Posted on 06/28/2013 7:11:13 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Wall-E-Like Farming Robots Could Replace Undocumented Workers and Save the US Billions
Despite advancements in mechanization within US agriculture, some menial jobs are still best left to human workers. Problem is, federal crackdowns on undocumented laborers have decimated that workforce. The Harvester automaton could provide a cheap, readily available labor force without the threat of raids by the INS.
The US agriculture industry is worth about $300 billion annually—half from livestock production, the other half from crops. However, some of the most basic jobs in this industry still have to be performed by people. Jobs like offloading potted plants from trucks, arranging them in rows for the growing season, then loading them back onto a truck when they're ready for sale. That may not sound very difficult, but when performed on an industrial scale, it becomes a mammoth task requiring a huge workforce of low-productivity manual laborers—today largely comprising undocumented migrant workers. However, some analysts estimate that, by automating these sorts of tasks, a firm's revenue per employee could be increased from $40K per employee vs. $175K per employee—an annual labor savings of $21 billion. "We've recognized the need for robotics in the nursery industry for moving pots because it's one of our highest concentrations of labor use," said Tom Demaline, president of Willoway Nurseries, Inc. in Avon, Ohio.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
No one seems to have caught this laugher yet.
I saw a very old photo of a giant, steam powered harvesting machine used in the early part of the 20th Century. It was truly immense and complex. I mention it because the use of machines in agriculture has been a continual pursuit since then.
And for over 100 years now, it has been known that some crops are easily tended and harvested with machines, others are not and perhaps cannot be, at least not cost effectively.
Factors that truly matter include the cost of the machine, its fuel, and maintenance, plus multiplying the amount of the crop wasted for being under- or overripe. Likewise, “mechanical damage” of much more of the crop.
So it boils down to, is it cheaper to use machines or men?
Creepy film! Haven’t seen it since the 70’s but it still creeps me out till this day.
Huh? So illegals will design, build and operate the machines? Yeah, ok.
Interesting, basing a whole article on a false premise. What federal crackdowns? The first thing Obama did when he came into office is stop workplace enforcement. Also, INS hasn't existed since the reorganization of under DHS.
What happens when robots take over for most jobs (cashiers, construction...). Where will people work then? Not everyone can be an IT person and program stuff. Some day there will be more automation than we can afford and basically no jobs.
I think we will be more like the people in Wall-E.
#Agricultural technology: Robots replacing workers in Agricultural industry
Sep 7th 2012, 14:11 by The Economist online
EVEN in the developed world farming can be a labour-intensive business, relying on lots of migrant workers. Cereal agriculture is heavily mechanised, with one combine harvester taking over from hundreds of labourers, but other tasks have proven difficult to automate. That is changing.
Meet Harvey, otherwise known as Harvest Vehicle HV-100. This is the first agricultural robot from Harvest Automation, a firm based in Massachusetts. It will work in horticulture where the traditional sources of cheap labour are becoming scarcer, in part because of changing demographics and immigration laws.
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8/06/2012 @ 7:07AM |6,266 views
Intelligent Sensing Agriculture Robots To Harvest Crops
Agriculture might be the last place you would think to look for robots. To be more specific, high value crops such as greenhouse vegetables, fruits in orchards and grapes for premium wines. But it does make sense. Anything that technology can do to foster the sustainable development of agriculture benefits the world.
A new project that’s part of the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7) cRops (Clever Robots for Crops) is focusing on creating robots to harvest high value crops.
The cRops robotic platform will be capable of site-specific spraying (targeted spraying only on foliage and selected targets) and selective harvesting of fruit. The robots will be able to detect the fruit, sense its ripeness, then move to grasp and softly detach only the ripe fruit. Another objective of cRops is to develop techniques for reliable detection and classification of obstacles and other objects to enable successful autonomous navigation and operation in plantations and forests.
AG automation has been delayed for years due to cheap labor but it appears that the cost for really effective robots has decreased to the point that it is going to pay off with possibly big numbers.
Robots can work all day and all night and are going to be really efficient allowing one guy to control much larger areas both for planting and harveting.
Of course, the Mexican laborers will be replaced with H1b visa techs from India, as the Americans want to much money to program farm equipment.
A modern day cotton gin. Economics can drive technology and technology will further refine economics, unless government intervention screws the whole thing up.
Only if we can hire H-1Bs to do the jobs unemployed American engineers are begging for.
Huey & Duey?.... Great movie btw
Huey & Duey?.... Great movie btw
It’ll never gain a foothold. Between the big agribusiness and illegal labor lobby, they’ll shut this down before it ever starts. The number 1 reason is up front costs for the technology, the skilled labor required to maintain it, and the largest reason, government subsidized illegal labor.
No, you totally missed the gist of this article, and the reality of this labor equation. This is about reducing the need for labor by about 99%. The technical jobs involved will be few and have zip zero nada to do with blue collar labor as it exists today. I am astonished at your processor on this.....
Wel you've stepped into 2 steaming piles: Pile A: you make the case for me and Pile B: who ever said these were career positions? Liberals normally assume that. Oh, pile C, nothing happens in most of the country for 10/hour any more...not with hand outs so lavish.
fo shizzle
>>Other than the typical jobs....laying carpet, doing drywall, or laying bricks....there’s just any work to be left for illegals.<<
I recently hired two American citizens to do the all three of the jobs you mention. I didn’t have any need to hire an illegal alien in the remodel of the house. Americans also do landscaping, painting and electrical chores.
“It’ll never gain a foothold. Between the big agribusiness and illegal labor lobby, they’ll shut this down before it ever starts.”
You won’t buy them but lease them as farmers do wil most combines and large equipment. Ag leasing is a very large business.
It solves the problem of what to do with the robots after planting or harvest is done. They can continue to go and could be shipped to the other side of the world to take advantage of the opposite seasons. This is going to go and and will be wildly successful.
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