Investigating stakeholder participation in UK agricultural robotics development

There are many environmental, economic, and social sustainability challenges facing the agricultural sector. One solution proposed to address such challenges is agricultural robotics, and in particular, autonomous systems for crop and livestock monitoring, disease management, and harvesting. However, several ethical challenges emerging from the potential use of agricultural robotics have been identified, leading to calls for responsible innovation of the technology. To examine how these ethical challenges are being addressed by the sector, it is important to understand how the responsible innovation principles of anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness are being integrated into innovation of these robots. In this study, we focused on the principle of inclusion, conducting semi-structured interviews with key members of the UK agricultural robotics sector. A thematic analysis of the results showed inclusion of some stakeholder groups, the use of networks for stakeholder identification, and an emphasis on stakeholder engagement to facilitate developer education, technical specifications, and enduser confidence. However, the analysis also identified an absence of engagement with other stakeholder groups, and limited focus on stakeholder engagement to explore social and ethical issues. This study recommends a future focus on how inclusive anticipatory exercises could facilitate more responsible innovation of autonomous agricultural robotics.