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The rise of the robot farmer

theguardian.com

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Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#71

Post by tomcam »

mr_overalls wrote: post #64
bluGill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike what you would expect, small robots do more damage to the soil not less. Damage to soil is not linear with mass, A massive robot will do twice as much damage where it touches the ground (wheel tracks most likely, but there are other choices), but it will touch 10 times less ground to do the same work so the total averaged over all the land is much better. For the same reason, tracks generally end up doing more…

This. . . doesn't sound convincing to me. Soil displacement is a function of machine weight AND surface area of tires/treads. Additionally, I'd expect the sharp edges of steel treads to disturb soil much worse than a similarly-weighted tractor with rubber tires. Without doing extensive calculations, my anecdotal evidence is that I've seen bulldozer track "scars" from a single path that are decades old, while the dama…

Username definitely checks out

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#72

Post by dv_dt »

radiorental wrote: post #42
dv_dt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A farmer, coal miner , etc who loses their job today is unlikely to re-skill & move to other industries Don't confuse what is the current outcome with what has to be the outcome. Those individuals might not reskill in todays environment because of a combination of receiving an insufficient amount of the value they produced in their wages (preventing them from having the resources to retrain themselves), as well as…

I don't disagree it can be done... https://www.wired.com/2015/11/can-you-teach-a-coal-miner-to-... I'm saying it can't be done at the current rate of change. There are just too many people caught off guard, compounded by technological & automation adoption too rapid for them to adapt. I think you may underestimate the scale of the problem. Why so many people in the center of this country voted for a catchy tag-line o…

I agree with you on the rate of change, and the scale is only becoming bigger, and worse with student loan costs. Imagine 10-15 years down the line when a generation of workers needs to invest in some other skill set, and are still paying off their original loans? If we want to continue to advance as a nation/civilization we need to build in a social/economic way for people to afford potentially multiple major learning opportunities that can happen at multiple stages of life, without having to commit to massive life/lifestyle on the line risks.

It can't be this program that gets hauled out into the light occasionally, constrained by industry, geography, time, and whatever else gets thrown into the mix to constrain the program cost - it ends up costing us all more (in money and social instability) to not address the problem.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#73

Post by nostromo »

rmason wrote: post #9

In Michigan we've already got family farms with a man, two sons and a single employee handling 10,000 acres. Robots driving tractors, trucks and combines would allow that to expand 5-6X. In turn that would lead to a reduction in farmers of up to 80%. This is a trend that has been running for close to a hundred years. Remember at one time a quarter of America's population were farmers and now it's under 2%.

But is the juice worth the squeeze?

A single employee for 10,000 acres is nothing. (I'm assuming that the three owners would stay on with or without robots.) That person's salary is a rounding error compared to land, seeds, fertilizer, water, equipment, etc.

I think the benefit of automation for commodity crops (rice, wheat, etc.) is almost nil. Labor isn't driving the cost for these crops. However, automation for labor intensive crops (like berries or certain fruits) is a huge opportunity.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#74

Post by 8note »

dexterdog wrote: post #45
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…

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.

is that including the richest folks in the average or not?

my understanding is that other than the top 10% or so, average income is not keeping up with inflation

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#75

Post by billylindeman »

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #22
wolfram74 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the one person in the state would get two senators and a representative, so that's one thing to consider.

That's why I'd be in favor of making vertical farming more prevalent- by making farmers physically closer to the coastal cities they serve the rural areas will be starved economically. At this point in time, it's my conviction that retribution for the present tyranny of the minority will best come through technological means rather than warfare or politics.

I think your attitude is pretty shitty, and exactly the sentiment that people in those rural areas point at when supporting people like trump. They're not evil people. They're humans just like you and me and feel overlooked and forgotten. Your attitude proves them right

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#76

Post by 8note »

decebalus1 wrote: post #31
borkt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of them use legitimate guest worker systems, and it benefits everyone to have access to these workers.

'a lot of them' means exactly nothing. How many? Do you have some numbers? Last time I checked, the dept of labor was saying that about 40% of all agricultural workers are illegal immigrants and United Fresh Produce Association between 50 and 70 percent. So yeah, a lot of them don't use 'legit' systems. It must be very hard to cheer for building 'the wall' while employing illegals and getting federal subsidies. That'…

I don't understand what the relief would be. replacing non-american workers with machines does nothing to help American workers

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#77

Post by bluGill »

nathan_long wrote: post #59
bluGill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike what you would expect, small robots do more damage to the soil not less. Damage to soil is not linear with mass, A massive robot will do twice as much damage where it touches the ground (wheel tracks most likely, but there are other choices), but it will touch 10 times less ground to do the same work so the total averaged over all the land is much better. For the same reason, tracks generally end up doing more…

I don't understand your comment. Suppose the robot is the size of a person or smaller. Does a person damage the ground by walking across a field?

Yes. Not as much as a heaver machine, but the damage is done. Of course their are also process to heal that work better on a human footprint (or deer hoofprint) than a machine print.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#79

Post by otakucode »

nradov wrote: post #54
otakucode wrote: post #44

I eagerly await the introduction of fully automated farming. Not, however, on farms. In my own garage. I see no reason I should simply let a "farmer" purchase the automation gear and then collect profit after wasting tons of energy in transportation. There's dirt, water, and sun at my house. There's no reason a robotic farming situation couldn't be shrunk down and made into something private individuals or small fami…

There's nothing stopping you from planting a garden today. It's not a huge amount of work, and any robots that become available in the next few years will only marginally reduce that labor.

It's not a huge amount of work, but it is a significant time investment. I'm thinking more of a nearly-sealed box that is entirely automated, a family could purchase for a couple thousand dollars, and then it produces food for a few years. It's not so much robots in the sense of things which drive around the landscape that will improve that sort of things, but the work in the 'vertical farming' market. Isolated systems which eliminate the need for pesticides, herbicides, etc, can greatly reduce water usage, can optimize light cycling, maybe even automatically perform selective breeding to a degree, etc.

Re: The rise of the robot farmer

#80

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

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)

Forget LEDs and just put it in a window that faces the sun.
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