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> “I expected farmers to be quite luddite about the adoption of new technology,” he [Ben Scott-Robinson] says, as he packs Rachel away. I actually assume farme

> “I expected farmers to be quite luddite about the adoption of new technology,” he [Ben Scott-Robinson] says, as he packs Rachel away. I actually assume farmers are very welcoming of technology. They are hard workers and good business men. Usually technology makes them more efficient and more money.

decebalus1 8y ago
> I actually assume farmers are very welcoming of technology They should be, especially wrt to automation, considering farmers have been the most prolific in hiring undocumented workers while at the same time being some of the most vocal republican supporters. WAY less cognitive dissonance.
- borkt 8y ago
  A lot of them use legitimate guest worker systems, and it benefits everyone to have access to these workers.
  - decebalus1 8y ago
    'a lot of them' means exactly nothing. How many? Do you have some numbers? Last time I checked, the dept of labor was saying that about 40% of all agricultural workers are illegal immigrants and United Fresh Produce Association between 50 and 70 percent. So yeah, a lot of them don't use 'legit' systems. It must be very hard to cheer for building 'the wall' while employing illegals and getting federal subsidies. That's why I have great faith in farming automation as it would provide some well deserved relief.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      Farmers is plural - there are many of them and they do not agree. The farmers hiring illegals are not the same ones against building the walls. I do know a farmer who have stopped offering more wages when they didn't get anyone to agree to work for $25/hr - meanwhile he can find illegals who will work for $15. (Compare to what walMart pays, he isn't trying to hire engineers)
    - 8note 8y ago
      I don't understand what the relief would be. replacing non-american workers with machines does nothing to help American workers
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Two differences — and I’m not saying they’re “good” or “bad” because I refuse to claim I understand economics well enough — is that money flowing to undocumented workers is likely to be untaxed and money flowing to foreign citizens who neither live locally nor spend much locally will have some sort of impact on inflation, as there will be less currency circulating within the nation doing the employing.
      - borkt 8y ago
        Correct, it helps the farms remain profitable. My wife is a winemaker and even with the guest worker program they are not able to find enough workers. The salaries have gone above $20/hr, though the way overtime works is different and requires a lot more than 40 hours of work (for now). Don't have the time to put together a well referenced document, but the inability to hire workers at what I feel is above the value of the work is a real problem.
ska 8y ago
Usually technology makes them more efficient and more money. Efficient, yes (and often they will fail as businesses if they don't do this). And someone makes more money, sure - but it isn't always the farmer.
ergothus 8y ago
I joined an AgTech firm 3 years ago - this is my commentary, not the view of my company or anyone else there. > I actually assume farmers are very welcoming of technology. The answer (at least in my experience) is a bit more complicated. > Usually technology makes them more efficient and more money. ...because this sentence isn't really true. Yes, farmers are hard workers and if they aren't adequate at business they fail, as the industry is....weird (high capital expenses, large variability that is outside your control). They also tend to be much older (it's not unusual to find a 60 year old farmer that is getting excited because their father is considering retirement and leaving them finally in charge of the farm). And they have been targeted for new technology long before the current data- and/or robotics- oriented trends, so they've heard plenty of grandiose claims that weren't matched by results. Adopting a new technology is almost always pricey - either it applies to the field, so multiply the price by the acres and it gets quite large quite quickly, or you apply it to equipment, which tends to run $50K-$100K and have to last quite a few years) Weather is the biggest variable in farm output, and it's both hard to measure and impossible to control, so knowing if a product works reliably requires testing in all sorts of weather conditions, which is VERY hard to arrange. Trusting the benefits is also difficult - anything tested in Nebraska will find that Idaho is completely different - different soil, different weather patterns. Even if the product IS tested everywhere (and it isn't, not in sufficient detail and over sufficient time - remember that variability?) the farmers have been told that before - they'll want to see it, or see it from someone they trust to know their specific conditions. Then there's the level of output. Look at GMO seeds - leaving aside any other controversy (for now), studies show they DO offer yield benefits, but whether that is enough to recoup the costs is a "that depends" kind of answer. When prices are low, the return value of yield is low, but the costs of whatever you used to increase yield is probably fixed. When you add in the cost of adopting a new technology plus the low level of trustable benefits a healthy amount of skepticism is present. There's a reason most transactions occur between people with some level of established relationship - seed dealers, regional agronomists, etc. This means convincing a farmer is often a matter of convincing one or more of these other people first, THEN convincing the farmer. My personal experiences found farmers more interested in adopting technology than I expected, but at the same time any limits that are encountered tend to be VERY hard limits. Until they've seen something recommended by someone they trust that is familiar with their local conditions, they won't risk a harvest on it, and even running a test strip of, say, 10 ft x 100ft is a non-trivial expense. So while they are more tech-adopting than I expected, and once they truly adopt something they tend to commit, they are not what most would consider "technology friendly" and have a respect for tradition and local relationships based on a history of significant financial pain when they defy it unwisely.
deialtrous 8y ago
Technology generally does not make them more money. Often technology gets forced on them whether they like it or not because some other farmers adopt it, lowering their costs and thus lowering the price of the already tiny margin crops being produced so they make the same as what they did before. They just get a small one time bump in income before the market adjusts to the new price. And now every farmer has to adopt it just to keep making the same amount of money they were making before, or in some cases to make less than they did before but if they didn't adopt it they would lose money. Also, the idea of the hard working farmer is totally antiquated in developed countries. Almost all farms are huge monoculture cash croppers. The farmers sit in self-driving tractors looking at porn on their phones all day for a few weeks per year.
jelliclesfarm 8y ago
Farmers are likely one of the few professionals who ..if they work efficiently and increase productivity..will actually make less money. Because unless they sell direct to consumer, the supply chain is long and farmers are at the very bottom of it. Case in point: wholesale lettuce is $0.35 approximately. Same romaine in Whole Foods would be $1.40-1.70. And even in farmers markets, you would find buyers creeping till the end of market so they can get closing prices because we sell perishables. Something is better than nothing, right? We pay regular wages ..but we are at the bottom of supply chain. Everyone wants cheap organic food. Somethings got to give. Usually it’s farms giving up.

decebalus1 8y ago

> I actually assume farmers are very welcoming of technology They should be, especially wrt to automation, considering farmers have been the most prolific in hiring undocumented workers while at the same time being some of the most vocal republican supporters. WAY less cognitive dissonance.

borkt 8y ago
A lot of them use legitimate guest worker systems, and it benefits everyone to have access to these workers.
- decebalus1 8y ago
  'a lot of them' means exactly nothing. How many? Do you have some numbers? Last time I checked, the dept of labor was saying that about 40% of all agricultural workers are illegal immigrants and United Fresh Produce Association between 50 and 70 percent. So yeah, a lot of them don't use 'legit' systems. It must be very hard to cheer for building 'the wall' while employing illegals and getting federal subsidies. That's why I have great faith in farming automation as it would provide some well deserved relief.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    Farmers is plural - there are many of them and they do not agree. The farmers hiring illegals are not the same ones against building the walls. I do know a farmer who have stopped offering more wages when they didn't get anyone to agree to work for $25/hr - meanwhile he can find illegals who will work for $15. (Compare to what walMart pays, he isn't trying to hire engineers)
  - 8note 8y ago
    I don't understand what the relief would be. replacing non-american workers with machines does nothing to help American workers
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Two differences — and I’m not saying they’re “good” or “bad” because I refuse to claim I understand economics well enough — is that money flowing to undocumented workers is likely to be untaxed and money flowing to foreign citizens who neither live locally nor spend much locally will have some sort of impact on inflation, as there will be less currency circulating within the nation doing the employing.
    - borkt 8y ago
      Correct, it helps the farms remain profitable. My wife is a winemaker and even with the guest worker program they are not able to find enough workers. The salaries have gone above $20/hr, though the way overtime works is different and requires a lot more than 40 hours of work (for now). Don't have the time to put together a well referenced document, but the inability to hire workers at what I feel is above the value of the work is a real problem.

ska 8y ago

Usually technology makes them more efficient and more money. Efficient, yes (and often they will fail as businesses if they don't do this). And someone makes more money, sure - but it isn't always the farmer.

ergothus 8y ago

I joined an AgTech firm 3 years ago - this is my commentary, not the view of my company or anyone else there. > I actually assume farmers are very welcoming of technology. The answer (at least in my experience) is a bit more complicated. > Usually technology makes them more efficient and more money. ...because this sentence isn't really true. Yes, farmers are hard workers and if they aren't adequate at business they fail, as the industry is....weird (high capital expenses, large variability that is outside your control). They also tend to be much older (it's not unusual to find a 60 year old farmer that is getting excited because their father is considering retirement and leaving them finally in charge of the farm). And they have been targeted for new technology long before the current data- and/or robotics- oriented trends, so they've heard plenty of grandiose claims that weren't matched by results. Adopting a new technology is almost always pricey - either it applies to the field, so multiply the price by the acres and it gets quite large quite quickly, or you apply it to equipment, which tends to run $50K-$100K and have to last quite a few years) Weather is the biggest variable in farm output, and it's both hard to measure and impossible to control, so knowing if a product works reliably requires testing in all sorts of weather conditions, which is VERY hard to arrange. Trusting the benefits is also difficult - anything tested in Nebraska will find that Idaho is completely different - different soil, different weather patterns. Even if the product IS tested everywhere (and it isn't, not in sufficient detail and over sufficient time - remember that variability?) the farmers have been told that before - they'll want to see it, or see it from someone they trust to know their specific conditions. Then there's the level of output. Look at GMO seeds - leaving aside any other controversy (for now), studies show they DO offer yield benefits, but whether that is enough to recoup the costs is a "that depends" kind of answer. When prices are low, the return value of yield is low, but the costs of whatever you used to increase yield is probably fixed. When you add in the cost of adopting a new technology plus the low level of trustable benefits a healthy amount of skepticism is present. There's a reason most transactions occur between people with some level of established relationship - seed dealers, regional agronomists, etc. This means convincing a farmer is often a matter of convincing one or more of these other people first, THEN convincing the farmer. My personal experiences found farmers more interested in adopting technology than I expected, but at the same time any limits that are encountered tend to be VERY hard limits. Until they've seen something recommended by someone they trust that is familiar with their local conditions, they won't risk a harvest on it, and even running a test strip of, say, 10 ft x 100ft is a non-trivial expense. So while they are more tech-adopting than I expected, and once they truly adopt something they tend to commit, they are not what most would consider "technology friendly" and have a respect for tradition and local relationships based on a history of significant financial pain when they defy it unwisely.

deialtrous 8y ago

Technology generally does not make them more money. Often technology gets forced on them whether they like it or not because some other farmers adopt it, lowering their costs and thus lowering the price of the already tiny margin crops being produced so they make the same as what they did before. They just get a small one time bump in income before the market adjusts to the new price. And now every farmer has to adopt it just to keep making the same amount of money they were making before, or in some cases to make less than they did before but if they didn't adopt it they would lose money. Also, the idea of the hard working farmer is totally antiquated in developed countries. Almost all farms are huge monoculture cash croppers. The farmers sit in self-driving tractors looking at porn on their phones all day for a few weeks per year.

jelliclesfarm 8y ago

Farmers are likely one of the few professionals who ..if they work efficiently and increase productivity..will actually make less money. Because unless they sell direct to consumer, the supply chain is long and farmers are at the very bottom of it. Case in point: wholesale lettuce is $0.35 approximately. Same romaine in Whole Foods would be $1.40-1.70. And even in farmers markets, you would find buyers creeping till the end of market so they can get closing prices because we sell perishables. Something is better than nothing, right? We pay regular wages ..but we are at the bottom of supply chain. Everyone wants cheap organic food. Somethings got to give. Usually it’s farms giving up.