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Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

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Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#51

Post by thomas_howland »

shanev wrote: post #24
joncp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine, though, a time when the automation reaches a stage where all weeding and most insect killing can be done mechanically with a robot instead of chemically with pesticides. That will be a huge boon for the environment and for farmers' bottom lines.

We are destroying topsoil at an alarming rate due to industrial farming that we may have no choice but to go this route.

We are absolutely not. Productive farmland in the USA is fairly expensive and farmers are extremely interested in preserving its value. Most "destroyed" topsoil is due to eg suburban developments spreading into former agricultural areas, but it's still minimal in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#52

Post by thomas_howland »

Alex3917 wrote: post #38
thomas_howland wrote: post #4

The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure nothing breaks and keeping an eye on things (which is important when you're operating $N00,000 worth of heavy equipment on open ground). You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, m…

> The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already What crops have the highest labor costs, in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of what the consumer pays?

Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#53

Post by Alex3917 »

thomas_howland wrote: post #52
Alex3917 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already What crops have the highest labor costs, in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of what the consumer pays?

Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.

Interesting. Between farm labor automation and self-driving cars, do you foresee a point where it's cost effective to give certain foods away for free and monetize via advertising? Even if it's slightly offbeat stuff like dandelion greens and seaweed or whatever?

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#54

Post by xefer »

thomas_howland wrote: post #52
Alex3917 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already What crops have the highest labor costs, in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of what the consumer pays?

Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.

I wonder if there will come a time when buying food harvested by stoop labor will be considered immoral. Perhaps human diets should target foods that can be produced through mechanization where possible.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#55

Post by ph0rque »

DesiLurker wrote: post #48

what I am interested in is robots that can reforest unused land. Imagine the possibilities with having armies of robots re-establishing green cover in Amazon delta. kinda like this but with robots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_GreenHands good thing is that would be not require nearly as much 'babysitting' as growing crops just ability to charter uneven terrain.

Reforestration with drones: https://www.biocarbonengineering.com/technologies

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#56

Post by zeristor »

There were a series of talks at the Royal Society about Robot Farming a few months back.

This video, by the head of Harper Adams College, goes into a lot more detail:

https://youtu.be/OU8nwf2UI8g

Agricultural machinery size is now limited by train tunnel size for delivery.

Larger farm vehicles, although more productive per person are heavier and cause soil compaction, which then requires further treatments to fix. Mention was made of light robot tractors able to work wet fields earlier before they are dry enough for a heavy human tractor so extending they growing season. They show an example of a light weight tractor that can drive up and down on a wet field without turning it into mud.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#57

Post by mikepurvis »

xefer wrote: post #54
thomas_howland wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.

I wonder if there will come a time when buying food harvested by stoop labor will be considered immoral. Perhaps human diets should target foods that can be produced through mechanization where possible.

But lettuce and tomatoes are delicious. Hence the interest in figuring out to do it robotically, either in the field or greenhouse.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#58

Post by wil421 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
wil421 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you really think will own the robots? It will be the multinational corporations again. Food is decently cheap already considering I have to eat multiple times a day. People will just spend their money on some place else. Like you said another corporation will extract profit from other transactions.

> Who do you really think will own the robots? Well, society gets a say. Witness how both Canada and India have invalidated pharma patents, and how the US DoD is permitted to nullify patents when it suits them for strategic purposes [1]. Also, the US government can infringe on a patent with limited resource of the patent holder. "Can the U.S. Government Infringe a U.S. Patent? (The U.S. Government Says it’s Impossibl…

Just because something becomes cheaper doesn't mean someone isn't profiting. Unless the government owns the production and historically that doesn't work out so well. We live in a capitalist society. For thousands of years there has been a chief, king, family, and now corporate entity profiting off another group. Humans are not even close in our lifetimes.

I won't even source anything I can look around. Applaud your optimism.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#59

Post by tw1010 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #29

If anyone is in to this I write speculative fiction about this kind of thing: http://tlalexander.com/sanctuary/ (I also build robots) :)

Any tips for people who want to start writing speculative fiction (or just short stories), other than to just practice a lot?

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#60

Post by gcb0 »

joncp wrote: post #15
thomas_howland wrote: post #4

The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure nothing breaks and keeping an eye on things (which is important when you're operating $N00,000 worth of heavy equipment on open ground). You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, m…

Imagine, though, a time when the automation reaches a stage where all weeding and most insect killing can be done mechanically with a robot instead of chemically with pesticides. That will be a huge boon for the environment and for farmers' bottom lines.

if you simply build a decent greenhouse it's already bug and weed free. plus your crop can survive unexpected frost.

adding high maintenance robots is just silly.

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