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I've got some family that run a dairy farm, similar scale to yours. I don't speak for them, but: They're getting older, and have trouble finding help with the l

I've got some family that run a dairy farm, similar scale to yours. I don't speak for them, but: They're getting older, and have trouble finding help with the labour: it's (obviously) in a rural area, which has been depopulating for decades. They can't get the high schoolers out during haying season nearly as easily as they used to do. They rely on 40 year old cousins come up for a weekend here and there to help load some bales/wrap some silage. Their farm will likely go one of two ways: - Shut when they retire (the land is too marginal for a big dairy to want it) - Be taken over by the one cousin with interest. If the latter, the labor pool is still an issue. The only way it would work out is if advanced tech comes in like what you've described. So the issue will affect farms your size/type, just not for another decade or two. Ignoring it as "nope, doesn't affect me!" seems just a little... short sighted to me. Thoughts?

leroy_masochist 7y ago
The challenge of getting documented farm labor in rural areas is massive and we face that ourselves, and tractor software lock-in is neither a potential exacerbating factor nor a potential future solution to this problem. Not sure if I understand your question?
- SECProto 7y ago
  I'm picturing self-driving tractors as a labour-saver during the busiest time of year (haying). It would be a relatively simple technical problem to solve, and I could see manufacturers going for the market (and locking down the system at the same time - same as Tesla and Deere).
  - leroy_masochist 7y ago
    Automated anything for farms tends to work a lot better on plots of land that are large and flat as a pancake. I'm no autonomous vehicle expert but if you're haying irregularly shaped fields with topographical variation and ideosyncratic hazards (e.g., soft ground, ruts, random trees in fields, etc) then building an automated solution is a lot harder than an autopilot for a combine that works a bunch of perfectly flat, mile-by-mile plots in Nebraska. If you're haying a small factory farm, driving the tractor is a small fraction of the labor; you're also moving the hay from fields to barn in a trailer and then stacking hay with either humans, a tractor, or a skid-steer. All of this might eventually get automated a la the recent news on Amazon factories, but we're probably (at least) a few years away from that.
    - SECProto 7y ago
      > building an automated solution is a lot harder than an autopilot for a combine that works a bunch of perfectly flat, mile-by-mile plots in Nebraska Absolutely, and I don't expect it to be a thing for a decade(s) - until after it's a solved issue on roads and/or the large, flat plots out west. > If you're haying a small factory farm, driving the tractor is a small fraction of the labor I agree. However, it's also (in my limited experience) the most weather dependent part - there's usually a short weather window to get it cut, dried, and baled - and having an extra set of (self-driving wheels) would be beneficial. > All of this might eventually get automated a la the recent news on Amazon factories, but we're probably (at least) a few years away from that. Definitely agree.
    - leroy_masochist 7y ago
      That was supposed to read small family farm, not small factory farm. Oops
  - jdmichal 7y ago
    > It would be a relatively simple technical problem to solve... Philosophical aside: Has this statement ever actually been true?
    - pferde 7y ago
      I said that two or three times at work just today, where something technically trivial (set a Linux sysctl tunable or adjust some application parameter) would be at the end of a long bureaucratic adventure and difficult convincing of people who set those parameters incorrectly earlier, and thus would have to admit that they were wrong. :)
    - SECProto 7y ago
      hey, I never said relative to what!

leroy_masochist 7y ago

The challenge of getting documented farm labor in rural areas is massive and we face that ourselves, and tractor software lock-in is neither a potential exacerbating factor nor a potential future solution to this problem. Not sure if I understand your question?

SECProto 7y ago
I'm picturing self-driving tractors as a labour-saver during the busiest time of year (haying). It would be a relatively simple technical problem to solve, and I could see manufacturers going for the market (and locking down the system at the same time - same as Tesla and Deere).
- leroy_masochist 7y ago
  Automated anything for farms tends to work a lot better on plots of land that are large and flat as a pancake. I'm no autonomous vehicle expert but if you're haying irregularly shaped fields with topographical variation and ideosyncratic hazards (e.g., soft ground, ruts, random trees in fields, etc) then building an automated solution is a lot harder than an autopilot for a combine that works a bunch of perfectly flat, mile-by-mile plots in Nebraska. If you're haying a small factory farm, driving the tractor is a small fraction of the labor; you're also moving the hay from fields to barn in a trailer and then stacking hay with either humans, a tractor, or a skid-steer. All of this might eventually get automated a la the recent news on Amazon factories, but we're probably (at least) a few years away from that.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    > building an automated solution is a lot harder than an autopilot for a combine that works a bunch of perfectly flat, mile-by-mile plots in Nebraska Absolutely, and I don't expect it to be a thing for a decade(s) - until after it's a solved issue on roads and/or the large, flat plots out west. > If you're haying a small factory farm, driving the tractor is a small fraction of the labor I agree. However, it's also (in my limited experience) the most weather dependent part - there's usually a short weather window to get it cut, dried, and baled - and having an extra set of (self-driving wheels) would be beneficial. > All of this might eventually get automated a la the recent news on Amazon factories, but we're probably (at least) a few years away from that. Definitely agree.
  - leroy_masochist 7y ago
    That was supposed to read small family farm, not small factory farm. Oops
- jdmichal 7y ago
  > It would be a relatively simple technical problem to solve... Philosophical aside: Has this statement ever actually been true?
  - pferde 7y ago
    I said that two or three times at work just today, where something technically trivial (set a Linux sysctl tunable or adjust some application parameter) would be at the end of a long bureaucratic adventure and difficult convincing of people who set those parameters incorrectly earlier, and thus would have to admit that they were wrong. :)
  - SECProto 7y ago
    hey, I never said relative to what!