The Age of Robot Farmers • Hacker News Board

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#11

Post by Qworg » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

kolchinski wrote: post #4

contingencies wrote: post #2

“Apples, citrus, strawberries, leafy greens, grapes”—those are the five big enough to justify automation. Some questionable assumptions there.

I'm working an an agricultural robotics startup and can confirm that if anything, it's challenging to find robotics use cases in specialty crops that have a large enough market to justify the R&D investment necessary to get the product working in the first place. Corn and soy add up to hundreds of billions of dollars of market value a year, while even a huge specialty crop like strawberries is ~1/100 of that. There's…

While strawberries are a smaller market, they're also high value and under threat from decreased labor immigration and terrible conditions. If I were working on truck crop robotics, that'd be my first crop to look at (especially because the strawberry industry realizes they're in trouble).

Which are you working on now?

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#12

Post by Sophistifunk » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:11 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #9

starpilot wrote: post #8

We need basic income now.

Lots of countries have an aging pop of farmers where young people are not very attracted to that as a career. This satisfies that trend and allows those regions to remain productive with even fewer people.

All we need is a robot to eat the people that are no longer needed in the area.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#13

Post by nradov » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

kolchinski wrote: post #4

contingencies wrote: post #2

“Apples, citrus, strawberries, leafy greens, grapes”—those are the five big enough to justify automation. Some questionable assumptions there.

I'm working an an agricultural robotics startup and can confirm that if anything, it's challenging to find robotics use cases in specialty crops that have a large enough market to justify the R&D investment necessary to get the product working in the first place. Corn and soy add up to hundreds of billions of dollars of market value a year, while even a huge specialty crop like strawberries is ~1/100 of that. There's…

Annual strawberry sales are $3B in California alone. That's a heck of a specialty crop.

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#14

Post by mirimir » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:16 AM UTC

Sophistifunk wrote: post #12

mc32 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of countries have an aging pop of farmers where young people are not very attracted to that as a career. This satisfies that trend and allows those regions to remain productive with even fewer people.

All we need is a robot to eat the people that are no longer needed in the area.

Don't need a robot for that. Pigs will eat anything.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#15

Post by reality_inspctr » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

I used to run an ag tech automation startup, and we were working on how fulfillment center robots could be repurposed for indoor agriculture. This allows a complete change in economics. Strawberries are an important crop, but on-demand nutrition for animal feed and other segments where robotics allows complex alignment of supply chain and resources may be more lucrative in the mid term. Like Walmart just in time delivery for commodities.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#16

Post by ggm » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

I'm solely in the consumer camp: I don't produce food, I buy and eat it (I don't buy and sell it either).

I think we've been trained to assume cheap food is a goal. I think the goal should have been clearer: cheap enough but not too cheap

The economics here are complicated. It benefits me to have cheap food, but if the cost is ag workers with systematic health problems, low income, farmers going bust, prison labor being used, its actually not really an overall benefit.

The price of strawberries needs to reflect the real costs here which include paying pickers a living wage.

Replacing pickers by robots only masks the problem, the problem of low paid workers remains: if they aren't picking, what are these people doing, and whats the wider cost?

Here in Australia we have this problem. We exploit backpacker labour (visiting kids on restricted visa) to do picking, we exploit migrant labour from island communities (we actually used to predate them for virtual slaves. Wierd history. Read up on "blackbirding") to do picking. And, we have a duopoloy in the supermarket supply chain which abuses market power to avoid paying farmers a living income stream, sometimes arguing over 10c or 20c price differences.

its really not helping to drive the cost of food down all the time. It has to be a realistic price, or you can't have safe, strategically suitable, sustainable, locally grown food.

I don't want soylent.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#17

Post by pugworthy » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:47 AM UTC

reality_inspctr wrote: post #15

I used to run an ag tech automation startup, and we were working on how fulfillment center robots could be repurposed for indoor agriculture. This allows a complete change in economics. Strawberries are an important crop, but on-demand nutrition for animal feed and other segments where robotics allows complex alignment of supply chain and resources may be more lucrative in the mid term. Like Walmart just in time deli…

> ...a complete change in economics

For whom?

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#18

Post by AJ007 » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 2:55 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #16

I'm solely in the consumer camp: I don't produce food, I buy and eat it (I don't buy and sell it either). I think we've been trained to assume cheap food is a goal. I think the goal should have been clearer: cheap enough but not too cheap The economics here are complicated. It benefits me to have cheap food, but if the cost is ag workers with systematic health problems, low income, farmers going bust, prison labor be…

The bigger long term issues to cheap food are water and loss of arable land from salinity caused by irrigation or saltwater incursion. Even without global warming, it doesn't look good.

In terms of sustainable locally grown food, most places are not going to be eating fresh produce year round.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#19

Post by tamaharbor » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 3:09 AM UTC

And even the robots still complain about the weather.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#20

Post by choonway » Wed, Apr 10, 2019, 3:24 AM UTC

The limiting factor of automation is still, the amount of human labor you still need. Can it be reduced to zero? Why do you even need the farmers if that's the case?