Posted on 04/24/2015 7:28:14 AM PDT by reaganaut1
OXNARD, Calif.—A 14-arm, automated harvester recently wheeled through rows of strawberry plants here, illustrating an emerging solution to one of the produce industry’s most pressing problems: a shortfall of farmhands.
Harnessing high-powered computing, color sensors and small metal baskets attached to the robotic arms, the machine gently plucked ripe strawberries from below deep-green leaves, while mostly ignoring unripe fruit nearby.
Such tasks have long required the trained discernment and backbreaking effort of tens of thousands of relatively low-paid workers. But technological advances are making it possible for robots to handle the job, just as a shrinking supply of available fruit pickers has made the technology more financially attractive.
...
Farmers of corn and other commodity crops decades ago replaced most of their workers with giant combines and other machines that can quickly cut and gather grain used for animal feed, food ingredients and ethanol. But 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.
An abundant supply of workers, particularly from Mexico, willing to plant, pull weeds and harvest ripe crops for relatively low pay also had suppressed the need for mechanization. But the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. workforce has been declining since its peak in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center, in part because of increased job opportunities in Mexico, as well as tighter U.S. border patrols.
With workers in short supply, “the only way to get more out of the sunshine we have is to elevate the technology,” said Soren Bjorn, Americas unit head for Driscoll Strawberry Associates Inc., the country’s largest berry brand. Driscoll’s largest berry grower, Reiter Affiliated Companies LLC, is partly financing the development of Mr. Bravo’s Agrobot.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Eventually robots will service other robots.
In the Future.
Obama and Clinton want illegals here to vote white liberal elites into office. To prop them up - to be the ‘new blacks’...
One more reason to fight for our country by stopping illegals...
What I remember most is that a lot of the assembly was being done outdoors from part racks on wheels while the plant was being expanded. I was so naive then that I had no idea then that tomatoes were even being harvested mechanically, much less that the machines could be assembled outdoors with a few part bins on wheels and guys with simple hand tools.
You have an important point... one the future will have to deal with..
You're on fire today HiTech... YOU are so right on the above...
The owner pointed to those people and said that it would cost him more to wash down the guy’s machine at day’s end than it cost to pay all those people. The guy said there were too many there, even at slave wages, to work cheaper than his machine.
I can top that... many years ago an American company went to China - the company rep saw women - on their hands and knees - cutting the plant grass with scissors. The man in charge explained that it was cheaper to hire women to cut the grass by hand than to buy gasoline for the mower the company had supplied. The company rep told them to use the mower even if it cost more...
Honestly, I believe we are dealing with that future right now.
Yes, and eventually robots will create other robots. And at that point we'd better have lots of safeguards in place....
Well I certainly hope I didn’t cause a hernia for pointing that out.
Get better soon!
I guess it’s a “sign” when you are on here enough that you notice people’s apparent absence. Heh.
lol
That's the Amish view, and they have a point. Avoidance of technology by whole communities is going to become more common.
Been working on at least part of that answer for about three years, but it is both physically risky and difficult and intellectually and perceptively demanding work. It will be in my next book.
Gadzooks! Doing my best by checking out their impliments: picks, shovels, rakes... 
and hoes--
So, I decided to supply... 
my own!
Pimpin’ aint easy.
For a while anyway. A generation or so.
The money sentence...... “Horses are unemployed because horses are unemployable”
This video illustrates a significant reason for joblessness. many have become simply unemployable. Like horses, their skills and abilities are simply no longer required.
Asking “Where have all the jobs gone” is Asking “Where have all the horses gone”
So, it is worth reposting the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Now it on to ebay to find Lego robotics stuff for my grand son
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