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posted by cmn32480 on Monday April 27 2015, @10:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-welcome-our-new-robot-overlords dept.

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.”

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @02:13PM (#175709)

    Yep, fuck that. At least I had a crane that worked until I ran out of boom. It makes no wonderment over why blue collar guys are so prone to crime, violence, divorce, alcoholism, and all the rest. Truly treated as lowest of the low.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 27 2015, @02:51PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday April 27 2015, @02:51PM (#175727) Journal

    It always pisses me off to no end that society is taught to look down on the blue collar workers. No college degree? Then you must be dumb and don't deserve a decent wage. Just recently I read this article by some elitist shit who thinks it's okay to tell those Mcdonalds workers fighting for $15 that they DON'T DESERVE $15 an hour. I wish I could get in that fuckers face and demand why his lowly job of publishing an opinion piece is deserving of a decent wage (IMHO it isn't.)

    Bottom line is we have created a wage rift based upon the metric of intelligence needed to complete a job while ignoring the physical demands. Sitting behind a desk earning >$20/hr is perfectly acceptable. But someone who is in the hot sun busting their ass picking strawberries is barely qualified for >$10/hr. Or behind a cash register, or pushing a broom (though union broom pushers are well paid.) or driving a truck. Maybe the unions should make a comeback and people will see the real cost of doing business is when everyone is paid a decent wage.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 27 2015, @03:23PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 27 2015, @03:23PM (#175738) Journal

      Unfortunately, ALL monopolies are bad. And that all includes unions. The only justification for unions is that they are dealing with a centralized power that ignores the needs of those without power. That's enough, until the unions start getting corrupt. But then you've got two monopolies rather than one.

      The only answer I can see involves a negative income tax, or guaranteed annual wage. And that would require an honest government.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @05:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @05:21PM (#175772)

        Paraphrasing Heinlein, government is usually honest though never truthful.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @05:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27 2015, @05:14PM (#175766)

    Well we had it tough...