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The rise of the robot farmer

theguardian.com

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Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#161

Post by thatcat »

deialtrous wrote: post #157
thatcat wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, compaction is the result of pressure. If you're at <~ 1000 psi and there won't be compaction on any soil type in dry conditions.

It isn't just pressure, total weight matters too. 1000 psi is WAY too high. Keeping ground pressure as low as 10 psi is generally the recommendation for heavy equipment, but a person walking might get up as high as 20 psi and doesn't cause compaction on soil with a reasonable organic matter content (5% or more I think?). Here's a good explanation: https://extension.psu.edu/avoiding-soil-compaction

Hm, my mistake, thanks for the link. Total weight is related to pressure through the formula: P = F/A. Weight is F.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#162

Post by infinite8s »

deialtrous wrote: post #112
clarkmoody wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immense productivity gains in agriculture have driven down food costs, which improves the standard of living of everyone. It also frees up those who would have worked farm jobs to do higher-valued labor in the economy.

Except most people don't do higher-valued labor, we mainly do completely pointless busy work either because someone somewhere thinks there is a chance they can extract a large amount of wealth from having that pointless busy work be done (every tech company on the planet) or because a government has taken money from everyone else and given it to people to do pointless busy work so we can say "unemployment is only X%"…

I think you are romanticizing the past. 150 years ago most people were living subsistence lives, with hunger and malnutrition a constant issue.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#163

Post by tbarker25 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #141
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And includes sales tax And you don’t have to tip the cashier /s

Why would you want it to include sales tax. If the government is taking a cut of a transaction the people should be well aware of it.

It's somewhat anti-consumer for the price listed to be different to what you end up paying.

A receipt in Australia for example will display total:$10 including $0.90 sales tax. it is illegal to display a price that doesn't include it.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#164

Post by deialtrous »

infinite8s wrote: post #162
deialtrous wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except most people don't do higher-valued labor, we mainly do completely pointless busy work either because someone somewhere thinks there is a chance they can extract a large amount of wealth from having that pointless busy work be done (every tech company on the planet) or because a government has taken money from everyone else and given it to people to do pointless busy work so we can say "unemployment is only X%"…

I think you are romanticizing the past. 150 years ago most people were living subsistence lives, with hunger and malnutrition a constant issue.

No, you either have an incorrectly negative view of the past or don't realize we're talking about developed countries. Hunger was not an issue, and malnutrition was more an issue with the wealthy who could choose to eat expensive things they didn't realize were bad for us.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/victorian-di...

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#165

Post by deialtrous »

thatcat wrote: post #161
deialtrous wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just pressure, total weight matters too. 1000 psi is WAY too high. Keeping ground pressure as low as 10 psi is generally the recommendation for heavy equipment, but a person walking might get up as high as 20 psi and doesn't cause compaction on soil with a reasonable organic matter content (5% or more I think?). Here's a good explanation: https://extension.psu.edu/avoiding-soil-compaction

Hm, my mistake, thanks for the link. Total weight is related to pressure through the formula: P = F/A. Weight is F.

Not when you are using pneumatic tires. That gives you the pressure applied to the air in the tire, not to the ground. The tire pressure determines ground pressure.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#166

Post by DanBC »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #141
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And includes sales tax And you don’t have to tip the cashier /s

Why would you want it to include sales tax. If the government is taking a cut of a transaction the people should be well aware of it.

You can include the VAT on the receipt that the customer gets after paying. Most food in UK is zero-rated for VAT.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#167

Post by dexterdog »

knieveltech wrote: post #125
dexterdog wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, my local stop n shop sells a loaf of white bread for $1.29 and that's not even a sale price. Second the average income has gone up by more than inflation as well so you would expect the cost of staples to go up accordingly.

Average income hasn't even kept pace with inflation since the 70's, go take a look at a graph of income inequality over time if you're curious where all those productivity gains went, you prove my point regarding no measurable drop in food prices (incidentally a loaf of bread is closer to $2.00 here), and would anyone care to take a crack at the larger criticism, namely total economic collapse of vast swaths of rural…

You're the one that was calling the bread argument invalid and "trivially disprovable." Also, average income has more than kept pace with inflation since the 50s which is the arbitrary starting point that you chose in your first argument, but shifted to the 70s in this counter for some reason. That still doesn't help you as the avg income in 1970 was 10556.03 (39081 in 2017 dollars) and 50321 in 2017. (source https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/AWI.html)

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#168

Post by dexterdog »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #52
knieveltech wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory. In practice, this has lead to collapse of rural economies, rampant poverty, and epidemic drug usage amongst rural populations. As to driving food costs down, that's trivially disprovable. Loaf of bread in 1950: 12 cents. Adjusted for inflation that's $1.26 currently. A cheap loaf of white bread costs substantially more than $1.26. Edit: of course this gets downvoted, because econ gibberish is certainly mor…

Your observed reality knows the price of bread in 1950, the price adjusted for inflation, but not the current price.

It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#169

Post by stevenwoo »

sleepychu wrote: post #41

I've been interested in setting up setting up some sort of micro farm in my flat (led based) for a few years. Anyone got some good resources for the novice micro farmer? (I like robotics/automation as well so if I could blend that in it would be cool)

The personal food computer here looks applicable but that seems like some wasted space vertically depending upon the plant desired. https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/pro...

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#170

Post by neuromantik8086 »

nradov wrote: post #150
neuromantik8086 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in coastal cities I've never heard this being proposed- most vertical farming startups with any true prospects tend to be just outside the cities, but substantially closer than other farms. The chief advantage in vertical farming has nothing to do with actually farming within a city and everything to do with shortening supply lines. Likewise, I've never seen any company propose that they could completely replace co…

Shortening supply lines is a rather silly goal. It doesn't really save anything.

> It doesn't really save anything.

It doesn't save time? Oil? I don't understand your reasoning here.

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