AUTHOR=Johnson Ciaran Miceal , Auat Cheein Fernando 

TITLE=Machinery for potato harvesting: a state-of-the-art review

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2023.1156734

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2023.1156734

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=Potatoes are the fourth most important crop for human consumption. In the 18$^{th}$ century, potatoes saved the European population from starvation, and since then, it has become one of the primary crops cultivated in countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Potato production worldwide reached 365.7 million tonnes in 2018, 354.8 million tonnes in 2019 and 359.1 million tonnes in 2020, with production expected to grow alongside the worldwide population. However, the agricultural industry is currently suffering from urbanisation. With the next generation of farmers relocating to cities, there is a diminishing and aging agricultural workforce. Consequently, farm's urgently need innovation, particularly from a technology perspective. As a result, this work is focused on reviewing the worldwide developments on potato harvesting, with an emphasis on mechatronics, the use of intelligent systems and the opportunities that raise from applications utilising the Internet of Things (IoT). Our work covers worldwide scientific publications in the last five years, sustained by public data made available from different governments. We end our review by providing a discussion on the future trends derived from our analysis.