often time-consuming.”
Again, the pattern repeats.
The tech isn’t replacing workers…
It’s reducing friction between:
Managers and crews
Blocks and tasks
Reality and reporting
This is why “smart stacking” matters.
One tool rarely changes the operation.
But a stack does.
The technology categories that matter right now
If I had to map the “labour-resilience stack” on a modern farm, I’d group it like this:
1. Workforce operations (the HR spine)
Time, attendance, digital timesheets, pay rules, piece-rate logic, traceability, worker allocation, task completion, audit trails (think of Aerobotics, Clarifresh, Hectre, PickTrace-type workflows).
2. Training, up-skilling, and role progression
Farmers Weekly makes the case that up-skilling improves efficiency, supports tech adoption, strengthens sustainability practices, and reduces turnover because workers feel valued and see advancement paths.
Research4 continues to show measurable gains from targeted training interventions; for example, a Frontiers study on potato farmers in Malawi reports yield improvements tied to training participation.
3. In-field telemetry and remote monitoring
Irrigation system telemetry, pump and pressure monitoring, soil moisture networks, weather stations, cold-room sensors, generator fuel monitoring; the point is early warning and faster response with fewer “walk the farm” hours.
4. Fleet, asset, and machinery management
GPS fleet tracking, maintenance schedules, utilisation, operator behaviour, compliance logs, fuel theft prevention, and downtime reduction.
5. Targeted automation and mechanisation
Robotic milking, autonomous or semi-autonomous equipment, and specialised mechanisation where labour is scarce or dangerous.
Farm Progress notes this direction of travel: autonomy and robotics remove repetitive work but demand new skills.
Practical advice: adopt tech that makes your people sharper
If you want to write a strategy for this that survives contact with reality, keep it simple.
Start with the labour constraint you can measure
Don’t say “we need to automate”. Rather solve for: time lost to paperwork; supervisor span-of-control; compliance errors; rework; travel time between blocks; overtime creep; training time-to-competence.Choose tools that create a single source of operational truth
If your spray records live in WhatsApp, payroll in a spreadsheet, and task lists in someone’s head, you are already paying a “data tax”.Pilot in one block or one team; then scale
AgriWebb’s rollout steps are sensible: research; rollout plan; bring staff on board; invest in training; implement and evaluate.Treat technicians and vendor support as if they are part of your workforce
If a system needs uptime, support response time is not a “nice-to-have”; it is operational capacity. Wisconsin Extension explicitly frames vendor tech support as a “virtual” part of the workforce during transitions.Make the career ladder visible
If workers believe tech equals job loss, adoption will be met with passive (or even upfront) resistance. But if workers see tech as a pathway (lead operator; scout lead; irrigation technician; data capture lead), adoption is met with pride and welcomed responsibility.
The crux of it all:
Technology is not replacing workers.
Ambiguity is being replaced by dashboards
Paper by audit trails
Reactivity by proactive alerts
Informal know-how by repeatable systems
Busy-work by higher-value responsibilities
In high-wage markets, that can be the difference between staying competitive and falling behind. In lower-wage markets, it can be the difference between managing labour well and drowning in the management load that cheap labour can hide.
Same destination. Different route.
Where is labour costing you the most right now;
in wages, or in the chaos around wages?
The thinking starts here, but the real change starts when we take action.
Thanks for reading,
Ken
👉 Find my latest book and resources over here: (Linktree link)
Field labour (hands-on production labour)
Labour applied directly to biological or physical production outcomes in the orchard, vineyard, field, pack-house, or workshop. If the work stops, production (or quality) stops quickly.
Coordination labour (management and “work-about-work”)
Labour spent organising, verifying, documenting, and synchronising work across people, blocks, equipment, compliance rules, and time windows. It doesn’t directly pick fruit or prune trees; it determines whether the operation runs cleanly or bleeds time. Think of it as “work that makes work possible”.
Management overhead: the indirect management and administrative work needed to run farm operations (planning, supervision, payroll/compliance, reporting); it supports production but is not production itself.
Frontiers (2024) reports that targeted farmer training interventions in Malawi were associated with measurable potato yield gains (including an average increase of about 1.33 tons per acre, roughly 14% for one training type), reinforcing that up-skilling can translate into real productivity improvements.