3 ms·

What makes you think that? These first few iterations are expensive (in the thousands of dollars) and require assembly but those are not difficult problems to a

What makes you think that? These first few iterations are expensive (in the thousands of dollars) and require assembly but those are not difficult problems to address over time. Are you saying people wouldn't want to have an automated home garden in their back yard if they could afford it?

mikro2nd 8y ago
No, I precisely said that it's a nice thing to have an automated home-garden for people that can afford it. I like the Farmbot. But it is Never. Going. To. Automate. Real. Large-scale. Farming. Never. Real farming -- the modern, factory kind of thing -- the stuff that provides the overwhelming bulk of food (maize, soya, wheat) -- happens on a massive scale over hundreds to thousands of hectares, and the Farmbot concept -- essentially a 2-D plotter with various head attachments -- is just never going to begin to automate that sort of scale. (Downvote me all you want.) Very large mobile robots might work, though I wonder about how the power requirements are going to be met. To my mind swarms of smaller robots seem to be the best bet, but I haven't seen a lot of work going on in that space. Lettuces and Beetroots are nice. I grow a hell of a lot of those myself. But they don't feed the planet.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Very large mobile robots might work My (distant and loose, to be sure) understanding of modern farm machinery is that they largely have, compared to just a few decades ago, though the robots still have operator seats and look very much the non-automated versions that preceded them.
  - mikro2nd 8y ago
    Yes, that is pretty-much the current state of play - already existing mechanical platforms that have had some more-or-less clever automation (mainly guidance) added. My thinking is that a smaller-machine, swarm approach might allow us to eliminate the fossil-fuel subsidy. Big machinery is much harder to do without diesel. With small machines, many of them cooperating, renewable energy fueling is much more (I think) approachable. (I may be wrong.) If we're going to win this climate thing, one of the elephants in the room is decarbonising agriculture.

mikro2nd 8y ago

No, I precisely said that it's a nice thing to have an automated home-garden for people that can afford it. I like the Farmbot. But it is Never. Going. To. Automate. Real. Large-scale. Farming. Never. Real farming -- the modern, factory kind of thing -- the stuff that provides the overwhelming bulk of food (maize, soya, wheat) -- happens on a massive scale over hundreds to thousands of hectares, and the Farmbot concept -- essentially a 2-D plotter with various head attachments -- is just never going to begin to automate that sort of scale. (Downvote me all you want.) Very large mobile robots might work, though I wonder about how the power requirements are going to be met. To my mind swarms of smaller robots seem to be the best bet, but I haven't seen a lot of work going on in that space. Lettuces and Beetroots are nice. I grow a hell of a lot of those myself. But they don't feed the planet.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Very large mobile robots might work My (distant and loose, to be sure) understanding of modern farm machinery is that they largely have, compared to just a few decades ago, though the robots still have operator seats and look very much the non-automated versions that preceded them.
- mikro2nd 8y ago
  Yes, that is pretty-much the current state of play - already existing mechanical platforms that have had some more-or-less clever automation (mainly guidance) added. My thinking is that a smaller-machine, swarm approach might allow us to eliminate the fossil-fuel subsidy. Big machinery is much harder to do without diesel. With small machines, many of them cooperating, renewable energy fueling is much more (I think) approachable. (I may be wrong.) If we're going to win this climate thing, one of the elephants in the room is decarbonising agriculture.