Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LSE:MKS) said the first parsnips produced from a ‘robotic’ production trial will available to buy from its shops in November.
In a pilot scheme backed by the grocery chain’s Accelerator A fund, robots have been planting and weeding, drones have been monitoring progress and soil conditions with AI used for scientific analysis.
“Much like when agriculture moved from horse and plough to mechanical tractors, these latest technologies offer a future of farming that will aid farmers, create more highly skilled jobs in the industry and attract new talent,” said a statement from the retailer.
M&S added it will be the first retailer to farm and sell a lower carbon vegetable following the ‘autonomous field’ trial.
To achieve that, Huntapac, M&S’s partner, used a ‘minimum till’ (less ploughing) approach to keep carbon locked into the soil alongside a new fertiliser that removes nitrogen dioxide from the air and converts it to nitrogen for plant photosynthesis
Even with the wettest six months in England for over a century, M& S says the autonomous robot planted the field something that wouldn’t have been possible with a traditional tractor.
Andrew Clappen, Technical Director at M&S Food, said: “Projects like this help us move towards being a Net Zero business across all our operations and entire supply chain by 2040 while focussing on the quality of produce that M&S is famous for.
"Agriculture is one of our biggest contributors to emissions, so it’s important that we find new lower-impact farming methods."
He said this project helped deliver more quality parsnips as well as a reduction in carbon.
Stephen Shields at Huntapac, added: “Not only are we seeing a reduction of the carbon impact but more parsnips at higher quality, due to us being able to plant the seeds despite bad weather earlier this year.
“This would have a fantastic impact on our business at scale and we’re aiming to deliver multiple fields farmed this way for next season.”