Posted on 09/06/2007 11:01:38 AM PDT by lado
LOS ANGELES With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.
Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.
"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.
Click here for FOXNews.com's Patents and Innovation Center.
California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department. The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season.
More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
Last year, amid heightened immigration enforcement, California's seasonal migration was marked by spot worker shortages, and some fruit was left to rot in the fields.
"There's a lot of very nervous people out there in agriculture in terms of what's going to be available in the labor force," said Robert Wample, viticulture and enology program director at California State University, Fresno.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“California harvests about half the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department.”
Some days, the jokes just write themselves...
I believe the government should subsidize any robots and pull the funds directly from the immigrant programs.
What are the chances of my idea becoming reality ?
Just a thought.
It's gonna suck not having an education in machinery repair when they come over the border then...
Well, there’s TWO of us...;->
Just wait until they develop a cheaper robot that can jump a fence ;)
If Hillary wins? A snowball’s chance in hell, thats the chances.
yeah, and watch the border guards going to prison for shooting them too...
Take note that the end of slavery did not end the production of cotton, and that cotton today is untouched by human hands until it is cloth. With time it won’t be touched until it hits your back.
Not if we don't close the borders.
The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season
So because California uses 225k workers year round and 450k workers in peak season, we need 12 million (BS stats) illegals?
Hehe pretty funny, if you take that 225k X 50 states (yes I know there are more than 50 states)look what you get.....11,250,000.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
Deport all Illegals ............NOW!
Illegals are not wanted in the USA. They are people who cast our laws by the way side.
This is exactly what happened after Operation Wetback. When cheap serfs became unavailable the growers were forced to mechanize. Now it’s happening again.
I’ve heard the argument that the Industrial Revolution could have got started with the ancient Greeks and Romans but because of the institutionalization of slavery, no considered automata to be anything more than toys.
The Bush Administration waved a magic wand to ignore the substitution effect of capital for labor.
People have been using machines to replace labor in agriculture since the first farmer used a sharp stick to dig a hole instead of using his own fingers.
As the cost of labor goes up, labor is replaced by machines. This is a good thing. The value of the labor of a man driving a tractor that harvests as many grapes as a hundred field hands is worth much more than the labor of a single field hand. This is how we make progress.
I see a bright future for community colleges with ag equipment repair degrees.
Time to put vo-tech training back in high schools.
Even then. Farmers don’t like investing in wages when they can invest in an asset that will pay for itself after a while. Even if they sell out a lot of that money can then be returned when they auction off.
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