Slashdot Mirror
Washington State Orchard Owners Look To Robots As Labor Shortage Worsens (seattletimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Seattle Times: Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farmworkers, and many of them work illegally in the United States. That system eventually could change dramatically as at least two companies are rushing to get robotic fruit-picking machines to market. The robotic pickers don't get tired and can work 24 hours a day. FFRobotics and Abundant Robotics, of Hayward, California, are racing to get their mechanical pickers to market within the next couple of years. Members of the $7.5 billion annual Washington agriculture industry have long grappled with labor shortages, and depend on workers coming up from Mexico each year to harvest many crops. While financial details are not available, the builders say the robotic pickers should pay for themselves in two years. That puts the likely cost of the machines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each. FFRobotics is developing a machine that has three-fingered grips to grab fruit and twist or clip it from a branch. The machine would have between four and 12 robotic arms, and can pick up to 10,000 apples an hour, Gad Kober, a co-founder of Israel-based FFRobotics, said. One machine would be able to harvest a variety of crops, taking 85 to 90 percent of the crop off the trees, Kober said. Humans could pick the rest. Abundant Robotics is working on a picker that uses suction to vacuum apples off trees.
I can guarantee that I could afford apples at double $60/ton picking wage, or even $120, but it would cut into the growers profits and probably make them less competitive with foreign imports from Chile. As I said in a post yesterday, when the illegals are gone, engineers and technicians will take their jobs, just a lot fewer engineers designing picking robots that work 24/7 and don't defecate in the fields, giving the customers food poisoning. It is a net win all the way around (except for the illegals that have to go home and get in line for legal immigration/guest worker programs).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
There is a reason that American teenagers aren't working in orchards... if growers paid enough to get teens to take the jobs, nobody would be able to afford fruit.
No. The reason is that the laws (child labor, working conditions) make it impossible for them to use teenagers any more.
Meanwhile the illegals can't complain about working conditions - and will work for less than minimum wage in (those occupations where it applies.)
US citizens needn't apply because they can't compete. (Even if they were willing to work for sub-legal prices and/or in sub-legal conditions, the employer can't risk that they might turn around and demand the missing money or compensation for the conditions.) The illegals, meanwhile, can afford to work that cheaply because social programs can pay for much of the support of them and their families - turning programs intended to help the poor into subsidies for their employers.
Meanwhile, the government's non-enforcement of the laws against the illegals working means that, in highly competitive markets (such as construction contracting), employers are left with a Hobson's choice: Use illegal labor and be competitive, or try to use legal labor and go out of business.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Either you pay the kids to do useful work ...
Doing a subsidized job that a robot could do better is not "useful work".
How about the kids stay in school or apprentice in a useful trade instead?
It's harder to enter the country illegally, so it's harder to hire people illegally, so you buy robots cuz people on welfare won't do the job. I fail to see the problem, outside of the "people on welfare" part.
You fail to see it because your buried in your own bullshit. Companies don't want to pay minimum wage for someone to pick fruits and vegetables. Why the hell do you think these companies employ illegal immigrants in the first place?
And even if they did, only a small segment of the population can even do it. You have to be young, strong, and healthy to carry 100 pounds sacks of apples up and down a ladder 10 hours a day. And to even make minimum wage, you're talking about moving literally tons of produce (you're paid by the pound/bushel/etc. not by the hour). Of course, you don't get benefits or insurance either. You fall off a ladder and now you're under a pile of medical debt as well as losing your job.
It's a transient shit job that pays less than a wal-mart greeter with even less benefits. THAT'S why people don't want to do it.
~X~