Posted on 05/14/2017 11:34:08 PM PDT by gattaca
Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farm-workers, and many of them work illegally in the US. Two of the biggest orchards could soon replace the majority of these workers with robots that don't get tired and can work 24 hours a day. FFRobotics and Abundant Robotics, of Hayward, California, are racing to get their mechanical pickers to market within the next couple of years...Experienced pickers, who are paid by the bin, can make more than $200 (£155) a day...advocates for farm-workers say robot pickers will have a negative effect.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It’s a fruist. ;)
OK
First laugh of the week.
Thanks.
PS I did pick apples.
Trees have to be grown on trellises for this to work. There will be apple and tree damage. This will be made up by volume and scale of operation, I guess.
Running the numbers on one of the robots, 4 to 12 arms and 10000 apples per hour, is only about 4 times faster than an illegal. In perfect conditions.
Only practical in large scale operations, it would seem. And you would still need humans to pick the fruit that is more difficult to reach.
And by the way, there are other hand-intensive tasks in apple growing.
Thinning (can be approximated by chemical thinning sprays).
Pruning (can be approximated by giant mechanical hedge shears).
Picking is a critical node, exploited by unions. Getting fruist to market first is prime price. Getting it before it rots or freezes is survival. Timely harvest is the make-or-break culmination of a whole year’s(or more) investment and effort.
This is not new:
Deportee
Woody Guthrie
The crops are all in
And the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled up
In their creosote dumps
You’re flying ‘em back
To the Mexican border
To spend all their money
To wade back again
Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won’t have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be “deportees”
Some of us are illegal
And others not wanted
Our work contract’s up
And we have to move on
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws
Like rustlers, like thieves
Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won’t have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be “deportees”
The skyplane caught fire
Over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of lightning
Shook all our hills
Who are all these friends
Who are scattered like dried leaves
The radio said
They were just “deportees”
Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won’t have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be “deportees”
They are not true replacements until they go to a sanctuary city and kill an innocent girl!!!
You're right.
Slave labor HURT the South - AND if Lincoln hadn't stopped it, slave labor would have turned the United States into a third world type hellhole.
Slaves didn't build this country - slave labor worked to destroy industrial grown.
Same with cheap labor from Mexico - they've held back innovation. Trump was one of the few people to see the connection...
You're right.
Slave labor HURT the South - AND if Lincoln hadn't stopped it, slave labor would have turned the United States into a third world type hellhole.
Slaves didn't build this country - slave labor worked to destroy industrial growth.
Same with cheap labor from Mexico - they've held back innovation. Trump was one of the few people to see the connection...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.