The headlines surrounding Monarch Tractor earlier this year were a sobering reminder of just how difficult it is to deliver on the promise of autonomous agriculture. The California-based startup, once valued at over half a billion dollars, shut its doors after raising $240 million in venture capital — leaving some dealers and customers holding the bag. A dealer in Idaho invested over $773,000 in ten of Monarch’s flagship MKV tractors only to find the machines couldn’t deliver: autonomous features were severely limited, and the tractors couldn’t function indoors.
Caterpillar has since reportedly acquired Monarch’s core technology assets, including its software-defined vehicle platform, perception stack, and electrification systems — a quiet acknowledgment that the underlying technology had value, even if the business model did not.
So where does that leave autonomy in agriculture?
We sat down with Tim Bucher, co-founder and CEO of Agtonomy, to discuss the current state of the industry, the lessons of Monarch’s rise and fall, and what farmers should actually expect from autonomous technology right now.
Built on a Farm, Not in a Boardroom
Bucher’s perspective is shaped by something most ag-tech founders lack: he’s actually a farmer. He runs Trattore Farms where he grows olives, grapes, and other crops. A decade ago, facing the same pressures squeezing growers across the country, he built a prototype autonomous tractor to save his own operation.
“It worked better than expected,” he said. “And then I showed it to my Silicon Valley colleagues, and they said, this is not about saving your own farm — this is about saving all farmers.”
That origin story shapes Agtonomy’s entire approach. Rather than building tractors or robots, the company develops what Bucher calls a “physical AI platform” — software and onboard AI designed to plug into equipment from manufacturers farmers already know and trust: Kubota, Bobcat, and others.
“Farmers know how important the incumbents are,” Bucher said. “They have trusted brands, dealer networks, parts and service, financing. We’re not going to compete with that. We’re going to help accelerate their digital transformation.”
It’s a lesson that Monarch Tractor unfortunately learned the hard way.
The State of Autonomy: Getting There, But Prove It First
Bucher is optimistic about where autonomy stands today — but measured. “I believe the state of autonomy is getting to the point where it is now economically viable with the right business model,” he said. The key words: right business model.
Monarch’s approach — selling a $100,000 electric tractor directly to specialty crop growers — put enormous pressure on the technology to perform flawlessly from day one. When it didn’t, the damage was swift and reputational. In agriculture, word travels fast.
“These are real people,” Bucher said. “When something works on one farm, that farmer tells their neighbors. What doesn’t work — same thing happens there.”
Agtonomy’s model is built around proving the technology in the field before asking farmers to commit. Bucher’s advice to growers is direct: try before you buy. Whether through rental programs or pilot deployments, no farmer should go all-in on autonomy without seeing it work on their specific land, in their specific conditions.
“Every farm is different,” he said. “Why do tractor manufacturers have 200 different models? One size does not fit all.”
Beyond Navigation: The Real Work Happens with Implements
One of the more interesting threads in Bucher’s thinking is what happens after a tractor can drive itself. Autonomous navigation is table stakes, he argues — what matters is what the machine actually does.
“The farmer doesn’t care if you navigate from point A to point B,” he said. “Nobody goes tractoring. You get work done. And that work is done with implements.”
Agtonomy has pivoted much of its attention toward smart implements — sprayers, mowers, crop-detection systems — that can be paired with autonomous platforms to make real decisions about when and how to act, not just where to go.
The company is now deploying autonomous vehicles to collect field data that previously required sending employees out on side-by-sides or quads. That data feeds back into scheduling decisions: when to spray, when to mow, when disease risk is elevated.
“We’re out there collecting data autonomously now,” Bucher said. “And that data can inform tasks with smart implements. I see it evolving very rapidly.”
‘Farmageddon’ and the Easy Button
Bucher has a word for the current moment in agriculture: farmageddon. Rising input costs, shrinking margins, labor shortages, trade disruption — the pressures are compounding in ways that make the status quo unsustainable for many operations.
“The only way out is to innovate our way out,” he said. “Autonomy is one of the important ways we can do that — be profitable businesses again, have a sustaining future.”
His vision for the next decade is something he calls “the ultimate farm agent” — a system that synthesizes weather data, soil conditions, crop load, equipment availability, and more, then surfaces a simple recommendation to the farmer: it’s time to do this spray at this mixture, you have 12 autonomous tractors and 12 sprayers, hit the easy button.
Critically, the farmer stays in charge. “The grower is still always going to be in charge,” Bucher emphasized. But the cognitive load — the constant monitoring and decision-making — shifts to the system.
He sees this not just as a productivity gain but as a generational opportunity. “I have three children and none of them are taking over my farm,” he said. “But I think they would if they knew they could use these kinds of tools — and not have to be out there in 120-degree Fahrenheit dirt and dust.”
The Bigger Picture: Ag Tech Over Autonomous Cars
Bucher pushes back gently on the framing that autonomous vehicles in agriculture are somehow trailing their consumer counterparts. If anything, he thinks the equation runs the other way.
“We all saw how autonomous passenger car technologies evolved,” he said. “Now you have self-driving cars in different cities around the world. But the impact we can make with these technologies in agriculture is so much greater.”
His reasoning is blunt: “Newsflash — there really isn’t a shortage of Uber drivers. But there is a shortage of tractor drivers.”
In a global agricultural industry worth trillions of dollars, where labor gaps are structural and the stakes are literally food supply, Bucher sees autonomous technology not as a luxury but as a necessity. “The last time I checked, we still need to eat.”
Learn more about the company online at https://www.agtonomy.com.
