To see the real threat to agrarian farming: robots that can match human judgment, like picking only the ripe fruit.
Given enough time, however, it will make economic sense to pick berries with robots rather than humans. The history of industrial agriculture teaches us that if a worker can be replaced by a machine, they will be. Yet despite the obvious disruptions this causes in employment, I think the eventual move towards robotic agriculture is a vital one. We are still fighting global hunger, and anything that can increase our productivity and efficiency in agriculture is likely a valuable step towards solving that grand challenge. The strawberry robot is a relatively small development, but it’s a good one. [More]
[via mr]
4 comments:
Global hunger has little to do with productivity and efficiency, the problems are economic and political...but a handy machine anyway.
We are still fighting global hunger, and anything that can increase our productivity and efficiency in agriculture is likely a valuable step towards solving that grand challenge.
In total agreement with Anon. 1
Will food be used at some point in the future as a weapon of mass decimation? Is it being used that way today?
anons:
My remark was obviously obscure, but I was suggesting that technology may soon enable industrial agriculture to provide the same quality characteristics to produce as local or small "farmer's market" providers. That is, perfectly ripe fruit instead all the fruit the day the machine ran.
We can never win the war against hunger as long as we remain overpopulated and growing!
Machines will soon be replaced by humans as energy declines because of the decline of oil. The land is exhausted and fertilizers made from natural gas will become too expensive as gas also declines.The only solution is to reduce our population to what can be sustained and that's less than ONE billion not seven!
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