In a romaine lettuce field outside of San Juan Bautista, the team from SAMI Robotics proudly unveiled their robotic lettuce harvester to a group of growers, policymakers and media. With cameras clicking and iPhones filming, founder Pascal Labrecque demonstrated how the machine efficiently identifies and harvests healthy lettuce heads. If you’ve watched a few too many low-budget sci-fi movies, you’re probably picturing a harvest team of machete-wielding androids – but that’s not at all the case. The SAMI harvester is a highly sophisticated robotic platform that aims to assist today’s manual workforce amid ever-present labor shortages. 

What is the SAMI harvester? 

The SAMI harvester is a multifunctional platform that uses AI-assisted cameras and 3D vision systems to scan the field, identify individual vegetables, and evaluate their size, maturity, and health in real time. This information is then relayed to robotic arms equipped with blades that slice the leafy greens. Then the lettuce is set on a conveyor belt that deposits the harvested heads into a trailer before they’re ultimately transported to temperature-regulated storage.

The SAMI harvester is currently being tested to assist with the harvest of romaine, iceberg and broccoli. Pascal envisions the machine eventually being used for thinning, weeding and spraying as well. 

Why do farmers need a robotic harvester?

Circling back to sci-fi fans, this is not a Terminator-type scenario. Robotic harvesters are not going to take over the world, and SAMI’s harvester is not putting flesh-and-blood farmworkers out of a job. Harvesting is a tough job – and there simply aren’t enough people to do the work. Farmers across the state consistently cite a dwindling workforce as one of their main pain points. 

Family farms and labor shortages

SAMI Robotics was founded by Pascal Labrecque and Éric Lapalme. Originally, it was Éric’s idea to create a machine to help with harvest, after witnessing the impact of labor shortages on his family’s farm. When Éric first approached Pascal with his idea to create a robotic harvester, Pascal was a little skeptical. Well, maybe more than a little skeptical. Pascal admits that after Éric originally shared his concept, he bluntly responded, “I don’t believe in your idea.” He argued that expensive robots were not the answer to hand harvesting or labor shortages.

Pascal acknowledges his response may have been because his experience is in medical technologies. He confesses, “When I started three years ago, I knew nothing about agriculture.” Flashing a small, slightly sheepish smile, Pascal continues, “To me, a garden of food was a grocery store.”

Despite his initial skepticism, Pascal did his due diligence in talking to farmers and potential customers. Pascal was surprised to learn that they were, in fact, very interested. He recalls hearing enthusiastic responses asking “Can you do this???”. Some farmers even indicated labor is such an issue that they might need more than one harvester. Then, Pascal realized that the problem was just a little bigger than he thought. 

Feedback and field days

With Pascal’s background in medical technology and Éric’s experience in aerospace engineering, the pair felt confident in their technical expertise. They realized, however, that to create the most effective prototype, they needed feedback from farmers and farmworkers.

Pascal explains, “For us it’s really important to work with farmworkers, growers, shippers, and processors to get this right.” Pascal notes that farmers and farmworkers have provided invaluable feedback on reliability, transportation and food safety. 

Ag Tech Alliance: Connecting all the dots

California’s Ag Tech Alliance helps facilitate introductions between tech companies like SAMI Robotics, growers and investors. Members of the alliance provide emerging agriculture tech companies with invaluable opportunities to test and demonstrate their technology under real-world commercial farming conditions.

The University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resource’s Connect Program, Reservoir Farms and Western Growers Association host events like Field Days, where tech companies demonstrate their products and talk directly with growers, building relationships while gathering valuable feedback.

Those conversations can help shape the next generation of the technology, making it more useful for the farmers who will ultimately rely on it.

The goal is to accelerate the commercialization of technologies that address some of the most pressing challenges in specialty crop agriculture. It’s a win-win for both farmers and entrepreneurs: Ag tech companies can get their products to market faster and begin generating revenue sooner, while growers gain access to much-needed solutions for the challenges they face in the field.

SAMI Robotics next steps: Testing in commercial harvests

The SAMI Harvester is still in the pre-commercial phase, or as Pascal describes it, the “pre-market launch”. They’re excited to test the machine in commercial harvests through paid trials. These trials will help the team collect feedback from growers and shippers to ensure that future generations of the SAMI harvester address all their needs. 

After spending the last three years immersed in California agriculture, Pascal has a new appreciation for the immense amount of work it takes to grow and harvest even one tiny head of lettuce. He remarks, “Every time I’m at the grocery store, I see all the supply chain – from planting the seeds, growing them, harvesting them – it’s humongous when you understand all the work behind it.” 

Pascal’s new perspective reflects what SAMI Robotics hopes to accomplish. The goal isn’t to replace the people who harvest our food, but to develop technologies that ultimately help streamline that process – giving people across the world increased access to safe, healthy foods.

Article by Hilary Rance. Photography by James Collier.