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Actually this is a topic very near to my interests. You mention it in farming (and that interests me, but the extent of my farming knowledge is growing a small

by _dps 9y ago

Actually this is a topic very near to my interests. You mention it in farming (and that interests me, but the extent of my farming knowledge is growing a small garden of tomato plants) ... but I think it's a more general trend that technology tends to be developed with an eye toward massive scale, with small-scale efficiency as an afterthought. Could you give some examples of opportunities you see in developing technology for farming at the small scale? In particular, examples where the technology designed for the large scale farms wouldn't be appropriate?

jelliclesfarm 9y ago
1. Large farms have already reached peak mechanization. 2. Robotics is for automation, not mechanization. 3. For large farms, drone technology, precision application of pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers are areas of opportunity. Smaller farms can never hope to achieve the economies of scale that the big farms can easily grasp. Smaller farms need modular solutions. The knowledge to grow diverse market crops in a small acreage is an entirely diff skill set. Small farms don't need 'intelligent' systems. We need automation to reduce labour costs. Robotic solutions for small farms may reduce our labour costs and we could generate higher profits. AI and robots for larger farms might make the operations more expensive and not increase profit margins. AI and robotic systems for large operations will be integrated with existing big tractor companies. Maybe licensed. Which opens another can of worms. Farmers will never own the proprietary software or algorithms. Farmers generally don't like to use anything that they can't understand.(already happening with John Deere and DMCA). This is mostly because harvest/planting/feeding windows are seasonal and varied every year. Because of perishable nature of our products, even a slight error in timing will ruin that year's income. And you can't wait for someone to debug your tractor or trust that it will be fixed. One area where large farms are suited for both intelligent systems(AI..suitable for large farms) and automated systems(robotics..suitable for smaller acreage farms) are those working in vineyards. It's almost like a warehouse environment and it's a premium product. It can handle it.
- hanniabu 9y ago
  I'm not the parent, but I believe you failed to answer their question. He understands the issuend. He's looking for direction on a specific example for what exactly you would like automated and why the solutions for large scale farms wouldn't work in this scenerio.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jelliclesfarm 9y ago
    It's just a size thing and cost due to economies of scale.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jelliclesfarm 9y ago
    I wrote several replies and deleted them all. I honestly don't know how to answer. Large farms grow commodity crops that are entirely diff from small farms diverse crops. They are like two diff animals. Example: there is a lettuce thinning robot in the market. It sprays concentrated fertilizer at regular intervals in rows where seeds are direct down. In smaller farms we would plant greenhouse grown baby lettuce starts and not direct sow. Too much wastage and labour to direct sow. Weed thinning bot is overkill.

by _dps 9y ago

jelliclesfarm 9y ago

1. Large farms have already reached peak mechanization. 2. Robotics is for automation, not mechanization. 3. For large farms, drone technology, precision application of pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers are areas of opportunity. Smaller farms can never hope to achieve the economies of scale that the big farms can easily grasp. Smaller farms need modular solutions. The knowledge to grow diverse market crops in a small acreage is an entirely diff skill set. Small farms don't need 'intelligent' systems. We need automation to reduce labour costs. Robotic solutions for small farms may reduce our labour costs and we could generate higher profits. AI and robots for larger farms might make the operations more expensive and not increase profit margins. AI and robotic systems for large operations will be integrated with existing big tractor companies. Maybe licensed. Which opens another can of worms. Farmers will never own the proprietary software or algorithms. Farmers generally don't like to use anything that they can't understand.(already happening with John Deere and DMCA). This is mostly because harvest/planting/feeding windows are seasonal and varied every year. Because of perishable nature of our products, even a slight error in timing will ruin that year's income. And you can't wait for someone to debug your tractor or trust that it will be fixed. One area where large farms are suited for both intelligent systems(AI..suitable for large farms) and automated systems(robotics..suitable for smaller acreage farms) are those working in vineyards. It's almost like a warehouse environment and it's a premium product. It can handle it.

hanniabu 9y ago
I'm not the parent, but I believe you failed to answer their question. He understands the issuend. He's looking for direction on a specific example for what exactly you would like automated and why the solutions for large scale farms wouldn't work in this scenerio.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jelliclesfarm 9y ago
  It's just a size thing and cost due to economies of scale.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jelliclesfarm 9y ago
  I wrote several replies and deleted them all. I honestly don't know how to answer. Large farms grow commodity crops that are entirely diff from small farms diverse crops. They are like two diff animals. Example: there is a lettuce thinning robot in the market. It sprays concentrated fertilizer at regular intervals in rows where seeds are direct down. In smaller farms we would plant greenhouse grown baby lettuce starts and not direct sow. Too much wastage and labour to direct sow. Weed thinning bot is overkill.