Source - The Farms of the Future Will Be Automated From Seed to Harvest Link has video or robotic harvester. " Swarms of drones buzz overhead, while robotic vehicles crawl across the landscape. Orbiting satellites snap high-resolution images of the scene far below. Not one human being can be seen in the pre-dawn glow spreading across the land. This isn’t some post-apocalyptic vision of the future à la The Terminator. This is a snapshot of the farm of the future. Every phase of the operation—from seed to harvest—may someday be automated, without the need to ever get one’s fingernails dirty. In fact, it’s science fiction already being engineered into reality. Today, robots empowered with artificial intelligence can zap weeds with preternatural precision, while autonomous tractors move with tireless efficiency across the farmland. Satellites can assess crop health from outer space, providing gobs of data to help produce the sort of business intelligence once accessible only to Fortune 500 companies." Giant machines already are in use to produce the vast majority of food sold in the US. Giant machines that need...fuel. Mechanics. Programmers. This does pose some interesting - but just potential problems at this point - issues, the least of which is impact to human employment. I do see where it has advanced to the point where computer modeling are being developed for newer and even bigger machines. What big machines? These - Q.1 Do you feel threatened by these behemoths? Q.2 Have you seen any impact to or on your lifestyle/job by this level of automation?
Farmers are probably some of the least likely to change. If it works they don't' like to change it if costs money they won't' buy it until they need it. Unlike the anti gun sheep I do not have a fear of weapons unless it's being pointed at me or machinery. I work on machinery and automation, so it's' good for me. I just haven't worked on automated farm implements.
IIRC there is a farmbot thing available for individuals that does look useful... think I saw it listed here?
Works fine until it doesn't work and then everything fails at once. It requires ever greater concentration of inputs, capital, and output. All the crops have to be the same in any field and the whole field has to have the same variety of seed . Capital replaces labor, it can be argued that the present problems in many of the American cities was created by the mechanical cotton picker. It replaced the hand picked cotton, which concentrated the fields into ever larger ones with centralized ownership to utilize the machinery and forced the black share croppers who had hand picked the cotton on small farms off the land and into the labor market. In the short term they did well in the factories in the north, but with off shoring and automation, their labor is no longer needed and they are now the great American underclass. While we can use machines and technology to produce things, food, shelter, consumer goods, etc, we have as yet been unable to figure out what to do with those no longer needed to produce these things, nor have we figured out what to do if some event, hurricane, flood, crop disease, etc destroys the majority of those crops in the mechanized farms. We no longer have a local food cushion reserve and with the large scale processing, transportation, distribution, marketing, financing, quality control, and security, we can not exist in the major cities for over a few days on the supplies on hand. .While I am neither for or against such type of farming, I on both practical and moral grounds refuse to depend on it with my life or of those of my family.
For small scale you can auto water with rain disable, put lights on a timer. As far as something like a garden rumba, idk.
Tried auto water in greenhouse, works for hydroponics, but not in ground plants. One day need to water 3 times, hot, dry, with fans running, next day if cloudy and cooler, only need to water once or perhaps not at all. I have had good luck with either human control and monitoring of system or full hydroponics. If you sped a couple thousand on controls, you can mechanize it and I haven't. Have seen some greenhouses do very well and have seen other destroyed by insect pests, white flies, etc or plant diseases, late blight, etc. I have had best luck keeping it small, using fresh growing medium every year, buying no plants from the nursery supply companies, trying to stay on top of things and prevent any stress on the plants, and being ruthless in culling at the first sign of a problem. I don't try to live off of my greenhouse at present, it is an incredible place to be and it is strange to have the bees and birds fly right next to you. I have swallows that live in the place and get all upset when strangers come into our greenhouse. Today I was working on my F-350 in the greenhouse, out side temp 35 ,with a 30 MPH wind, inside it was bright and cheery, temp in 70,s and no wind or mud. I am all in favor of mechanization as long as I can pick and choose what I wish to use, but don't know what would happen if i had to make a living off of it.
Indeed, Agribusiness farms will continue to use advances in mechanisation, automation, robotics and other technologies to grow, harvest, process and transport produce....however, self sufficient and boutique / niche farming will probably continue to rely on low tech and low impact farming techniques and technology.
If your into conspiracy theories , I can see where the .gov can control who grows, and who don't , with this technology. And , just as it is getting to now, the big seed companies will control the seed market. I can remember my grandfather keeping a portion of his crops for seed for the following year. I know a few people that are growing their gardens every year from the seeds of the plants they grow. They have been collecting seeds from their harvest for 30+ years. I can remember my Mom telling me how they used to pick tobacco from the fields at different times, as it matured , and then hung in the barns to cure. Then the tobacco companies started making them spray a chemical on the crops to make the whole field mature at the same time. I'm still old school. I like the old ways. Change doesn't work well with me.
Monsanto and the corporate farm have already destroyed the family farm. It still exists in regions but not the small farm that provided for family and community. Some of us here, are reawakening the small farm community to one degree or another but it will never be as it was as recently as the 1960s. I am going to make a concerted effort at returning to that life as I plan my final years. It will not last beyond my life as a legacy, I do not suppose, but yet I still hope that it will be something I can leave for my heirs to continue. My grand-father's farm, the one that I envisioned growing up to farm and manage, is now a freaking sub-division, a nice subdivision with a gate, large lots, many with gardens and horses to ride throughout the "community". There are more Escalades there than at a Crips funeral.
Farms for money yes. They have to get bigger and automate, use latest resistance crops to keep the margins up. (and shareholders happy). Subsistence farms, nope, not coming to your farm soon. Well, maybe except for the overspray from the commercial farm next door, down the road .. or maybe even in the next county.
Won't have much impact on me or my business but it is coming. And the row croppers are embracing the changes. Most of their tractors and combines already auto steer and adjust via GPS and Computers and while they are in the cab they are watching movies or sleeping. Won't be long before the robotics and tech will advance enough that the farmer won't even need to be in the cab. In the greenhouse and high tunnel world robotics and automation is becoming standard for the big operations. Us small guys are never going to be able to compete with them in that regard. It just is not in our budgets to buy $600,000 robotic harvesters or a $2,000,000 automated processing line that does the wash, sorting, packing, stacking on a pallet, and moving to the dock or warehouse. Let alone put 10-12 of those lines and 2 dozen of those auto harvesters in 30-50 acres of greenhouse. I think those of us that up our games from raw products to value added will survive just fine in our niches and the buy local is a strong marketing angle that levels the field a bit. I don't see much of a future for those of us that will not change and move to value added. There is simply no marketing tool or gimmick that will let the small farms compete in the wholesale markets against the 70% to fully automated big guys. The smaller grain and commodity farms are just going to get steam rolled for the last time with automation a 300-750 acre grain farm that can't afford the millions to upgrade is just going to get priced out and their farms consolidated into to ever bigger and bigger farms. Most of the 350-750 acre farms do good to bring in $50,000-$60,000 net per year as it is. But are land rich and equipment rich and already struggling to stay competitive in the commodity markets. Anyone in the food production business right now knows we are on the edge of a major transitional point in agriculture. We just are at a point where a whole lot of mid size farms are going to become obsolete and phased out of existence. The automation and robotics are just not that far from being perfected and those mid size farms will just be priced out of that evolution. I don't like it and don't want to see it.... but it is coming. Every time there is a major technological advancement in AG smaller farms die. If I am remembering the numbers correctly 90% of the farms are less than 1,000 acres and 95% of the arable land is owned by farms larger than 2,000 acres. And the average age of all farmers is now 57 or 58 years old. I might be off a bit on those numbers and I am too lazy to look them up to be exact but every year the avg age gets older and the arable land is owned by larger and larger farms.
Same with my Granpa's farm my parents and their siblings could not sell it off fast enough when Grandpa finally died. It is now called XXX-Estates with a big 10' iron fence around the 500 acres with four entry gates and lots of $500,000-$750,000 houses and where there were once hogs and cattle there are soccer moms and suvs. Not what Grandpa would have wanted at all.
Living in New Hampshire, we have seen the future. The dairy farms are almost gone, as are almost all of those producing chickens, turkeys, sheep, pigs, the orchards, most of the truck gardens, almost all of the corn and grain farms, we now import about 95 % of what we eat and 70 % of the existing farms lost money in one report made in 2007. It may have improved since then as there are a lot less farms around to lose money now. The new large scale mechanized farms require a stable source of income and access to inputs. Anything that impedes these for even a short period of time and it all collapses. Our society and our nation has put all of its future into one huge basket and if anything disturbs the basket, it all will fail. In the long run it is not a feasible solution. The comment that resistance is futile and a Luddite reaction to change that will occur is usually heard, for those who died of disease and starvation in Great Britain during the 1700's, the same comments were made and we no longer have sparsely inhabited areas to send the great unwashed.
There is a lot of small scale 'farms' that sell direct to the end-customer, cafes and such - that are still in business. Microgreens are making inroads in the 'local supply' business chain as well.
Fishing industry also went down this path...huge Japanese boats the do everything on board, automated...really hurt the fishing industry. As far as seeds, my wife never heard or used hybrid seeds until we got here. I had to sit her down and explain what she was dealing with here. She now has all her own seeds, from year to year, and she brings some back to the states from her mother's and aunt's gardens... Just a thought, a bad one at that, but he that controls the food, controls the masses...
