Robo-farming

[Brian G Turner]

Interesting piece on the BBC website about the increased automation of farming - everything from driverless tractors to automated planting/monitoring/harvesting, to farming towers that use solar energy and recycle almost all of their water:

In the future, will farming be fully automated? - BBC News

Maybe not so far in the future at all, and useful for our SF writers.

 

[BAYLOR]

I could be mistaken but I think they had Robo faming of a sort in the 1984 near Future scone fiction film Runaway .

 

[BAYLOR]

Increasing wages may end up giving a boost to Robo-Farming . Robot , don't need wages, benefits, vacations or sick days. They can work 24/7 without even a coffee break.

 

[Overread]

A robot might not need wages, but on the flipside if it breaks you need a team of technical experts to repair it. So whilst the farmer might not have staff the team behind the machine will. Many of these machines are so expensive that either they are leased out or used by farming contractors or they are only bought by the biggest of landowners and farmers.

Certainly many of these machines can do all or nearly all the work without the farmer even needing to lift a finger.

So farming will change, however it might not all be for the better. Already we see heavy chemical use has had massive effects on wildlife populations and machine farming might well be even more damaging to the environment (esp since those machines might well require near perfect crops to function accurately). Also the costs involved skyrocket very fast; reliability will be key to keeping costs down.

 

[ErikB]

Totally off subject in a way, but still related in another. Years ago, I am racking my brain for the exact date. I believe it was 1975 if I recall correctly I read a magazine article about a Farmer that was having difficulty with his farm because his sons did not want to follow in his footsteps. He did not have the money to hire on helpers.

Instead through (I believe it was his daughter doing primate behavioral research) that he was able to enlist the aid of two male chimpanzees. The two were noted for being exceptionally docile for mature males and because they showed an incredible ability learning sign language and problem solving, they were dressed in overalls and put to work on the farm.

They literally saved the farmer's farm. The two primates ate at the table. They were supervised by a primate behavioral specialist and thought to do tasks that were taxing for humans.

But the chimps took to the tasks with ease and a speed and efficiency that was astonishing. I remember seeing the photos from the article of the chimps tossing hay bales, setting fence posts, eating at the table with the farmer and family. It was amazing.

Not automation per se, but animation of the farm through the adept skills of two exceptional chimpanzees. And given that a chimpanzee male is between 3 - 5 times stronger than a mature human male, it is like having a machine-like aid where this story was concerned.

Unlike machines however primates are complex emotional creatures and in 99% of cases a full grown mature male chimpanzee is a very dangerous animal that can be prone to severe mood swings as sexual maturity is reached. In most cases using chimps is not possible.

Again, sorry for the side track but the automation story reminded me of the article and I had to share.

Back to the subject at hand. Cheers!

 

[Dave]

Personally, I can't see a robot ever able to weed as well as a human can. The future is not one of using heaps of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides. We are poisoning both wildlife and ourselves with these. We already have reduced the proportion of the population in agricultural work from over 80% to something insignificant. The future of agriculture is more labour intensive. The only way we can grow monocultures without chemicals is by hard physical grafting, tending to the fertility of soil, and weeding. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we will have AI androids with human-like dexterity who are just as good. Tractors already compact the soil with their weight. Automatic tractors would have to be worse.