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With typical rice farming in Asia, you see manual transplanting of each seedling in to small fields by women and children. This is back-breaking work and extrem

With typical rice farming in Asia, you see manual transplanting of each seedling in to small fields by women and children. This is back-breaking work and extremely slow. I can't think of another crop both this widely cultivated and painstaking. Therefore, not having to do this is a huge win. China has a multitude of climatic areas. Some harvest rice once per year, others two or three times per year. Even within Yunnan, the province in which tests are being made, all such areas exist. Many rice farms are small scale and on inaccessible land at the bottom of river valleys, terraced up hillsides, or otherwise inaccessible locations which would provide substantial scale-related and physical challenges to ease of automation. Try running an automated robot over this topography: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Terrace_field_yunnan_china_denoised.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Terrace_...

hinkley 4y ago
It might be dated information, but I'd heard 3 crops per year going back at least as far as 1900 (Farmers of Forty Centuries), but not that it was three rice crops per year. Instead a rotation of different crops in the same field. One of the tricks with rice is you can germinate it in one field, then transplant it to something like 4-6 times the same space to grow to maturity.
- contingencies 4y ago
  It's absolutely three rice crops per year in some areas. The transplanting strategy is the normal one.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Hot and wet, like some areas of Thailand can support three rice crops per year.
numpad0 4y ago
Rice planting machines exist, doesn’t look much different from home lawnmowers. IIRC, in spring farmers make a batch of rice sprouts on disposable cups, load them into this, and it lays them down as the old man drives across his field back and forth. 0: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uS54w2ZH-OE https://youtube.com/watch?v=uS54w2ZH-OE
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Anywhere that is rich enough uses these rice planting machines. You see them frequently in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc.
  - contingencies 4y ago
    I believe "flat" rather than "rich" is more of the limitation. Machines cost almost nothing in China, but the access or field topography very often makes them untenable.
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      Machines cost almost nothing in China Are you talking about the machines that can mechanize the planting of rice seedlings? I find it hard to believe that poor farmers in China can afford these machines, unless this state is providing for free, or with zero interest loans and very long repayment periods. Also, most rice farming in China isn't done on difficult topography. I call that stereotype the "National Geographic" effect. If you look where most rice farming is done, it isn't very steep or mountainous. See more here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/242360/production-of-rice-in-china-by-province/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242360/production-of-ric...
      - contingencies 4y ago
        China makes almost all of the world's EVs, the world's motors and the world's wheels. Putting together any kind of agricultural vehicle is cheaper in China than elsewhere. That's just how it is. How do I know this? I just returned from seven years making robots in China. I will stop short of looking them up and pricing them, but feel free to do so. AFAIK the Agricultural Bank of China is the largest bank in the world by some measures. It almost certainly has the most branches, and these are overwhelmingly located in agricultural towns and villages. Recall also, in communism sharing equipment is normal. People don't all need to buy their own. Chinese villagers like villagers elsewhere help one another. Yes, flat areas exist. But they are not the test area, Yunnan. And if you were to look at the historical spread of rice farming (a subject of considerable academic debate) you would notice that all academic suggestions of the earliest invention of rice agriculture itself, with very few exceptions, appear to disperse through or via the test area, because it is the natural headwaters of rivers feeding the majority of mainland East, Southeast and (very close by) South Asia, including the Yangtse, the Pearl River, the Red River, the Mekong, the Salween, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra. Given we know that in ancient times river valleys formed natural communications paths this give us a fair case for the general dispersion of rice farming technology specifically through steep terrain areas and specifically through the test area.

hinkley 4y ago

It might be dated information, but I'd heard 3 crops per year going back at least as far as 1900 (Farmers of Forty Centuries), but not that it was three rice crops per year. Instead a rotation of different crops in the same field. One of the tricks with rice is you can germinate it in one field, then transplant it to something like 4-6 times the same space to grow to maturity.

contingencies 4y ago
It's absolutely three rice crops per year in some areas. The transplanting strategy is the normal one.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Hot and wet, like some areas of Thailand can support three rice crops per year.

numpad0 4y ago

Rice planting machines exist, doesn’t look much different from home lawnmowers. IIRC, in spring farmers make a batch of rice sprouts on disposable cups, load them into this, and it lays them down as the old man drives across his field back and forth. 0: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uS54w2ZH-OE https://youtube.com/watch?v=uS54w2ZH-OE

throwaway2037 4y ago
Anywhere that is rich enough uses these rice planting machines. You see them frequently in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc.
- contingencies 4y ago
  I believe "flat" rather than "rich" is more of the limitation. Machines cost almost nothing in China, but the access or field topography very often makes them untenable.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Machines cost almost nothing in China Are you talking about the machines that can mechanize the planting of rice seedlings? I find it hard to believe that poor farmers in China can afford these machines, unless this state is providing for free, or with zero interest loans and very long repayment periods. Also, most rice farming in China isn't done on difficult topography. I call that stereotype the "National Geographic" effect. If you look where most rice farming is done, it isn't very steep or mountainous. See more here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/242360/production-of-rice-in-china-by-province/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/242360/production-of-ric...
    - contingencies 4y ago
      China makes almost all of the world's EVs, the world's motors and the world's wheels. Putting together any kind of agricultural vehicle is cheaper in China than elsewhere. That's just how it is. How do I know this? I just returned from seven years making robots in China. I will stop short of looking them up and pricing them, but feel free to do so. AFAIK the Agricultural Bank of China is the largest bank in the world by some measures. It almost certainly has the most branches, and these are overwhelmingly located in agricultural towns and villages. Recall also, in communism sharing equipment is normal. People don't all need to buy their own. Chinese villagers like villagers elsewhere help one another. Yes, flat areas exist. But they are not the test area, Yunnan. And if you were to look at the historical spread of rice farming (a subject of considerable academic debate) you would notice that all academic suggestions of the earliest invention of rice agriculture itself, with very few exceptions, appear to disperse through or via the test area, because it is the natural headwaters of rivers feeding the majority of mainland East, Southeast and (very close by) South Asia, including the Yangtse, the Pearl River, the Red River, the Mekong, the Salween, the Irrawaddy, and the Brahmaputra. Given we know that in ancient times river valleys formed natural communications paths this give us a fair case for the general dispersion of rice farming technology specifically through steep terrain areas and specifically through the test area.