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The Age of Robot Farmers

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Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#51

Post by kitd »

ggm wrote: post #47
chongli wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 What? If we had robot pickers then maybe we could get strawberries to be cheap enough that everyone could afford them, not just those who are wealthy enough to not worry about such jobs.

Displacing workers without considering the workers is an externality in action: everyone else picks up the cost. That's what I feel has happened every time work is automated: the specific company sheds labour cost and society at large has to remediate. If we automate farm work equitably I'll be all in favour: the injury rates and low pay are horrendous. Equitably means we have to man up and address what happens to th…

I don't look at automation as the bad guy. In many cases, automating an industry changes the overall question, which can lead to further answers, that end up creating more employment.

For a start, who will create the tools? The manual labourers are the experts on what the tools need to be able to do? Secondly, if automation decreases the price of a product, it will often expand the market for it, and thus also related goods and services. But also, cheaper, automated products may make related products viable which previously weren't due to excessive cost.

IMHO, automation can increase economic activity sufficiently to absorb any labour excess, however it definitely needs the right planning and control. I think relying on the free market is too simplistic.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#52

Post by l_camacho84 »

Every time I read about farm mechanization I remember the Ralph Borsodi work on the book "The Distribution Age". Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency.

The key to sustainable farming is a decentralized small scale. This is the only way to keep transportation, marketing and preservation of the goods low.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#53

Post by amelius »

l_camacho84 wrote: post #52

Every time I read about farm mechanization I remember the Ralph Borsodi work on the book "The Distribution Age". Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency. The key to sustainable farming is a decentralized small scale. This is the only way to keep transportation, marketing and preservation of the goods low.

> Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency.

How is that true in the case of robotic berry pickers?

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#54

Post by amelius »

> Each of the robots was equipped with a patented “Pitzer wheel”—the appendage that does the actual picking. The wheel had six soft-rubber clawlike “obtainers” that are able to cup the berries and pivot, imitating the popping action that human pickers make with their wrists.

So they patented the human hand, minus the functionality they don't need?

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#55

Post by dosy »

I'm old enough that this title recalls airbrushed illustrations of chrome-plated rockets and robots on distant worlds, in the children's science and technology picture books I read as a youngin.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#56

Post by l_camacho84 »

amelius wrote: post #53
l_camacho84 wrote: post #52

Every time I read about farm mechanization I remember the Ralph Borsodi work on the book "The Distribution Age". Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency. The key to sustainable farming is a decentralized small scale. This is the only way to keep transportation, marketing and preservation of the goods low.

> Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency. How is that true in the case of robotic berry pickers?

To apply robotic berry pickers you normally need to produce in a large scale (many tons of berries). So you will need to distribute them. If you don’t apply the externalities of transportation and preservation of the food it would seem that this kind of production makes sense but it doesn’t. It actually less effective if you count for the costs of transportation, packaging and freezing.

Environmentally this is also known as “mix vs sort” and is almost a physical rule. If your are very good in mixing (making things at large scale), your tend to be bad in sorting (distributing things).

Here is the book that talks about it in the 1930 https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/0303critic/0303...

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#57

Post by navaati »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #43

Sounds like yet another argument for why we might need Universal Basic Income sooner rather than later, or some other innovative solution. Isn't there a candidate for president whose campaign is based on that?

One French presidential candidate ran with that on the last elections. He was the candidate for the Labour party (Parti Socialiste), one of the two major party of France (equivalent more or less to the Democrats in importance), so not a niche candidate either.

He did something like 3% and the Parti Socialiste is dead now, replaced by Macron's party.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#58

Post by amelius »

l_camacho84 wrote: post #56
amelius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every efficiency you gain in production scale you tend to lose in distribution efficiency. How is that true in the case of robotic berry pickers?

To apply robotic berry pickers you normally need to produce in a large scale (many tons of berries). So you will need to distribute them. If you don’t apply the externalities of transportation and preservation of the food it would seem that this kind of production makes sense but it doesn’t. It actually less effective if you count for the costs of transportation, packaging and freezing. Environmentally this is also k…

> To apply robotic berry pickers you normally need to produce in a large scale (many tons of berries).

Farmers could rent the machine. So the machine can travel instead of the berries.

Also, robotics is in many industries not competitive against cheap labor from low-wage countries. However, for agriculture that might be different, precisely because of distribution costs (e.g., it's expensive to ship fruits and vegetables from China).

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#59

Post by l_camacho84 »

amelius wrote: post #58
l_camacho84 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To apply robotic berry pickers you normally need to produce in a large scale (many tons of berries). So you will need to distribute them. If you don’t apply the externalities of transportation and preservation of the food it would seem that this kind of production makes sense but it doesn’t. It actually less effective if you count for the costs of transportation, packaging and freezing. Environmentally this is also k…

> To apply robotic berry pickers you normally need to produce in a large scale (many tons of berries). Farmers could rent the machine. So the machine can travel instead of the berries. Also, robotics is in many industries not competitive against cheap labor from low-wage countries. However, for agriculture that might be different, precisely because of distribution costs (e.g., it's expensive to ship fruits and vegeta…

I agree, we can apply robotics but always thinking in small scale farming, otherwise the gains in production will be lost in distribution. Sadly right now we are not paying for externalities of distribution so there is no incentive for thinking in small distributed economies.

There are more benefits of thinking small. We are creating a big interdependent and fragile economy. It’s seems robust but a black swan event - as Nassin Taleb would name - can provoke global disaster. Small scale economies are less exposed to this.

Re: The Age of Robot Farmers

#60

Post by mrpopo »

chongli wrote: post #23
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 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 What? If we had robot pickers then maybe we could get strawberries to be cheap enough that everyone could afford them, not just those who are wealthy enough to not worry about such jobs.

> If we had robot pickers then maybe we could get strawberries to be cheap enough that everyone could afford them

Americans spend just 6.4% of their household income on food. It's the country spending the least on food in the world.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-map-shows-how-mu...

Historically, the developed world was spending much more. People can afford strawberries, they choose to spend less money on food and more on other items.

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