I wonder when it will be considered unethical to eat food harvested by back-breaking stoop labor?
People already push that narrative, just with factory farming. Ascribing some moral position to strangers' diets is a pretty gross thing to do.
As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
111–120 of 178 posts
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#112I wonder when it will be considered unethical to eat food harvested by back-breaking stoop labor?
Yeah... then the flip: When will it be unethical to eat food harvested by companies that don't employ people?
You can spin it in both directions... on one side, those poor people who do back breaking labor... on the other side, those poor people who can't get jobs that are done by robots.
Interesting time we live in.
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#113Does 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…
This paper pot planter is pretty cool
https://www.highmowingseeds.com/blog/paper-pot-transplanter/
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then get 4 machines.
And now you're back to the cost problem...
If it costs 1/4 of a person and you have to get 4 machines... then it still solves the problem of being unable to find willing workers.
Hell... if it costs more than employees you can't find... then to get the work done, it costs more... Then it's either market forces push prices up or companies close.
A large portion of the point of these "machines" is an answer to the labor shortage (and to a lesser extent, the rising cost of labor - IE fight for 15).
Many of these problems will be solved by market forces - higher demand, more people working to solve the issues, issues getting solved, machines going into mass production, economies of scale, rinse, repeat...
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
In another comment on this thread, a farmer said he couldn't hire people at $25 / hour. If a machine can do it, then a machine should do it. Especially work that's difficult and can be dangerous - like farm work.
Yes, but farm workers only work part of the year, and only work on each farm for a few weeks.. then move onto another farm. So having 1 farm paying $25/hr, does not change much for the worker.. after they finish at that farm, they'll need to go to another that's paying near minimum wage (the average for a farm worker).. and the result is that they are still in poverty (the average farm worker lives below the poverty…
Exactly right. This work needs to be entirely automated.
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#116Curious if California can incentivize farmers to train and hire capable homeless individuals to mitigate the labor shortage issue.
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like society is doing everything it can to keep this trend going: http://i.imgur.com/Uc6kX8G.jpg
Is this correlated to the gold standard ending in the early seventies?
I would guess it's correlated to the rise of other manufacturing competitors like Japan, Taiwan, and later China. After World War II the US had an easier time as much of Asia and Europe's capacity was destroyed.
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#118I wonder when it will be considered unethical to eat food harvested by back-breaking stoop labor?
Yeah... then the flip: When will it be unethical to eat food harvested by companies that don't employ people? You can spin it in both directions... on one side, those poor people who do back breaking labor... on the other side, those poor people who can't get jobs that are done by robots. Interesting time we live in.
I'm imagining a "Made by Humans" sticker on products
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#119Does 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 $25/hr. I have so far bought several tractors and implements and I am planning to semi-automate as much as possible. But that is not ready this year and I am basically by myself with a shovel... I would like to fully automate as much as possible, and I have zer…
I work for a Systems Integration firm, and while we haven't automated a farm, we work a lot in Automation. If you're interested, you can check us out at CorsoSystems.com we do some pretty cool work and we do a lot of tinkerings with Raspberry Pi's and more. We do a ton of backend work with building databases and getting the information in and out of them, connecting everything. Guessing you'd need hell with that at some point.
On a side note, I feel your pain, my wife grew up in a farming community (kids were late to school because the cows got out) and there is food rotting in the fields because the migrant workers haven't been there en mass the last couple of years. With the INS crackdowns, it's only gotten worse. We love farm stands and join CSA's when we can find them, you guys are great. Keep fighting the good fight!
Re: As California’s labor shortage grows, farmers replace workers with robots
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have to disagree on that point; speed is vitally important for equipment like this. Speed and accuracy determine how many of these machines you would need during the short window of peak ripeness. Speed determines how long it will take to get a return (if any) on the capital investment required for the machine. There is a reason that agricultural equipment is so large and most of it has to do with the short w…
It's a cost vs. speed trade off, if a machine can do the work of 2 people or 20 people is not the important bit. The important bit is if they can get more work done at lower costs. So, something that get's 1/4 as much work as a person done, but works unattended and only costs 1,000$ then that's a great investment.
A machine can also work 24/7, meaning that a machine that works as well as one person can replace 4 people.