9 ms·

The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure

The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure nothing breaks and keeping an eye on things (which is important when you're operating $N00,000 worth of heavy equipment on open ground). You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, maintaining irrigation, and so on).

nine_k 9y ago
It's a very nice proof of concept. Also I bet these guys collected a lot of info important to develop robots for more finicky crops. This could be the most valuable part of the project.
oh_sigh 9y ago
True, but that is because the farmers have access to huge fields which let them deploy their equipment efficiently. Autonomous farming would let you theoretically use more marginal lands which are not currently suitable for manual farming.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- randomdata 9y ago
  I expect you are suggesting that small parcels of land that are far away from large fields are not worth the travel expenses? I'm not sure that robots really improve on that, as fuel, wear and tear, etc. going field to field remain a big detractor. There are plenty of farmers who do it for fun. They'd be happy to spend the time in the machine if labour costs were the only reason to avoid those fields. I already farm a field that is one acre in size and one that is three acres because they are near to a large field that does justify the travel costs. Any that fit that description are likely to be already in production.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Not necessarily small - mostly marginal(I should have mentioned that it wasn't necessarily sheer size of field, but something like size*quality in my original post). I don't agree with your characterization about farmers doing it for fun. I'm sure there are a lot of people, say, within 10 miles of a major city who would farm for fun, but outside of that radius you mostly have people who either already have farms or manually farm on their own house plot.
    - randomdata 9y ago
      > I should have mentioned that it wasn't necessarily sheer size of field, but something like sizequality in my original postl* Understood. Marginal traditionally refers to the quality, but I wasn't sure how you thought the math would work. And since you mentioned size before, I went in that direction. I am still unsure of how the math would work out. I have a farm that is already bordering on marginal and even ignoring labour costs it is difficult to turn a profit. Honestly, labour costs are a drop in the bucket. It costs hundreds of dollars per acre for input costs (seed, fertilizer, fuel, etc.), there is a significant capital cost to having the land and the machinery, while the labour if I paid myself minimum wage would be maybe $10 per acre over the course of the year. And I think that's pushing it. That is only 2% of the input costs when my other input costs are $500. If a field is only 2% shy of not being marginal, I'm certain there is already someone trying to make it work. > I don't agree with your characterization about farmers doing it for fun. Well, that's why I do it, so I have some experience there. If it was about the money, I know software development pays far better. > but outside of that radius you mostly have people who either already have farms I was assuming that those who farm for fun would already have their own farm. However, now that you mention it, I always see the retired farmers are still keen to get back into the equipment, so it is not strictly limited to those who have their own farms. Living hours away from the nearest city, I don't really see it being an activity of those near the city.
  - jsilence 9y ago
    Also leaving an expensive robot on a small remote plot might not be a good idea because of theft.
joncp 9y ago
Imagine, though, a time when the automation reaches a stage where all weeding and most insect killing can be done mechanically with a robot instead of chemically with pesticides. That will be a huge boon for the environment and for farmers' bottom lines.
- gbrown 9y ago
  I've daydreamed about trying exactly that on a small scale. Industrially, that would be amazing for the environment.
  - ModernMech 9y ago
    Especially if said robots can run on the weeds and bugs they are removing!
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      So basically ladybugs, but with a profit margin and TOS.
      - losteric 9y ago
        Not invented here, not relevant! /s
  - danblick 9y ago
    Have you seen farmbot.io?
    - gbrown 9y ago
      No, looks interesting, thanks.
- shanev 9y ago
  We are destroying topsoil at an alarming rate due to industrial farming that we may have no choice but to go this route.
Houshalter 9y ago
Yeah this isn't terribly exciting. People have been demoing self driving tractors and farm machinery for decades. Ford had one in the 1950s. Most of the hard work like actually picking the crop has already been solved, and making the tractor self driving just saves a few hours of work at most. What would be really cool is automating crops that still require lots of manual labor. Like vegetables. That's the reason they are still so expensive. An automated greenhouse would be enormous news. Whats also cool is stuff like this (https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/bosch-deepfield-robotics-weed-control https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robo...) which eliminates the need for pesticides.
- chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
  > What would be really cool is automating crops that still require lots of manual labor. Like vegetables. That's the reason they are still so expensive. Same deal with coffee beans, which contributes to their higher price. The coffee beans do not ripen at the same time, so they must be hand-picked so the worker can identify which ones are ready. Lots of manual labor. And with coffee being so widely consumed, savings here would easily be felt by a lot of people, although I doubt Starbucks would like it...
  - setr 9y ago
    Why would starbucks be against lowered supply prices? Either the whole market drops in price and starbucks keeps the same profit margin but lowers actual price, or starbucks just sells the same price but now with higher margins than before
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Because Starbucks has found a carefully balanced point between being affordable enough that it has mainstream appeal, and expensive enough that it seems premium. Any change, absolute or relative, would reduce their margin.
      - 9y ago
Alex3917 9y ago
> The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already What crops have the highest labor costs, in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of what the consumer pays?
- thomas_howland 9y ago
  Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    Interesting. Between farm labor automation and self-driving cars, do you foresee a point where it's cost effective to give certain foods away for free and monetize via advertising? Even if it's slightly offbeat stuff like dandelion greens and seaweed or whatever?
    - prawn 9y ago
      If anyone wants to eat thistles, I'll give those away... Oxalis too.
      - Alex3917 9y ago
        > If anyone wants to eat thistles, I'll give those away. How do they actually taste? I know they're in the artichoke family, but I've never actually dug one up or whatever.
        prawn 9y ago
        Never tried them, but they are a painful weed here, grow quickly and seed very easily. We used to give the seed heads to our canary once upon a time, but currently have hundreds of thistles to zero canaries. Perhaps if they could be blended and used as a base for bread or cakes, but I have no idea if they're safe in large quantities.
burger_moon 9y ago
Some of my family members drive truck at farms during harvest and I've rode along a lot. The guy driving the combine can mostly be automated except the part of having to stop and clear out metal or other jams that stop them. The machines have sensors which shut them down instantly when they detect metal because the cutter is expensive as hell. Not sure there's really a way to automate that. There's a lot of other less common things that cause the chopper to stop but foreign debris is the most common. As far as field trucks go, well they're mostly old 15+ years with new-ish trailers because well trucking doesn't pay shit so it'll be long time before self driving trucks replace the current fleet (you have to figure the new trucks on the road now will because part time field trucks 20 years from now). If can get GPS accurate enough you could automate a lot of it, but trucks get stuck all the time in the field which mean the guy driving the chopper has to stop and pull the truck out. It'll be tricky to automate all the weird oddities you come across out in the field. In the end these guys aren't making very much so the cost benefit doesn't really seem to be there but we'll see.
- dejv 9y ago
  I had one vineyard planted this year using fully automatic planter using gps and laser mavigation. There was driver inside, but he was just a controller: once he moved few cm out of the path whole thing just shut down and he had to drive back to spot.
jamesrcole 9y ago
> You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, maintaining irrigation, and so on). How far away is automation of those kinds of tasks, I wonder? I don't have much of any idea, myself.
- tinco 9y ago
  Very far away. Computers can't even drive cars autonomously yet, which is a far simpler task. As it stands computers can't deal with any sort of irregularity that humans would deal with through basic creativity. I've also not seen robots plan fine manipulation yet, even though I feel that should be achievable with current technology.
ge96 9y ago
Wasn't there a huge multi-rotor that cost $15,000 haha, it was water proof I think and had radar... crazy. I really like the concept of little robots running around doing their thing. Like those under water drones that are in the oceans.
stephengillie 9y ago
This is essentially the argument against automation - that a human is so versatile, we can be "programmed" (convinced, paid, trained, etc.) to perform many disparate tasks. Our exception handling is so robust (what happens if it floods?) that it's a problem solving engine unto itself. As with a grocery store, the self-check machines can't sweep the floor or stock shelves when business is slow.
agumonkey 9y ago
How much thoughts have been put to improve farming beside fertilizers and pesticides ? I do wish for better food, and better life for farmers. Also I'm quite annoyed by mainstream tech (find it often uselessly improving the wrong parts of life).
imtringued 9y ago
There is still the time advantage. Having two autonomous tractors is twice as fast as operating one by hand.

nine_k 9y ago

It's a very nice proof of concept. Also I bet these guys collected a lot of info important to develop robots for more finicky crops. This could be the most valuable part of the project.

oh_sigh 9y ago

True, but that is because the farmers have access to huge fields which let them deploy their equipment efficiently. Autonomous farming would let you theoretically use more marginal lands which are not currently suitable for manual farming.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
randomdata 9y ago
I expect you are suggesting that small parcels of land that are far away from large fields are not worth the travel expenses? I'm not sure that robots really improve on that, as fuel, wear and tear, etc. going field to field remain a big detractor. There are plenty of farmers who do it for fun. They'd be happy to spend the time in the machine if labour costs were the only reason to avoid those fields. I already farm a field that is one acre in size and one that is three acres because they are near to a large field that does justify the travel costs. Any that fit that description are likely to be already in production.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Not necessarily small - mostly marginal(I should have mentioned that it wasn't necessarily sheer size of field, but something like size*quality in my original post). I don't agree with your characterization about farmers doing it for fun. I'm sure there are a lot of people, say, within 10 miles of a major city who would farm for fun, but outside of that radius you mostly have people who either already have farms or manually farm on their own house plot.
  - randomdata 9y ago
    > I should have mentioned that it wasn't necessarily sheer size of field, but something like sizequality in my original postl* Understood. Marginal traditionally refers to the quality, but I wasn't sure how you thought the math would work. And since you mentioned size before, I went in that direction. I am still unsure of how the math would work out. I have a farm that is already bordering on marginal and even ignoring labour costs it is difficult to turn a profit. Honestly, labour costs are a drop in the bucket. It costs hundreds of dollars per acre for input costs (seed, fertilizer, fuel, etc.), there is a significant capital cost to having the land and the machinery, while the labour if I paid myself minimum wage would be maybe $10 per acre over the course of the year. And I think that's pushing it. That is only 2% of the input costs when my other input costs are $500. If a field is only 2% shy of not being marginal, I'm certain there is already someone trying to make it work. > I don't agree with your characterization about farmers doing it for fun. Well, that's why I do it, so I have some experience there. If it was about the money, I know software development pays far better. > but outside of that radius you mostly have people who either already have farms I was assuming that those who farm for fun would already have their own farm. However, now that you mention it, I always see the retired farmers are still keen to get back into the equipment, so it is not strictly limited to those who have their own farms. Living hours away from the nearest city, I don't really see it being an activity of those near the city.
- jsilence 9y ago
  Also leaving an expensive robot on a small remote plot might not be a good idea because of theft.

joncp 9y ago

Imagine, though, a time when the automation reaches a stage where all weeding and most insect killing can be done mechanically with a robot instead of chemically with pesticides. That will be a huge boon for the environment and for farmers' bottom lines.

gbrown 9y ago
I've daydreamed about trying exactly that on a small scale. Industrially, that would be amazing for the environment.
- ModernMech 9y ago
  Especially if said robots can run on the weeds and bugs they are removing!
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    So basically ladybugs, but with a profit margin and TOS.
    - losteric 9y ago
      Not invented here, not relevant! /s
- danblick 9y ago
  Have you seen farmbot.io?
  - gbrown 9y ago
    No, looks interesting, thanks.
shanev 9y ago
We are destroying topsoil at an alarming rate due to industrial farming that we may have no choice but to go this route.

Houshalter 9y ago

Yeah this isn't terribly exciting. People have been demoing self driving tractors and farm machinery for decades. Ford had one in the 1950s. Most of the hard work like actually picking the crop has already been solved, and making the tractor self driving just saves a few hours of work at most. What would be really cool is automating crops that still require lots of manual labor. Like vegetables. That's the reason they are still so expensive. An automated greenhouse would be enormous news. Whats also cool is stuff like this (https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/bosch-deepfield-robotics-weed-control https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robo...) which eliminates the need for pesticides.

chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
> What would be really cool is automating crops that still require lots of manual labor. Like vegetables. That's the reason they are still so expensive. Same deal with coffee beans, which contributes to their higher price. The coffee beans do not ripen at the same time, so they must be hand-picked so the worker can identify which ones are ready. Lots of manual labor. And with coffee being so widely consumed, savings here would easily be felt by a lot of people, although I doubt Starbucks would like it...
- setr 9y ago
  Why would starbucks be against lowered supply prices? Either the whole market drops in price and starbucks keeps the same profit margin but lowers actual price, or starbucks just sells the same price but now with higher margins than before
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Because Starbucks has found a carefully balanced point between being affordable enough that it has mainstream appeal, and expensive enough that it seems premium. Any change, absolute or relative, would reduce their margin.
    - 9y ago

Alex3917 9y ago

> The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already What crops have the highest labor costs, in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of what the consumer pays?

thomas_howland 9y ago
Hand-harvestable-only crops like lettuce and tomatoes. Basically the CA Central Valley.
- Alex3917 9y ago
  Interesting. Between farm labor automation and self-driving cars, do you foresee a point where it's cost effective to give certain foods away for free and monetize via advertising? Even if it's slightly offbeat stuff like dandelion greens and seaweed or whatever?
  - prawn 9y ago
    If anyone wants to eat thistles, I'll give those away... Oxalis too.
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      > If anyone wants to eat thistles, I'll give those away. How do they actually taste? I know they're in the artichoke family, but I've never actually dug one up or whatever.
      - prawn 9y ago
        Never tried them, but they are a painful weed here, grow quickly and seed very easily. We used to give the seed heads to our canary once upon a time, but currently have hundreds of thistles to zero canaries. Perhaps if they could be blended and used as a base for bread or cakes, but I have no idea if they're safe in large quantities.

burger_moon 9y ago

Some of my family members drive truck at farms during harvest and I've rode along a lot. The guy driving the combine can mostly be automated except the part of having to stop and clear out metal or other jams that stop them. The machines have sensors which shut them down instantly when they detect metal because the cutter is expensive as hell. Not sure there's really a way to automate that. There's a lot of other less common things that cause the chopper to stop but foreign debris is the most common. As far as field trucks go, well they're mostly old 15+ years with new-ish trailers because well trucking doesn't pay shit so it'll be long time before self driving trucks replace the current fleet (you have to figure the new trucks on the road now will because part time field trucks 20 years from now). If can get GPS accurate enough you could automate a lot of it, but trucks get stuck all the time in the field which mean the guy driving the chopper has to stop and pull the truck out. It'll be tricky to automate all the weird oddities you come across out in the field. In the end these guys aren't making very much so the cost benefit doesn't really seem to be there but we'll see.

dejv 9y ago
I had one vineyard planted this year using fully automatic planter using gps and laser mavigation. There was driver inside, but he was just a controller: once he moved few cm out of the path whole thing just shut down and he had to drive back to spot.

jamesrcole 9y ago

> You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, maintaining irrigation, and so on). How far away is automation of those kinds of tasks, I wonder? I don't have much of any idea, myself.

tinco 9y ago
Very far away. Computers can't even drive cars autonomously yet, which is a far simpler task. As it stands computers can't deal with any sort of irregularity that humans would deal with through basic creativity. I've also not seen robots plan fine manipulation yet, even though I feel that should be achievable with current technology.

ge96 9y ago

Wasn't there a huge multi-rotor that cost $15,000 haha, it was water proof I think and had radar... crazy. I really like the concept of little robots running around doing their thing. Like those under water drones that are in the oceans.

stephengillie 9y ago

This is essentially the argument against automation - that a human is so versatile, we can be "programmed" (convinced, paid, trained, etc.) to perform many disparate tasks. Our exception handling is so robust (what happens if it floods?) that it's a problem solving engine unto itself. As with a grocery store, the self-check machines can't sweep the floor or stock shelves when business is slow.

agumonkey 9y ago

How much thoughts have been put to improve farming beside fertilizers and pesticides ? I do wish for better food, and better life for farmers. Also I'm quite annoyed by mainstream tech (find it often uselessly improving the wrong parts of life).

imtringued 9y ago

There is still the time advantage. Having two autonomous tractors is twice as fast as operating one by hand.