The objective of this project was to review a broad range of data related to vegetable commodity production to identify those commodities and production processes that should be prioritised for RD&E investment in mechanisation.

Labour is a significant component of farm costs in some sectors of the vegetable industry, making mechanisation an attractive consideration to reduce costs.

This project developed a priority list of vegetable crops for future investment in mechanisation R&D, and this report is the primary output on the project.

Based on the analysis, it is recommended that future investment in mechanisation R&D should focus on: harvesting and transplanting lettuce and broccoli; identifying R&D synergies between brassica crops and between Asian and bunching vegetable lines; controlled traffic farming; and research in robotics, machine vision and sensors.