Burro, a Philadelphia-based robotics company, said its Grande 44 autonomous work platform has been named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2026 in the Agriculture category. TIME's editors pick 300 inventions each year. Grande 44 is Burro's sixth and newest model. It offers up to 6,000 lbs of towing capacity, 1,500 lbs of payload, 44 HP of peak power, and up to 40 kWh of battery capacity. It can tow, transport, mow, spray, and patrol without changes to a customer's facility. More than 800 Burro robots operate in 17 countries, having logged over one million autonomous hours in vineyards, nurseries, orchards, and industrial sites. "Our customers are proving the value of our robots every day, in the mud, the heat and the dust," said chief executive officer Charlie Andersen.

Listen to this articleFieldwork and Augean have developed a base-agnostic raspberry-harvesting payload, shown here on a Burro. Source: Fieldwork Robotics. Like other industries, raspberry growers face growing labor challenges. Fieldwork Robotics Ltd. today announced that it has signed a collaboration agreement with Augean Robotics Inc., manufacturer of the Burro autonomous and collaborative mobile robot. Fieldwork Robotics is developing an autonomous raspberry-harvesting robot

The farm robotics sector has shown some resilience in 2024 and continues to bring innovative products to market, despite the challenging year for fundraising. In the first half of 2024, the AgFunder-defined Farm Robotics, Mechanization, and Equipment category has raised nearly $399 million, a 21.1 % decline from $505.5 million in H1 2023. [Disclosure: AgFunderNews’ parent company is AgFunder.]. However, this drop needs to be considered in the context of a general investment contraction that has characterized the last 18 months. Overall agrifoodtech investment was also down in H1 2024: 12.5% compared to H1 2023. The drop in funding to the robotics sector is more or less in line with general trends