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> These tulip farms will continue to use as much pesticides and herbicides as before regardless of mechanical pest controls. Not if robots are cheaper than the

by taneq 3y ago

> These tulip farms will continue to use as much pesticides and herbicides as before regardless of mechanical pest controls. Not if robots are cheaper than the poisons. Your point about insurance is interesting, the industry would do a massive backflip on pesticides if some robotics company managed to convince insurance companies that using their product was less risky than chemical means.

berkes 3y ago
Organic gardening is the third "alternative", and it has been proven to work, work well, refined for hundreds of thousands of years, is well known and the risks are known extremely well. It's not robotics or chemical, that's a false dichotomy. And yes, I am aware of the "tradeoffs" of organic farming. But it still is a viable business plan, often the farmers' margins (at least in west EU) are much higher than "chemical farming". And no, not always is the yield lower. Nor are the crops it always more expensive. And no, the common conception that "we cannot feed the world with organic farming" is also disproven.
- evandijk70 3y ago
  Do you have any references to these claims?
- lukeschlather 3y ago
  Organic farming still uses "organic" pesticides like copper. The real falsehood is that organic farming is perfectly nontoxic and safe. Looking forward to having more advanced robots, we could start seeing a lot more permaculture. Organic farming not only relies on pesticides and herbicides but also on monocrops and tilling all of which add up to a lot of problems. Robotic tending could eventually allow more diverse permaculture to take over.
unregistereddev 3y ago
So you just need a robotics company large enough to have some industry clout. https://www.deere.com/en/sprayers/see-spray-ultimate/ https://www.deere.com/en/sprayers/see-spray-ultimate/
fire_lake 3y ago
Reminds me of “once we pay for the service, they won’t sell our data”. No, now you pay for the service AND they sell your data. Companies will take every edge they can legally hold.

by taneq 3y ago

berkes 3y ago

Organic gardening is the third "alternative", and it has been proven to work, work well, refined for hundreds of thousands of years, is well known and the risks are known extremely well. It's not robotics or chemical, that's a false dichotomy. And yes, I am aware of the "tradeoffs" of organic farming. But it still is a viable business plan, often the farmers' margins (at least in west EU) are much higher than "chemical farming". And no, not always is the yield lower. Nor are the crops it always more expensive. And no, the common conception that "we cannot feed the world with organic farming" is also disproven.

evandijk70 3y ago
Do you have any references to these claims?
lukeschlather 3y ago
Organic farming still uses "organic" pesticides like copper. The real falsehood is that organic farming is perfectly nontoxic and safe. Looking forward to having more advanced robots, we could start seeing a lot more permaculture. Organic farming not only relies on pesticides and herbicides but also on monocrops and tilling all of which add up to a lot of problems. Robotic tending could eventually allow more diverse permaculture to take over.

unregistereddev 3y ago

So you just need a robotics company large enough to have some industry clout. https://www.deere.com/en/sprayers/see-spray-ultimate/ https://www.deere.com/en/sprayers/see-spray-ultimate/

fire_lake 3y ago

Reminds me of “once we pay for the service, they won’t sell our data”. No, now you pay for the service AND they sell your data. Companies will take every edge they can legally hold.