Meet Quint Pottinger, Kentucky farmer who uses autonomous tractors to save his 245-year-old family farm

Quint Pottinger is using autonomous tractors to help save his 245-year-old family farm in Kentucky. (Photo: Farm Journal) After three years of drought, rising expenses and difficult conversations with his banker, eighth-generation Kentucky farmer Quint Pottinger was running out of ways to save his family’s 245-year-old farm. With costs already cut across seeds, fertilisers, labour and equipment, he needed a different solution. His answer came from an unexpected place: autonomous tractors.According to Farm Journal, Pottinger discovered Sabanto, a company developing technology to convert conventional tractors into autonomous machines, after his lender suggested further equipment savings could improve the farm’s cash flow. What began as an experiment has since changed how the family approaches planting and fieldwork.Three years of drought left the family farm strugglingPottinger’s family has farmed the same land in Kentucky for 245 years. However, three consecutive years of dry weather in July resulted in disappointing corn yields and mounting financial pressure.“For the last three years, we've had bad dry weather in July and we've been making 100 to 130. So, it's been hard to pay the...