Ilan Brat reports at the WSJ that technological advances are making it possible for robots to handle the backbreaking job of gently plucking ripe strawberries from below deep-green leaves, just as the shrinking supply of available fruit pickers has made the technology more financially attractive. “It’s no longer a problem of how much does a strawberry harvester cost,” says Juan Bravo, inventor of Agrobot, the picking machine. “Now it’s about how much does it cost to leave a field unpicked, and that’s a lot more expensive.” The Agrobot costs about $100,000 and Bravo has a second, larger prototype in development.
Other devices similarly are starting to assume delicate tasks in different parts of the fresh-produce industry, from planting vegetable seedlings to harvesting lettuce to transplanting roses. While farmers of corn and other commodity crops replaced most of their workers decades ago with giant combines, growers of produce and plants have largely stuck with human pickers—partly to avoid maladroit machines marring the blemish-free appearance of items that consumers see on store shelves. With workers in short supply, “the only way to get more out of the sunshine we have is to elevate the technology,” says Soren Bjorn.
American farmers have in recent years resorted to bringing in hundreds of thousands of workers from Mexico on costly, temporary visas for such work. But the decades-old system needs to be replaced because “we don’t have the unlimited labor supply we once did,” says Rick Antle. "Americans themselves don't seem willing to take the harder farming jobs," says Charles Trauger, who has a farm in Nebraska. "Nobody's taking them. People want to live in the city instead of the farm. Hispanics who usually do that work are going to higher paying jobs in packing plants and other industrial areas."
The labor shortage spurred Tanimura & Antle Fresh Foods, one of the country’s largest vegetable farmers, to buy a Spanish startup called Plant Tape, whose system transplants vegetable seedlings from greenhouse to field using strips of biodegradable material fed through a tractor-pulled planting device. “This is the least desirable job in the entire company,” says Becky Drumright. With machines, “there are no complaints whatsoever. The robots don’t have workers' compensation, they don’t take breaks.”
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 27 2015, @12:56PM
So what do you suggest? That there is no fair price for manually-picked agricultural goods below $100 per hour? Should strawberries be a luxury reserved only for the 1% who can afford to pay four thousand dollars per kilo? Should we stop buying certain foods on ethical grounds?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @01:07PM
I'm suggesting that it's such shit work, that no one in their right mind would want to do it at any reasonable wage.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @01:40PM
I could say the same thing about software development in large corporations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:08PM
That really discounts farm work nicely.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:09PM
I could say the same thing about every sort of work. Why would anyone want to work at all? Activities are called work when we have to do them, play when we don't, even if they look the same from the outside.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:18PM
You don't have a very interesting job, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @04:28PM
You don't have anything to say worth listening to, do you?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:22AM
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 27 2015, @05:17PM
Some of us like to grow our own food. I might like to have a farm, but actually being able to turn a profit on a farm is the difficult part.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:39AM
Damn near impossible, on a small scale. Feeder pigs in the northeast US this year are running $150 and up. Then feed it for 5 or 6 months to net 300 to 400 pounds of pork. It's cheaper to buy pork at the supermarket for a buck or 2 a pound.
Raising your own chickens or eggs is a similar labor of love.
Factory farms produce a vastly inferior product, but they've beaten their costs way down.