Margao: Coconut harvesting in Goa could soon be done by robots. A demonstration of Cocobot, billed as the first commercially viable robot that can climb a coconut tree, harvest the nuts and be operated safely from the ground, was held at Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Margao, on Friday.Officials said the project is still at the piloting stage. Once it reaches production, the robots will be made available to farmers at subsidised rates.Cocobot has been developed by Altersage, a Kerala-based startup founded by Ashin P Krishna and his team. The company is building a scalable robotic platform for vertical plantations, beginning with cocobot for coconut and later extending to ArecaBot for arecanut and other cylindrical trees.The need for such a machine is evident in Goa, where coconut is a major crop. Data shared at the demonstration showed that Salcete has 6,192 hectares under coconut in 2025-26, producing 164 million nuts, up from 150 million nuts in 2024-25, when the area under the crop dipped to 5,610 hectares.Harvesting depends heavily on a dwindling pool of pluckers. According to the rate chart for hiring pluckers, farmers pay Rs 100 per tree for up to eight trees. For up to 15 trees (half day), the charge is Rs 1,100 plus five coconuts for the plucker, and for up to 30 trees (full day), Rs 2,200 plus 10 coconuts.Goa has seen a steady decline in the number of paddelis, as the younger generation shies away from the physically demanding and risky work.Altersage says Cocobot differs from other climbing machines as it is compact and light and uses AI trained on datasets to identify mature nuts. A single person can operate it, whereas other models typically need three or more, he added.The startup traces its beginnings to 2020, when Krishna, then a school student, got the idea of building a tree-climbing robot. A prototype was ready in 2021. In 2023, the team received funding from the Kerala Startup Mission and won first prize at the state govt’s 36-hour Hackathon Vaiga.Officials of the agriculture department said a proposal will be sent to govt to include the robot in the agriculture department’s subsidy schemes so that it can be promoted among farmers. However, as the project is yet to enter the production stage, it will be some time before robots replace paddelis in Goa.
