Posted on 02/28/2024 9:25:24 PM PST by zeestephen
Amazon just introduced 6’ high robots into their warehouses. Has the warehouse staff on pins and needles, fearing they will lose their jobs. Before anyone goes there, the return on investment needs to be there.
It’s been happening since the invention of the wheel. And with AI, it’s happening significantly faster.
“It is best never to have been born. But who among us is so lucky? One in a million, perhaps.”
(I saw that in an H. Allen Smith book once, attributed to one Alfred C. Polgar.)
Fifty years ago, or thenabouts, Food Machinery Corporation came up with a machine to harvest tomatoes. Then there were shakers for tree crops. Then there was plant genetics and experts who developed crops that could be harvested during a short time span. And so, change will continue to occur.
For the most part, machines HAVE eliminated farm work.
So what are all the unskilled people going to do?
You know what they say about ‘idle hands’.
When we started our stand we sold our primes for a quarter. That was about ten years ago.
You could get a three pound bag at the store on sale for 99 cents.
Now on sale never dips below $2.99
Ok Laz, Sit down, have a cup of hot cider and hold a puppy. You will feel better. Careful of your pants, the puppy is not totally trained yet.
That’s always been the concern, hasn’t it? We’ve heard…
* Military
* Guaranteed minimum income
But there aren’t any good answers.
You use your...keyboard...purdier than a twenty dollar...
A lot of them already have been. There’s still a few things it’s challenging to harvest by machine, but that list keeps shrinking.
In other words, “Life sucks, then you die!”
The reason why American agriculture can provide food in abundance is due to mechanization. I grew up in a small town in a rural state and saw first hand how mechanized agriculture has progressed. Even in the 1940s a few farmers were still using horse drawn equipment. By the 1950s horse agriculture was gone replaced by three wheel open tractors pulling plows, planters, cultivators and attached corn pickers. By the 1960s tractors got bigger and pulled bigger equipment. By the 1970s tractors were bigger still and self contained combines harvested the grain. By the 1990s tractors became behemoths pulling huge equipment and combines became bigger and more efficient. 21st century agricultural equipment is huge and employs sophisticated technology to even more efficiently plant and harvest crops. A single farmer can produce more than his father or grandfather ever imagined and do so from an air conditioned cab. While there are still crops that require hand labor mechanization will soon replace field hands for those crops too.
They use dwarf trees so there wouldnt be much energy even if it fell to the ground but that doesnt happen either.
The shaker puts a trampoline around the tree at the top of the bare part of the trunk where the branches start.
The apples only go a foot or three and since its a dwarf there arent many branches up above to drop higher apples down on to the ones already on the trampoline dropped from below.
Ive seen something similar used on hazelnuts. Quite a while back I saw a vaccuum cleaner that picked walnuts off the ground but Im guessing theyve come up with something like the trampoline for those too.
And so far those kind of apples do not have a good flavor.
Yup.
It takes next to nothing of a bump to bruise an apple.
Granted that is quite a bit shorter then the twenty footer old breeds we have.
We have trees so old even the Red Delicious still tastes good. :)
Yes, the tech to farm without farmers is getting scary good. But, equipment maintenence takes people, and machinery breaks, gets stuck in mud, has to switch implements (hook/unhook hyd hoses/electric cables). So, terminator will have to be good enough to do those chores.
Crop duster pilots are probably wondering when drones will be doing their jobs.
To some degree thats true and is a major reason why so many things taste terrible but that is the way it is at the orchards. There is very little effort put into looking for bruising because there is so little early in the season. Toward the end there are a lot more that are quite ripe and those go right to the cider room.
None of those things in the store are there because they taste good or have the most nutrients. Those were all gotten rid of for things that harvested easily and transported well yet could still be pawned off on city people that didnt know any better.
Spinach, peaches, lettuce...seriously, when was the last time that you had domestic citrus that wasnt dry and not sour if it had any flavor at all?
Hilarious! Made my day!
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.