Institution news
A world first and the beginnings of another agricultural revolution occurred earlier this month, deep in the heart of the English countryside.
A team of engineers, agriculturalists and technicians working at Harper Adams University, near Newport in Shropshire have just brought in a crop of Spring barley farmed from start to finish without setting a single human foot inside the field - a world first for automation and robotics that might be offering us a glimpse of the global future of rural farming.
Farming is no stranger when it comes to engineering inventions leading to disruption of the sector, and once again it finds itself at the forefront of change. This time it is digital, a combination of artificial intelligence, digital connectivity, robots, drones and other forms of machine automation that are set to start a new agricultural revolution and create transformations across this global industry.
There was a time when harvesting meant every able-bodied person in the village headed to the fields to gather in the fruits of another year of back breaking toil. Digging and preparing the land, sowing seeds, pulling out weeds and tending growth, until finally the hard work of cutting and bringing in the harvest – only to begin the whole labour intensive process again soon enough. But scientific and engineering advances, particularly in the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the past 200 or so years, changed all of that. With mechanisation, as well as modern methods and processes, the need for farm labour has reduced dramatically and today in the UK only around 1.5% of the nation’s workforce is engaged in agriculture.
Some fear that a new agricultural revolution underpinned by digital technology will lead to vast unmanned industrialised farms run by robots and autonomous machines, further decreasing the sector’s human workforce. Others, however, believe that new jobs will emerge, for example that tractor drivers will become “fleet managers” controlling teams of smaller, agile, more environmentally friendly precision machines; and field agronomists “crop intervention managers” conducting operations remotely in all weathers from the convenience of their smartphones. There will, of course, also be new agriculture related jobs for robotics and mechatronics engineers, software and IT hardware developers, and support technicians, as well as equipment manufacturers and distributors. This revolution could be less about workforce reduction and more about workforce modernisation.
With or without “fleet managers” however, a rural landscape populated by robots and autonomous vehicles charged with looking after one of the most fundamental needs of human life, food supply, does raise some challenging issues to be tackled. Not least of these is cybersecurity.
Computer system hackers come in many forms, ranging from individuals who carry out attacks purely for personal pleasure, through to organised crime and state-sponsored teams of cyber warriors. As more and more digital technology is deployed, the ‘attack’ surface available for hackers to probe increases, along with the potential pathways to sensitive data and/or system hijacking and control. The recent spate of ransomware attacks on UK computer systems, including that of the NHS, is indicative of this growing threat.
Farm wide integration of digital technology with machines such as drones, driverless tractors and robotic pest controllers provides a potential opportunity for hackers to take control of and, ultimately, prevent farms functioning. Cyberattacks on farms, with hackers taking over machines and potentially destroying crops or halting production and holding farmers and finely balanced ‘just-in-time’ food supply chains to ransom, could be a risk.
Globally cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are on the increase. In 2015 the USA recorded nearly 300 incidents, compared to around 200 in 2012, and it has been estimated that in the second half of 2016 about 40% of industrial computers worldwide were attacked. Food production and distribution is critical infrastructure. And as agriculture adopts more and more digital technology, it will increasingly be open to attack.
At the core of the cybersecurity challenge are three dynamics, the vulnerabilities inherent in the devices and sensors being connected together, the scale of the systems to be implemented, and the lack of awareness of the potential threat and counter strategies to follow.
In the case of many devices and sensors, the level of cybersecurity protection is often of a very basic nature. This situation is frequently exacerbated by either hard coded passwords, or users leaving the default factory supplied passwords in place when the technology is introduced. Additionally, a lack of standards and regulation means that manufacturers are not incentivised to incorporate security features and when faced with market pressures for low cost products, create designs that are inherently vulnerable.
The issue of scale plays out in the size of the attack surface created through the deployment of hundreds of vulnerable products across a system and the difficult challenge of ensuring that the software or firmware running them all is up to date with security upgrades and ‘patches’. The entire network is only as secure as its weakest link.
The lack of awareness is apparent in the sector, even though there are already many digital technologies available for use in agriculture. Cyber-attacks often occur through firewalls, webcams, wireless access points, routers, printers and phones, all of which are commonly found on UK farms and offer a pathway for hackers to enter networks and cause disruption.
From an engineering perspective, this is all solvable. However, to do so the challenge must be recognised by Government, the farming sector and the research community. The lack of standards and regulation requires governments to come together to urgently develop and implement these as cross-border instruments, providing support and enforcing penalties for non-compliance. More broadly the agricultural research community needs to explore the cyber security threats to farms of the future, work with the UK’s new National Cyber Security Centre to raise awareness of these and the appropriate security strategies to follow, as well as develop best practice cybersecurity guidance and advice for the sector. The basic security frameworks and building blocks have to be put in place – before, not after, the industry moves from a successful 2017 demo in Shropshire to a future global revolution.
Automation and robotisation of agriculture clearly offers many potential societal benefits, including enhanced food security for a rapidly growing global population, reduced ecological degradation from industrial scale production, and improved environmental stewardship. And as was shown in Shropshire this year, the engineering capability and technical building blocks are largely available to begin moving forward. What is needed now is some government and sector leadership to guard against future cyber threats to this fledgling digital transformation.
Dr Tim Fox is Chair, Food and Drink Engineering Committee, Institution of Mechanical Engineers.