Whether it’s planting, weeding, scouting, or spraying, crop robotics remains a robust area of agricultural innovation as numerous new entrants join the market and major original equipment manufacturers — from John Deere to AGCO — prioritize tech investments in their growth strategy. This is captured in the 2026 edition of strategic consulting firm The Mixing Bowl’s crop robotics landscape.
Every two years since 2022, The Mixing Bowl surveys the crop robotics landscape, sorting the different segments and tracking changes within the industry through a report. The 2026 report featured 400 global companies, a 25% increase from 2024 numbers and 36% of the companies are new to the landscape. Additionally, the report found 20% of the companies exited from the market between 2024 and 2026.
The landscape is broken down into technologies, like navigation and autonomy, harvesting, smart spraying, and others, as well as divided between permanent, specialty, row, and indoor crops.
Adoption of robotic technology largely depends on the type of technology, Michael Rose, partner at Better Food Ventures and a contributor to The Mixing Bowl landscape on robotics, told AgNavigator.
For instance, navigation and autonomy solutions are gaining traction, he noted. Additionally, the report noted growth in spraying technologies and a strong pipeline of robotic platforms and carriers.
“Navigation and autonomy that is well deployed. You look at navigation technology in tractors and combines for row crops, it’s been there a long time and fully deployed, fully commercialized, and broad adoption. ... Everybody is playing in that space, either retro kits or units themselves,” Rose elaborated.
Should full automation be the goal?
Various machine makers and innovators are discussing and developing fully automated farm systems. However, the model for the future might less be full automation and more a hybrid between automated systems and manual processes, Rose explained.
“You’ll have full automation where it makes sense. Will we see a farm run like a lights-out manufacturing facility that we can see in China, where there are no human beings? I don’t think so,” he added.
Why lower venture dollars could be a sign of a maturing market
The landscape also broke down where robotics companies were headquartered. European companies represented half of the companies, and the U.S. had 18% of the companies, The Mixing Bowl reported.
Representing the home of 40% of all U.S. crop robotics companies, California remains the hub of agtech innovation and investment in America, but start-ups “need to be where the farmer or the producer” to ensure products are resonating with farmers, Rose said. “You can’t sit in Silicon Valley and spin up a company and then sell it to the market,” he emphasized.
Venture capital (VC) funding remained steady from 2024 and 2026, with companies listed in the landscape raising $600 million during the two year period. While VC has been down since the peak of the agtech hype cycle, this is a natural part of the market cycle, where VC dollars move away from a sector as the market begins to mature, Rose noted.
“Where’s the role for venture anyway? It was actually a couple years ago. So, did we see this in handset manufacturers? Did we see this in PC hardware? There’s a point where early-stage venture does drop off,” Rose said.
He added, “The question is how many more companies do you need to address the space?”
