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> Our research team conducted more than 35 interviews with farmers, specifically livestock producers Not agriculture, cattle

seadan83 1y ago
"Cattle production is the most important U.S. agricultural industry" [1] "Animal husbandry, is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products" [2] [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry
- erikerikson 1y ago
  Thanks for the definitions. Doesn't make for a better existential generalization from the more specific to the more general term.
  - seadan83 1y ago
    I have trouble following: "Doesn't make for a better existential generalization from the more specific to the more general term." I kinda think I know what you mean, but could use clarification as I might be offbase. Sorry to reply with only definitions. Just giving evidence that livestock farming is considered agriculture.
    - erikerikson 1y ago
      What I wrote was a clumsy way to express the thought and particularly to use the term "existential generalization". I was thinking that agriculture doesn't include livestock, which was wrong and you pointed that out (thank you :D). I still object to the headline because "agriculture + farmer = crops" whereas "agriculture + rancher = livestock" they interviewed ranchers in one country and came out with a headline that made an assertion about farmers which seems like generalizing into agriculture and then re-instantiating into a subclass. The latter is valid to do but the generalization is taking finding about a smaller class and making claims about the broader class which is error prone at best. This occurs in a context where I have been reading about the use of machine learning for weed identification, weather prediction, saturation analysis, and a whole host of other purposes in the more crop oriented side of agriculture. That made the headline curious but I felt a bit lied to by it which fueled my original objection.
lostlogin 1y ago
A large industry, but also a much smaller group than ‘live stock producers’.
throwaway070625 1y ago
And the cattle farmers massively benefit from these things. There are now custom monitors being put on to cattle that constantly measure how much they eat, how much they walk, body temp, etc. If they fall out of expected range the system will call a vet automatically to come treat them as they're obviously sick. This is keeping the cattle healthier and the production numbers high. Farmers are also really getting into things like drones for pesticide application as it's faster, more accurate, and has less waste. It's happening whether or not people want to believe it, from Texas up to Illinois/Wisconsin and everywhere inbetween. hey, if you want to get away from big tech and you're not scared of rural life -- farmers need IT folks. They have racks of Supermicro servers on premises that need maintaining because they can't trust the cloud // internet can be unreliable. They have sensors and repeaters on the field perimeters that need maintenance. There's a lot of IT work to be done in rural America with a slower pace of life if you're not afraid of coexisting with country folk. For those of us that grew up there and migrated to the city for corporate IT jobs -- I expect we'll be going back to our roots and serving our communities with these skills instead so we don't have to deal with AI screened jobs and take-home programming tests
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
  The way they are treating cattle as pure machines to optimize production I can only hope synthetic meat will come soon.
- phil21 1y ago
  This is effectively my "dream" job for semi-retirement at the moment. I don't need to make top dollar any longer, but I crave doing something "real" that actually matters and I work for/talk to people who actually make useful things for humanity. I still need a decent income to pay for toys, hobbies, and time off work until I hit retirement age. A contracting IT job trekking between a few farms and monitoring them remotely sounds pretty great to me! And right up my alley in terms of skillsets and interests.
- onecommentman 1y ago
  If you’re talking about racks of servers, you’re talking a pretty large farming operation…they’re a bit rare. And those kids of farmers would like to stay in the community with well-paying jobs, and so communities try to raise their IT specialists locally and tend not to outsource even to the local Big City if they can help it. Farmer kids have ag in their blood and can support IT more effectively with that homegrown subject expertise.

seadan83 1y ago

"Cattle production is the most important U.S. agricultural industry" [1] "Animal husbandry, is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products" [2] [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/sector-at-a-glance https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry

erikerikson 1y ago
Thanks for the definitions. Doesn't make for a better existential generalization from the more specific to the more general term.
- seadan83 1y ago
  I have trouble following: "Doesn't make for a better existential generalization from the more specific to the more general term." I kinda think I know what you mean, but could use clarification as I might be offbase. Sorry to reply with only definitions. Just giving evidence that livestock farming is considered agriculture.
  - erikerikson 1y ago
    What I wrote was a clumsy way to express the thought and particularly to use the term "existential generalization". I was thinking that agriculture doesn't include livestock, which was wrong and you pointed that out (thank you :D). I still object to the headline because "agriculture + farmer = crops" whereas "agriculture + rancher = livestock" they interviewed ranchers in one country and came out with a headline that made an assertion about farmers which seems like generalizing into agriculture and then re-instantiating into a subclass. The latter is valid to do but the generalization is taking finding about a smaller class and making claims about the broader class which is error prone at best. This occurs in a context where I have been reading about the use of machine learning for weed identification, weather prediction, saturation analysis, and a whole host of other purposes in the more crop oriented side of agriculture. That made the headline curious but I felt a bit lied to by it which fueled my original objection.

lostlogin 1y ago

A large industry, but also a much smaller group than ‘live stock producers’.

throwaway070625 1y ago

And the cattle farmers massively benefit from these things. There are now custom monitors being put on to cattle that constantly measure how much they eat, how much they walk, body temp, etc. If they fall out of expected range the system will call a vet automatically to come treat them as they're obviously sick. This is keeping the cattle healthier and the production numbers high. Farmers are also really getting into things like drones for pesticide application as it's faster, more accurate, and has less waste. It's happening whether or not people want to believe it, from Texas up to Illinois/Wisconsin and everywhere inbetween. hey, if you want to get away from big tech and you're not scared of rural life -- farmers need IT folks. They have racks of Supermicro servers on premises that need maintaining because they can't trust the cloud // internet can be unreliable. They have sensors and repeaters on the field perimeters that need maintenance. There's a lot of IT work to be done in rural America with a slower pace of life if you're not afraid of coexisting with country folk. For those of us that grew up there and migrated to the city for corporate IT jobs -- I expect we'll be going back to our roots and serving our communities with these skills instead so we don't have to deal with AI screened jobs and take-home programming tests

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
The way they are treating cattle as pure machines to optimize production I can only hope synthetic meat will come soon.
phil21 1y ago
This is effectively my "dream" job for semi-retirement at the moment. I don't need to make top dollar any longer, but I crave doing something "real" that actually matters and I work for/talk to people who actually make useful things for humanity. I still need a decent income to pay for toys, hobbies, and time off work until I hit retirement age. A contracting IT job trekking between a few farms and monitoring them remotely sounds pretty great to me! And right up my alley in terms of skillsets and interests.
onecommentman 1y ago
If you’re talking about racks of servers, you’re talking a pretty large farming operation…they’re a bit rare. And those kids of farmers would like to stay in the community with well-paying jobs, and so communities try to raise their IT specialists locally and tend not to outsource even to the local Big City if they can help it. Farmer kids have ag in their blood and can support IT more effectively with that homegrown subject expertise.