What do you think Farmers Mull Replacing Illegal Workers With Robots?

LOS ANGELES — With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.





Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.





"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau


"There's a lot of very nervous people out there in agriculture in terms of what's going to be available in the labor force," said Robert Wample, viticulture and enology program director at California State University, Fresno.





Mechanized picking wouldn't be new for some California crops such as canning tomatoes, low-grade wine grapes and nuts.





But the fresh produce that dominates the state's agricultural output — and that consumers expect to find unblemished in supermarkets — is too fragile to be picked by the machines now in use.





The new pickers rely on advances in computing power and hydraulics that can make robotic limbs and digits operate with near-human sensitivity. Modern imaging technology also enables the machines to recognize and sort fruits and vegetables of varying qualities.





"The technology is maturing just at the right time to allow us to do this kind of work economically," said Derek Morikawa, whose San Diego-based Vision Robotics has been working with the California Citrus Research Board and Washington State Apple Commission to develop a fruit picker.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2959...

What do you think Farmers Mull Replacing Illegal Workers With Robots?
All I know is I'd rather go for that than to keep listening to people claim certain jobs were "slave" labor. I remember when computers first came out.....they were afraid it would displace too many people and ended up it didn't. Computers were to erase the need for paper. LOL. Seems more jobs were created than what we lost. There are people still needed to fix the robots when they break down. They invented the cotton gin to replace slaves.....they are working.





What people don't get is there is always going to be rich and poor and what looks like perfect jobs and what looks like crap jobs. There is always going to be some jobs being paid more than others. Always going to be someone trying to make more money off the backs of someone else. Heck they can make movies without actors....create music without an instrument. We are all replaceable....but at what expense?
Reply:My grandparents had a 900 acre farm where they grew mostly tomatoes for Hunts and Heinz. In the late 60's Caesar Chavez and the FLOC (Farm Labor Organizing Committee) came to town and led the migrants on a strike. It was really hard to get the crops harvested since our family normally hired about 100 migrants during the summer to help.





This went on for three summers in a row. The radical Catholic Priests, Chavez and FLOC refused to take the jobs and severely harassed the workers who crossed their picket lines.





The 4th Summer all the farmers planted a new variety of tomato that ripened all at the same time. Then the farmers formed a co-op and purchased mechanical pickers.





From about 10,000 migrant jobs each Summer the need dropped to just a few hundred. The migrants stopped coming, Chavez gave up and FLOC didn't come around any more.





After the initial $$$ outlay for the mechanical pickers, the farmers actually increased their incomes.
Reply:It will never work... robots need to be maintained... with illegal immigrants, when the old one is broken you just toss it out and get a new one...
Reply:So much for "illegals are taking away Americans' jobs".
Reply:I have no problem with robots, but I understand they are also renting land south of the border and moving operations there. I say subsidies should be tied to location (in US) and we should bring back barriers to make importing food more expensive if that becomes common. It will otherwise become uneconomical to farm here, and what is the farm bill for if not to address that issue?
Reply:That's exactly the problem with illegal immigration. Once all of these processes are automated, we'll have an entire class of people that have no skills, no education and no jobs.





It's bad now, it'll be way worse in 20 years.
Reply:Or the idiots could use their BRAINS and muster up some patriotism and common sense and reach out to job seekers in their community. It wouldn't take much time or expense to train the unemployed to do that work. But you know there's more to it than that. When simple explanations are completely ignored there's a hidden motive.
Reply:Just remember the cotton gin
Reply:I would be looking out for illegal robot's!!
Reply:Great idea. It may cut down cases of food e-coli too.
Reply:I robot
Reply:but I though many Americans would GLADLY do those jobs the robots are stealing...








hmmm, you guys had me under an illusion!

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