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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.”
(Score: 2) by caseih on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:38AM
Wrong question. How much are you as a consumer willing to pay? Farmers are willing to pay as much as people are willing to pay them for their commodities. They are price takers and the only way to increase profit margins is to reduce costs to the absolute minimum. We farm close to 3000 acres with 4 people total. If it made economic sense, we would definitely hire a horde of people to weed the fields. But until then, large-scale tillage and herbicides are used.
But it is true that people generally do eschew physical labor jobs these days. Go get an education so you don't have to dig ditches. The problem is that digging ditches is important, and needs to be done, and there is still money in it. Education is important as well. We're approaching a crisis in North America with the trades right now. Very soon we will be short welders, electricians, pipe fitters, etc. All of these things are highly skilled, just not what you go to uni for. Seems like there is a disparity between university and the real world in many respects. I think a BS degree is a good idea and will teach you how to think. But there is satisfaction in a job that involves hard work and doing something useful. Reminds me of the end of "Office Space."