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Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

miamiherald.com

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Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#31

Post by [deleted] »

brc wrote: post #20
ghshephard wrote: post #13

It's particularly import for people who are legislating minimum wage laws to read articles like this. Most of the legislation I've seen drafted, always has an exception for farm labor - and here is an example why. If you didn't have that exception, then it would quickly become the case that automation/machinery ends up being cheaper (or soon will), and those jobs will vanish pretty quickly. Now, that might not be ent…

My local McDonalds is experimenting with touch screen menus. I guess automated kitchens won't be far behind. It will be a shame when such an entry level job is no longer available to teenagers to learn about doing a job and working in a team.

[deleted]

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#32

Post by ecoponderosa »

generic_user wrote: post #27
blazespin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it won't. The sooner we shift from labor to education as our source of social dignity the better. Let's pay people to go to school rather than to flip burgers.

Its ridiculous that people think the destruction of menial labour will be destructive given all the evidence to the contrary. Jobs have been render obsolete for centuries and the outcome has been an increase in education and skilled labour to do more rewarding jobs.

An exception is small scale local artisanal natural/organic market gardens and family farms that rely on skilled hand labor almost exclusively. You will never and should never consider replacing that with automation and machines. The quality products made available to the public from these operations benefit from the extra attention to detail and experience gained from a lifetime spent in this type of agriculture, sometimes called peasant farming. If you want to know more about peasant sovereignty read the following: Peasant Sovereignty? http://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/peasant-so... By Evaggelos Vallianatos See also: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture Permaculture

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#33

Post by Animats »

There have been automated picking machines for almost everything for years, mostly with purely mechanical systems. All the big field crops were mechanized decades ago. Blueberry picking machines have been around for decades. They require flat ground and neat plant rows, though.

Automated strawberry picking is still hard, but Agrobot makes a robotic strawberry picking machine.[1] This is an vision-guided multi-arm robot system, which is rare in agriculture. These more complex machines are still marginal economically, but the electronics can only get cheaper.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/video/agrobot-automates-the-work-of-berry...

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#34

Post by ghshephard »

ecoponderosa wrote: post #32
generic_user wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its ridiculous that people think the destruction of menial labour will be destructive given all the evidence to the contrary. Jobs have been render obsolete for centuries and the outcome has been an increase in education and skilled labour to do more rewarding jobs.

An exception is small scale local artisanal natural/organic market gardens and family farms that rely on skilled hand labor almost exclusively. You will never and should never consider replacing that with automation and machines. The quality products made available to the public from these operations benefit from the extra attention to detail and experience gained from a lifetime spent in this type of agriculture, so…

I would take the opposite perspective - I would think that artisanal/organic gardening, in particular would benefit from automation. Automation will give us the ability to spend significant periods of time on each specific piece of produce, in a way that no human being ever could. In particular, with organic gardening, you can completely eliminate the need for insecticides and pesticides AND not rely on inherently insect/pest resistant produce (which can be innately toxic) by growing in clean rooms.

The key reasons to automate, is it allows us to make this type of food available to masses for fractions of the cost of what it would take for a human to grow it.

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#35

Post by brudgers »

3Pi wrote: post #12

Despite the impact it has on the availability of unskilled manual labour jobs, I think it's great that machines are finally turning to harvesting - having worked on a similar project to do with grapes (specifically, pruning), it's not always the easiest of things. It does highlight to me that we are getting closer to the point of needing to rethink labour distribution, because the non-technical jobs are the easiest t…

The article describes [anecdotally] that mechanization makes the remaining labourers' work assignments more physically demanding. All the easy pickings go to machines, not humans and people with an already hard workday for low pay has gotten harder as a result of mechanization. The give in the system for low wage workers is systematically being removed in the age of the unlimited time off meme.

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#36

Post by violentvinyl »

ghshephard wrote: post #34
ecoponderosa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An exception is small scale local artisanal natural/organic market gardens and family farms that rely on skilled hand labor almost exclusively. You will never and should never consider replacing that with automation and machines. The quality products made available to the public from these operations benefit from the extra attention to detail and experience gained from a lifetime spent in this type of agriculture, so…

I would take the opposite perspective - I would think that artisanal/organic gardening, in particular would benefit from automation. Automation will give us the ability to spend significant periods of time on each specific piece of produce , in a way that no human being ever could. In particular, with organic gardening, you can completely eliminate the need for insecticides and pesticides AND not rely on inherently i…

I'm now visualizing a micro drone that flies around and harpoons insects. Thank you for that.

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#37

Post by danieltillett »

ghshephard wrote: post #13

It's particularly import for people who are legislating minimum wage laws to read articles like this. Most of the legislation I've seen drafted, always has an exception for farm labor - and here is an example why. If you didn't have that exception, then it would quickly become the case that automation/machinery ends up being cheaper (or soon will), and those jobs will vanish pretty quickly. Now, that might not be ent…

Well no. The reason you and I are wealthy enough to pontificate on HN is because we as a society have mechanized most of agriculture. The sooner 100% of the back breaking labor involved in growing food is replaced with machines the better [1].

1. I am not counting home gardens as these are a fun hobby (I miss having a garden).

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#38

Post by danieltillett »

Animats wrote: post #33

There have been automated picking machines for almost everything for years, mostly with purely mechanical systems. All the big field crops were mechanized decades ago. Blueberry picking machines have been around for decades. They require flat ground and neat plant rows, though. Automated strawberry picking is still hard, but Agrobot makes a robotic strawberry picking machine.[1] This is an vision-guided multi-arm rob…

Good as strawberry picking has to be one of the worst jobs in agriculture.

I think bananas are one of the hardest to automate, but I can't find the old reference I had on this.

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#39

Post by proveanegative »

blazespin wrote: post #23
brc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local McDonalds is experimenting with touch screen menus. I guess automated kitchens won't be far behind. It will be a shame when such an entry level job is no longer available to teenagers to learn about doing a job and working in a team.

No, it won't. The sooner we shift from labor to education as our source of social dignity the better. Let's pay people to go to school rather than to flip burgers.

>The sooner we shift from labor to education as our source of social dignity the better.

Twin studies suggest educational achievement is highly (over 50%) heritable. If you succeeded at replacing labor with education as a source of human dignity it would be surprising if the relative amount of dignity with which one was imparted did not depend on one's educational achievement. Combined with the first point it would lead to the formation of a kind of hereditary estates of the realm; you'd have the clergy (the academics), the nobles (the highly educated) and the commoners (everybody else). Would you find such an outcome acceptable? (Just to be clear, I mean this as a genuine, not rhetorical, question.)

Re: Machines replace migrants as Maine blueberry harvest blooms

#40

Post by eru »

rosege wrote: post #29
blazespin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income is a bad idea. Idle hands do the devils work. People need to do something or they go crazy. Let's pay people to go to school. Better educated citizens means fewer Donald trumps. Add a consumption tax as well to discourage consumption so our economy can shift away from bullshit jobs.

isnt there already a consumption tax? ie sales tax.

It has lots of exemption. Eg consuming your own rental property is free.
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