Posted on 02/13/2016 9:20:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In 2017, the Japanese company Spread will open the world's first fully automated agricultural plant, with robots working the whole process: from seed to harvest.
Spread, headquartered in Kyoto, explained that this plant will start operating regularly by mid-2017. Mechanization will allow it, among other things, to produce 30,000 heads of lettuce a day, as noted on their website.
This figure falls short of the firm's expectations, as its goal is to produce half a million heads of lettuce a day within five years. Furthermore, the new automation technologies will reduce labour costs by 50% and energy use by 30% and will recycle 98% of the water used.
The farm, of about 4,400 square metres, follows the growing trend of vertical farming, where producers cultivate indoors, without natural sunlight. Instead, they rely on LES lighting and the crops are grown in racks that stack the vegetables on shelves, on top of each other.
In addition to increasing the production and reducing waste, indoor vertical farming also eliminates the need for pesticides and herbicides, chemicals which are used in traditional open ground agriculture and which can be harmful to the environment.
If this works, all we need is a liquid thorium reactor (for power) and a lot of drilling machines and we could start building “settlements” under ground under Antarctica and start a country under the rock there to get away from all these crazy commies on the surface.
Better robots than illegal aliens .
We live in a farming community in rural Kumamoto . NO young people want to carry on the family farm . My wife and I were just talking about this the other day .
How does it taste?
How energy intensive is it?
What is the cost of production?
It seems to me that automated crop production would put a lot of illegals out of work. Then liberals wouldn’t have the pretext that illegals are sneaking across the border to work in order to refuse to do anything about illegal invasion.
This will be very bad for places like China. Not so bad for places like the US.
Ultimately, however, there may be robotic replacements for large sections of the US workforce such as truck drivers and taxicab operators.
When that happens, it will be 'interesting times' as the Chinese say.
I think that I saw a news report about this (DW News or Tokyo News).
This is actually more hydroponic than ag.
Rows and rows of trays, stacked upon each other in a building with grow lights.
Now whether the nutrients in the growth media or the light wave length is beneficial, could be a different story.
Well, the plants will thrive as long as they can get the nutrients they need from the media, and they really only need one wavelength of light for photosynthesis to work, so I don't think those are issues.
I wonder what the costs are for pumping in and probably filtering water, the electricity to light the building and maintain environmental controls, building and equipment maintenance, etc. How do they compare to the costs of conditioning soil for planting, tractors, and irrigation equipment? How do initial capital expenses compare?
It could be that such a mechanized system is cost-effective in Japan, where land is at a premium, but would not work out in the US.
I can tell you what they are doing for work in my neck of the woods, they have taken over the drug business and are buying up legit businesses with the profits.
If the Japs need help on growing indoors we have folks with 30 years experience in my state. Course the crop we grow is a little different.
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