Yamaha Motor Launches Yamaha Agriculture, Investing in Automation for Specialty Crop Growers

In late February, Yamaha Motor announced the launch of Yamaha Agriculture, a new company that focuses on delivering autonomous equipment and AI-powered digital solutions to help specialty crop growers become more sustainable, profitable, and resilient. 

As part of Yamaha Agriculture’s launch, the company acquired Robotics Plus and The Yield. Robotics Plus is a New Zealand-based agritech company that specializes in the design and build of robotics, AI, and autonomous machines that reduce reliance on labor and provide data-driven insights for growers. The Yield is a precision yield management company focused on specialty crops that claims to transform precision agriculture practices and outcomes through scalable, AI-based technologies.

“We believe meaningful innovation in agriculture emerges through close collaboration with growers and industry partners,” Nolan Paul, CEO of Yamaha Agriculture said. “The capabilities of Robotics Plus in robotics and automation and The Yield in AI-powered analytics represent two important building blocks in addressing these challenges.”

Western Growers Association Welcomes New Company

Walt Duflock, senior vice president of innovation at the Western Growers Association (WGA), said his team at WGA “will be working with the Yamaha Agriculture team to try and get the products from Robotics Plus and The Yield vetted and in trials and case studies with our members.”

Increasing labor costs are one of the reasons that WGA is so focused on automation, Duflock said WGA and Cal Poly Professor Lynn Hamilton worked together on research regarding the labor inputs for selected specialty crops. 

“California farmers spent $16.3 billion on 850 million hours of farm labor in 2023,” Duflock said. “Roughly two-third of those hours are on harvesting crops; the other one-third are for non-harvest activities (weeding, thinning, planting, spraying).” 

As a result, Duflock said, “it’s good for the space that Yamaha is taking startup investments and launching a platform to help them get traction in the U.S. and other specialty crop markets.”

Yamaha’s involvement in improving automations in the specialty crop industry “helps increase the chances that Robotics Plus, The Yield, and any other acquisitions have a better shot at having adequate capital to get to scale,” Duflock said. 

Specialty Growers Share Excitement for Yamaha Agriculture

Jeff Cleveringa, the head of orchard operations at Columbia Fruit Packers in Wenatchee, Washington, said automation is a relatively new aspect of the specialty crop industry. 

“The industrial revolution left us behind,” Cleveringa said. “We got the tractor and that was it.”

Now, though, Cleveringa said it’s an exciting time to explore automations in the specialty crop industry. He said Yamaha’s involvement in automation is “the missing link in specialty crops.”

This is because an industry partner like Yamaha Agriculture brings the ability to scale automation tools for the industry as a whole, Cleveringa said. 

Automation Tools Bring Many Wins for Specialty Crops

On the farms that Columbia Fruit Packers manages, Cleveringa said they invested in Robotics Plus’ Prospr machines in 2024. Prospr is an autonomous, multi-purpose hybrid vehicle designed to perform a range of orchard and vineyard tasks. It was built to tackle labor shortages and is capable of multiple activities including spraying and weed control, with additional attachments such as mowing in development.

Cleveringa said Columbia Fruit Packers decided to invest in Prospr because “it’s a modular system so we can add other attachments.”

The Prospr machines have helped the team at Columbia Fruit Packers with spraying their orchards with “a lot of cost savings in diesel fuel burn,” Cleveringa said.

The investment into Prospr has been a win-win for his operation, Cleveringa said, not only from a cost-savings standpoint, but also regarding environmental and worker safety concerns.

Yamaha Agriculture’s Involvement Can Get Tools to Growers

Overall, Cleveringa said he’s excited that Yamaha Agriculture can bring the tools Robotics Plus needs to get Prospr into the hands of the growers.

“We hope that this is just the first step for Yamaha Agriculture,” Cleveringa said, “and that they will continue with other companies. We hope this is the first step to work together to identify pain points and opportunities [for the industry].”

Data-Driven Approach to Solve Labor Shortage Concerns

Matt Miles, the process improvement manager at Allen Brothers Fruit in Naches, Washington, said “Yamaha is going to be a great partner. I’m excited about collaborating with them.”

One of the reasons that Miles said he’s so excited about the financial backing Yamaha Agriculture brings to companies like The Yield, a company his team at Allen Brothers Fruit has been working closely with to develop data-driven automations, is because there’s a massive labor shortage impacting specialty crop growers.

“People used to want to do this work,” Miles said. “There’s a big disconnect between the folks that want to do the work and the work that needs to be done. We’ve been reliant on a low cost and available work force.”

Automations will not only ease labor dynamics, Miles said, but they’ll allow companies like Allen Brothers Fruit to make the jobs of the people in the fields and packhouses easier “so we can maintain or increase productivity.”