Ai is allowing farmers to scale and cover more ground, but new Ai systems can be insanely expensive, costing nearly one million dollars. Craig Rupp of Sabanto Ag sees a more efficient path. His approach retrofits existing, older farm equipment with Ai packages, making old “dumb” farm equipment completely autonomous.
Rupp says many of his customers don’t even know how to drive a tractor at all. Instead, they install his kit and the equipment drives itself. One customer of his from Ankeny, Iowa cleared nearly 300k acres and has never driven a tractor. Rupp explains the future of autonomy in agriculture.
Agriculture technology is shifting away from massive, multi-million-dollar machinery toward smaller, retrofitted autonomous systems.
Rupp detailed how his company turns standard tractors into self-operating units using aftermarket hardware and cloud-based mission control.
Sabanto Ag marked a historical milestone in 2019 by autonomously planting a commercial soybean field in Sac City, Iowa. Rather than building bespoke robotics, the company installs retrofit kits—comprising dual GNSS receivers, Starlink connectivity, and hydraulic steering controls—onto 24 existing tractor models. Rupp advocates updating existing equipment over buying expensive new machinery, noting, “Your next generation tractor’s already just sitting in your machine shed.”
Despite concerns about automation replacing workers, Sabanto Ag’s deployment of roughly 50 autonomous systems replaced zero human employees. Instead, farmers scale operations remotely; one Iowa-based operator currently manages 23 tractors across multiple states, having covered 300,000 acres in a single year. “I think autonomy is not an all or nothing proposition,” Rupp emphasized, explaining that retrofitted tractors maintain traditional cabs for everyday manual tasks.
Hear from Iowans directly. No algorithms.
Don’t let the algorithms choose your news. Enter your email address to hear directly from Iowans leading news in politics, community, agriculture and business. No editing. No clickbait. No rage. No agenda.
The Financial Case for Smaller Equipment
High equipment costs often constrain agricultural growth. A top-tier 830-horsepower tractor costs $1.2 million to $1.3 million, whereas purchasing eighteen 100-horsepower tractors provides 1,800 total horsepower for the same price. Operating those smaller units continuously produces four times the work output. A Montana wheat farmer saved $1 million in capital expenses by choosing three 120-horsepower autonomous tractors over large machinery, reinvesting the savings into land.
Continuous 24-hour operation allows farms to run overnight until fuel drops below 5%. Demonstrating this full-scale potential, Kentucky’s Affinity Farms planted 100% of its corn, soybean, and rye crops autonomously. Foreseeing an industry-wide pivot toward lighter equipment, Rupp concluded, “The future doesn’t roar, it whispers.”