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As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

latimes.com

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Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#81

Post by lovich »

adventured wrote: post #57
sol_remmy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Seattle experiment would have to be repeated for higher levels of minimum wage. I would suggest a basic income instead though, then people won't have to pick fruit to survive :)

Paying the top 1/2 of earners a basic income is hyper regressive and inefficient (you have to turn around and tax it back from them). The current progressive income tax system paired with a higher income tax credit - instead of a counter productive higher minimum wage - is a vastly superior approach that has already been proven to work very well. BI is a fantasy at best. At worst, it'll wreck any economy that attempt…

Why would you have to introduce inefficiencies like taxing the payment from the government, or if you did do that, how is it any different from just increasing the income reported for the year that you get from work already? As for it being hyper regressive, one of the benefits of BI is that you have no means testing at all and can save on all of the bureaucratic overhead. You can still keep a progressive income tax on top of the BI payments.

I'd also like to see actual evidence that BI cant work out financially. You get X tax dollars out of your economy, you Pay out X/population to each person. How does that not work out?

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#82

Post by maxerickson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #43
frabbit wrote: post #37

That’s because immigrant farmworkers in California’s agricultural heartlands are getting older and not being replaced. As others have mentioned it's all to do with the wages that the fruit growers are willing to pay, and Driscoll's (mentioned in the article) have been at the center of controversy about their wages for some time for their practices in Mexico and elsewhere: https://boycott-driscolls.org/ The Union of I…

> Robots for labor are coming, and when they do it is time to take agriculturally productive land away from the profiteers. They serve no rational function in the economy and are merely monopolizing a resource. This is one of the big questions we'll have to ask in the next 20 or so years, and it just isn't farms. We are going to have to deal with plenty of industries that will merely consume resources and produce wit…

A value added tax could raise revenue from robot farms and factories, there is no need to seize them.

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#84

Post by delbel »

noonespecial wrote: post #79
delbel wrote: post #63

Does anyone know of any groups or hacker like groups working on these types of problems? I own a small farm and for the life of me I cant find workers even at $25/hr. I have so far bought several tractors and implements and I am planning to semi-automate as much as possible. But that is not ready this year and I am basically by myself with a shovel... I would like to fully automate as much as possible, and I have zer…

I can't magic you up any workers but here's a hint: You'd be astonished at how quickly and accurately a large air compressor with a small amount of water added to the flow can dig a shallow trench or small hole.

I actually have a backhoe, but the diesel injector pump is broken. Its a rosa master rotary injection pump. They go for $800 on ebay rebuilt. Project for the winter in my new shop. Thanks for your advice on the water injector. Do you have any design for injecting the water into the air line? How much water like in GPM or CFS per PSI?

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#85

Post by maxerickson »

aphextron wrote: post #76
bcoates wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should farm work be immune to cost disease when nothing else is?

>Why should farm work be immune to cost disease when nothing else is? This is the heart of the matter. Humans have to eat. It's fundamentally different than any other market.

We don't actually have to eat large amounts of cheap produce though.

(farm labor is overwhelmingly concentrated in harvesting produce)

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#86

Post by devrandomguy »

delbel wrote: post #63

Does anyone know of any groups or hacker like groups working on these types of problems? I own a small farm and for the life of me I cant find workers even at $25/hr. I have so far bought several tractors and implements and I am planning to semi-automate as much as possible. But that is not ready this year and I am basically by myself with a shovel... I would like to fully automate as much as possible, and I have zer…

Wow, that is an epic start! IMO, the best thing you could do, is to meticulously document your projects, for a blog / vlog. The shop build would be a great first project to kick off a Youtube channel, for example. This should put you in contact with others who have similar technical-farming projects. Lots of hacker types in the aquaponics field, as well.

If this was happening anywhere near me, I would be all over it. I am in the complementary situation; I have a ton of ideas about how I want to build up an experimental farm/nursery/farm-tech incubator, but inadequate space and funding. Hope we see your work here in the future.

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#88

Post by ju-st »

Retric wrote: post #69
evgen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to disagree on that point; speed is vitally important for equipment like this. Speed and accuracy determine how many of these machines you would need during the short window of peak ripeness. Speed determines how long it will take to get a return (if any) on the capital investment required for the machine. There is a reason that agricultural equipment is so large and most of it has to do with the short w…

It's a cost vs. speed trade off, if a machine can do the work of 2 people or 20 people is not the important bit. The important bit is if they can get more work done at lower costs. So, something that get's 1/4 as much work as a person done, but works unattended and only costs 1,000$ then that's a great investment.

That's why speed is a "simple" problem. The mechanical design and detecting the fruits are real problems. A machine that tips over and picks leaves is useless no matter how fast it is.

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#89

Post by gooseus »

randomguy23 wrote: post #31

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention" - how many of us here only program when we have an itch to scratch? Human ingenuity will prevail.

Necessity is also an agent of destruction... how many people here have projects that failed because the necessary resources (capital,resources,time) far exceeded what could be viably sourced?

Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots

#90

Post by [deleted] »

delbel wrote: post #63

Does anyone know of any groups or hacker like groups working on these types of problems? I own a small farm and for the life of me I cant find workers even at $25/hr. I have so far bought several tractors and implements and I am planning to semi-automate as much as possible. But that is not ready this year and I am basically by myself with a shovel... I would like to fully automate as much as possible, and I have zer…

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