Sensor Network Makes Life Easier For Japan's Aging Rice Farmers

szczys writes: The average age of Japan's rice farmers is 65-70 years old. The work is difficult and even small changes to the way things are done can have a profound impact on these lives. The flooded paddies where the rice is grown must maintain a consistent water level, which means farmers must regularly traverse the terraced fields to check many different paddies. A simple sensor board is changing this, letting farmers check their fields by phone instead of in person.

This might not sound like much, but reducing the number of times someone needs to walk the fields has a big effect on the man-hours spent on each crop. The system, called TechRice, is inexpensive and the nodes recharge batteries from a solar cell. The data is aggregated on the Internet and can be presented as a webpage, a text-message interface, or any other reporting scheme imaginable by utilizing the API of the Open Source software. This is a testament to the power we have as small groups of engineers to improve the world.

Comments

Labor reduction

[bluefoxlucid]

Fewer man-hours, more rice from less work, fewer farmers, less time spent working, less paid in wages, more produced, cheaper rice.

We still have people claiming value and wealth come from land, not from labor. Marx claimed more labor to produce a product meant more value and thus more wealth; I've outright demonstrated wealth comes from reducing labor spent on producing goods.

Then again, I abandoned theories of value when I started making my economic theories; I'm writing a theory of *wealth*, not an explanation of how something's inherent price comes along. Value was always a stupid idea with no place in macroeconomics.

Re:Labor reduction

[bluefoxlucid]

The way to get cheaper rice is for Japan to ratify TPP, kick these farmers off the dole, and buy rice from Thailand or Louisiana for a tenth the price.

Labor may be overpriced; but you can't reduce costs by just reducing labor price. That's a large and important part of my economic theories--it's why I argue for a Citizen's Dividend to replace minimum wage (and our current welfare system), and why a progressive tax system is good--but the primary mechanism of improving wealth is decreasing labor invested in producing goods. Hunter-gatherers could only provide enough food to sustain, at an optimistic estimate, 136 million humans on earth, at a cost of 15-20 labor-hours per day per human fed; now we sustain 7 billion humans, at a labor cost of 27 labor-hours per YEAR per human fed.

In this case, it comes from neither. I comes from massive subsidies, tariffs, and artificial price supports.

That's mercantilism and protectionism, and it actually reduces wealth.

Promote longer life? Not so fast

[sideslash]

Who is likely to live longer? A farmer who trudges out in the elements every day and works hard to keep his operation going, or a computer operator who sits in a chair and has so many things automated that there's almost nothing remaining that requires significant manual effort?

The way the summary is written shows some laughably naive understandings of human longevity. Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations, but I assure you that the aspects of hard work and being toughened by the elements are NOT bad for you, generally speaking.

Re:Promote longer life? Not so fast

[__aaclcg7560]

People who are active in their later years are more likely to live longer. My father retired to a trailer park. He helped a neighbor save money on county dumping fees by breaking down old vending machines, recycling the metals and cleaning up the wood. He gave the wood to a neighbor who built chicken coops for sale. He made $50 per month from the metals he took to the recycling center. That lasted several years until someone complained to the county and a county inspector declared that he was running an illegal recycling operation. He died about six months later, having nothing better to do.

Re:Promote longer life? Not so fast

[sideslash]

I told my mom once about a recently deceased centenarian in the news who had boasted about eating chocolate every day. Mom retorted, "Well, if she didn't eat it, she might have lived even longer." Moral of the story: you can never win an argument with your mom.

Too complicated/expensive of a solution.

[Khyber]

Toilets have held the answer for at least a century - float ball and fill valve. They don't require any specialized electronics, nor do they require power to run. Water levels get low enough, the float ball will trip the fill valve open and the paddy will get filled until the float ball raises up enough to close the fill valve.