La Junta-based robotics company places first and wins $50,000 in national agriculture challenge

LA JUNTA, Colo. (KRDO) -- A La Junta robotics company is garnering national recognition for its innovative technology and work to help rural southern Colorado farmers.

The company, Barn Owl Precision Agriculture, just won first place in the "Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge," after months of applications and preparation for the January competition. With that first-place prize comes $50,000 in funds from the Farm Bureau to help the company continue its work.

"The small farmer and the industry at this point is in a really bad place with labor, with environment, with production and so they need this type of technology and the solution now, and they need it more than ever," said Barn Owl CEO and Co-Founder Sarah Hinkley.

Sarah started the company in 2017 alongside her brother Jaron Hinkley, who works as the company's COO.

The company originated as a drone business with the goal of flying over farm fields to assess trouble spots. However, the siblings realized after talking with rural growers that the farmers' needs were far more fundamental.

The farmers needed more manpower to address labor issues, so the company started making robots.

The Hinkleys say these robots aren't meant to replace human workers but to take over the tough, back-breaking tasks, so workers can focus on more important areas in agriculture.

The robots are called A.N.T.S., short for Autonomous Nano Tractors, and they go out to fields in "swarms" of around six to thirty robots at a time.

The robots spray, weed, and even plant the fields.

While the Hinkleys think the work is vitally important, they just got affirmation on a national stage too, winning first place in the Farm Bureau's Ag Innovation Challenge.

With that first-place win, they received $50,000 they say will help them further their work and build more robots.