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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.
Wait until a field full of semi autonomous, agile robots with significant dexterity decide they're not getting recharged often enough.
Ever argue with your computer? Who wins?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If you can't compete with the cost of automation, give up and find something else, the price has been set.
Europe has long had robotic pickers. They don't have Mexicans. Poles want real money.
It's not done until the robot pickers are INXS. They should be running up and down the rows looking for perfectly ripe fruit with an array of sensors, not taking 90% in one pass.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I do... *as I pull the powe......
I'm in a "weird" part of the country without much in the way of migrant workers and Americans do all "the jobs Americans won't do".
A friend of mine has a teenage son who's worked at a nearby orchard for a couple years, after school and summers. I know, he can't exist according to labor economists who don't get that bottom-wage jobs are for kids with no experience. He's off to college next year, and I doubt a robot will be taking his job.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Automation will mean that millions of low-paying, back-breaking agricultural jobs will be carried out by machines. 50-70% of those farm workers are in the country illegally.
Those jobs will be replaced by thousands of well-paying jobs in IT, programming, design, manufacturing, and maintenance, filled by educated Americans that pay more in taxes than they require in services.
And at the same time, agricultural products will end up being cheaper and higher quality.
That's a good deal all around.
Picking fruit in a commercial production orchard is not like wandering in a pleasant garden and occasionally reaching out to pluck an apple. It is a grueling, dawn-to-dusk exertion in which you position a ladder, fill a container as fast as you can, carry the now 50lb+ container to the truck or drop point, and then repeat over and over again. For each ton of apples you pick, you get around $30. 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.
Americans should not stand for goods and service produced by forced, child, or otherwise illegal labor.
There is no labor shortage in the United States. Given high enough pay and benefits, all jobs will be filled by legal workers.
If picking fruit paid more and had more benefits than programming, I would have no problem picking fruit on the side.
If the prices of goods and services are artificially low because of forced, child, or illegal labor then they will have to rise. If it's uneconomical to make a good or service in the United States using legal labor, then that good or service should not be produced here. It really is that simple.
Either you pay the kids to do useful work and they learn to be productive members of society, or the kids learn your society doesn't need them. Kids who aren't needed by your society will fucking kill you to buy drugs. When you're being murdered, remember, you deserve to die, motherfucker.
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.
I always thought it would be cool to have robots get rid of bugs and weeds rather than spraying chemicals. Now since they are picking the fruit/vegetables maybe they can be made to do those two things also.
If pickets get $30 per ton, that is 1.5c per pound,.doubling the pay would result in a whopping 1.5c increase per pound then.
I'd still be able to afford that.
you want a job where for $3/hr if you fuck up they dock your pay and it's an 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week job as well.
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
I will be happy to wait the rest of my life (and a few thousand years past that).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Nobody should have to do the mind-numbing repetitive jobs that machines can do. As for the argument of "people need these jobs," perhaps you should reconsider your stance on universal basic income because this is going to start happening throughout our society. People have claimed these types of robots were fantasy but the fantasy is believing humans were needed for menial tasks.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
There has been a lot of technological innovation in agriculture lately:
Vertical and indoor farming
Aquaculture
Robotics - for far more than harvesting
Cultured meat
etc.
These innovations will provide more and better food at lower cost and with less suffering of both humans and animals. It will also reduce pollution, reduce energy use, and improve food security. That seems like a win/win/win to me.
Good to see this happening.
The work these immigrants do on the farm, on construction sites, etc. are jobs few Americans are willing to suffer at any age, at any wage.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Docking pay is illegal in the US and if you are a legal worker, it does not happen. In college I worked hard manual labor 10-12h days all summer to pay for college. It was good for me.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Computer targeted laser powered mosquito killer could be adapted to kill other bugs, and even ignore good bugs like bees and ladybugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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
and many of them work illegally in the United States.
Ask a farmer that willingly follows the rules, there are some, they will tell you they have no cost effective method to hire legitimate labor. A worker fills in the SSN line with a number that might actually be valid with no cost effective way for the farmer to validate it.
Which, gets us to the problem that big agriculture, and construction doesn't want to touch, a cost effective system to track labor.
Basic income will never be enough.
My wife worked the peach packing shed for several years as a teenager to make money to buy school clothes during the summer. Lots of teachers worked there to supplement their salary while out during the summer. People once had to work because there was no other option if you wanted something. I worked like a dog bucking hay and stringing fence for a little money and was glad to get it. I didn't know any better, it never occurred to me that I didn't have to.
Not really. There are plenty of students, homeless etc who are willing to work for almost nothing.
As another wrote, the farmers (or contracting companies at arms length) are not willing to pay illegal wages to the sort of people who can take them to court instead of getting deported.
It's also not just fruit picking.
Basic income will never be enough.
Basic income will never happen, at least not in the foreseeable future.
It would require politically infeasible tax increases.
It would require politically infeasible reductions in existing entitlement programs.
Many people angry about inequality voted for Donald Trump.
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?
Now I have this vision of a battalion of chromed-skeleton terminators, grinning evilly, moving from tree to tree, scanning the fruit with the same assembler routines they used to track Sarah Connor and then gently twisting the almost-ripe apples from the branch and carefully placing them in a basket. With that sinister music playing.
He's off to college next year, and I doubt a robot will be taking his job.
I'm sure someone could invent a robot that smokes weed, listens to Ween, sleeps in until three in the afternoon and then gets online to beg for help writing that essay that's due tomorrow.
They should be running up and down the rows looking for perfectly ripe fruit with an array of sensors, not taking 90% in one pass.
Depends on the fruit. Most apples and pears you do pick all the fruit at once as it ripens fairly evenly, though even in that case you could do the sorting (colour and size) on the tree though it is probably more efficient to do it at the packing house. Soft fruits such as peaches, plums and cherries do need to be spot picked and in the case of peaches, it is actually a feel thing as well as colour.
I went fruit picking here in BC back in the early '80's and could make up to $200 a day (average was closer to $100) which wasn't bad money 35 years ago. There were no Mexicans, it was locals, young people from eastern Canada, especially Quebec and young people from Europe working illegally. Now they probably still pay the same and I understand the farmers import pickers from Central America, paying airfare and housing and $15+ an hour for the 6 months that they're here on the foreign workers visa.
If the prices had gone up with inflation, they'd probably have no problem with finding workers, especially if they let tourists work. Of course the killer was the small BC orchidist having to compete with the Washington factory farm that probably got government aid as well as a blind eye turned to the desperate Mexicans doing the picking. Sure hope that Trump does kick out the Mexicans and stop the government welfare programs to the industrial farms so our farms can compete and people can pay a realistic price for food, at least until the robots are perfected and their price comes down to where the small farmer can afford them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Or you could pay your workers more. If you can't get theworkers you need at a given wage then obviously you need to offer higher wages. It's not like people have a hard time understanding supply and demand except when it comes to labor.
Ever argue with your computer?
All of the time. "Who wins?" *I* do. Although it may take a day or 100. And I even manage to learn something in the process.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
What exactly is an apple tree bear?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I certainly hope automation is the future of these jobs and others. We'll need to figure out what to do with all the unemployed people over time, but that's a reality that we need to face. I suspect that it's technically possible right now to assemble a set of machines that could produce and deliver to a customer every piece of the McDonald's menu on demand, though it may be too expensive to deploy at the moment. I doubt this moment will last too much longer. Many other jobs, quite possibly mine included, will follow. Hopefully, the pace of this change remains slow enough for us to adapt without too much chaos.
The "challenge" is an oppressive system set up by other humans. It's nothing more than petty power games and in-fighting. Choosing to step outside of the rat race is smarter than the fool who'll work himself to death for a suit who cares nothing for humanity.
When I stayed in Germany's Odenwald (where you could get a nice apple by walking roadside anywhere, and lifting an arm), they just let the fruit drop. Then they'd scoop from the ground with a tractor, pulp, press, and make the most delicious Apfelsaft or (next year) rather strong rough cider. Appropriate technology Rules Ja Wohl.
You obviously have never worked in any part of the retail supply chain... any increase in cost of production is multiplied throughout the chain if for no other reason than it takes more capitol to purchase the same amount of product to sell.. and this happens at each stop along the way from production site, in this case the farm, to where it is eventually sold to the consumer...
I have a problem with you hiring illegals. It hurts non-illegals
Actually, it brings cheap fruit to the store for non-illegals to buy.
This is a symptom of two much larger problems -- the coming automation of menial work leading to massive unemployment, and employers that squeeze every single inefficiency out of a process.
If employers had a choice, they'd make people work for free -- they have no desire to pay even the minimum wage. After all, it cuts into their profits. I'm one of those people who thinks we should leave some slack in the system -- not because I'm a lazy entitled idiot, but because I don't want to see all the desperate unemployed people running around stealing and killing each other.
If you take automation to the extreme end of the spectrum, every job that people typically do is automated, including things like paper filing, IT, programming and fruit picking. This time, skilled workers aren't going to be able to sit back and say "oh, it's those lazy factory workers that don't want to retrain." The reality is that there is no retraining workers for this next phase. If you're below an IQ of, say, 120, there's no work for you. Where that leads, I have no idea...eugenics? Culling of the low end of the population?
People who think that all these migrant workers can just retrain to be data scientists are fooling themselves. I've dealt with a large cross section of society in my various jobs -- there are actual limits on how much a person can handle intellectually. In the past, we had work for them, but I'm not sure what we're going to do now.
It will happen. There is no feasible alternative.
People used to do that in England. Londoners would go to Kent picking hops. Not so long ago either, within living memory.
I suppose working in the fresh air felt like a holiday after being cooped up with all the smog.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Good for you?"
Maybe if you were the type of kid who needed to go to reform school. I'd rather my kids work as an intern at a biotech startup or robotics manufacturer.
I said it
Doing a subsidized job that a robot could do better is not "useful work".
Common sense: so rare it should be considered a super power.
Unfortunately, much of the "civilized" world would prefer to dig a ditch with a spoon instead of a back hoe because of the abundance of "work" it affords. If that's not the definition of backwards, I don't know what is. Yay humans.
We'll make great pets
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.
Whose fault is that? Think carefully before you respond. Hint: it's not the teenagers.
We'll make great pets
Not sure what you mean by "Washington factory farm." Most of the orchards I saw growing up in Yakima were family concerns, I went to school with a lot of the people that now run them.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I have a few different trees, two with multiple varieties grafted on one trunk. And a garden.
'Ripe' is a moving target. Currently for many fruits and vegetables commercial 'ripe', isn't.
And it will likely never be for cities 2000 miles away from the harvest. But for closer places there is a market for actually ripe fruit/veg.
That will require complex supply chain management. Including picking fruit at different ripeness for different markets.
Getting a steady seasonal supply of actually ripe tomatoes to groceries is a complex logistics/handling problem. For most markets, most of the year, it is impossible (but 'no' is a valid answer). Today they don't even try, who hasn't seen ripe tomatoes on the roadside while the grocery stores sell 'the usual'. Picking robots, 'eggshell' packaging and picking to market will be part of the solution to that problem.
I bet right now, the 'ripe' tomatoes get junked or sauced, won't make it to market anyhow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Revolutions are usually brought about through hunger. Starving people are extremely dangerous.
The "challenge" is an oppressive system set up by other humans. It's nothing more than petty power games and in-fighting. Choosing to step outside of the rat race is smarter than the fool who'll work himself to death for a suit who cares nothing for humanity.
The fact that you consider it "oppression" that a free market sets prices and work value is your first problem. Are you really so blind that you think companies don't pay exorbitant amounts for unskilled labor because of "petty power games and in-fighting"?
And yes, choosing to step out of the rat race may be smarter if you've got people willing to donate to your GoFundMe page or otherwise support your laziness and entitlement. For the rest of us, we understand that those who don't work, don't eat. It's not about working yourself to death for a boss; it's about putting in the required effort to support yourself and your family.
Yeah, all that sweet welfare money keeps American's from working... Bullshit. There is no welfare money, social programs are threadbare and everyone on them works. They just don't have transportation to the fields and can't afford to do seasonal work at ta price that competes with the illegal labor lured into the country by greedy "job creators".
Cheap storage VM.
Ok, so we have established that you are a snobbish dick and your kids are probably entitled assholes to whom you have handed everything they ever wanted and will completely fall apart at the first sign of difficulty. You and your ilk looking down on manual labor is part of the reason why we have so many people graduating from college who are educated far beyond their intelligence. We have an entire generation of millennials who should never have pursued a college degree in the first place, are saddled with crippling college loans, and who are not suited for complex jobs in the first place. Most of them would have been much better off going to trade school for 6 months and landing a job as a machinist making $65k/year after 5 years instead of living in their moms basement with massive loans hanging over their heads and no way to pay them off.
Did you have something to contribute to the discussion?
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We've also established that you're an ignorant, small minded bigot who thinks that manual labor is the only challenging work. News flash: there are just as many lazy millennials doing shitty manual labor jobs as there are in other careers. The only difference is that you get paid less and you smell worse at the end of the day.
So sure, send your kids to pick tobacco instead of a science program. In 20 years my kids will be glad to have someone willing to do their gardening and clean their toilets for pennies.
Um, try again, I have been an engineer for 20 years and have a PhD and taught undergraduate courses for 4 years (quit because the pay was low and the politics at university are BS). Those years of manual labor taught me to appreciate my work as an engineer, but also not to look down on those who do work with their hands because it is hard work and it has value as well. Someone built the house you live in, you call a plumber when your drains have issues or a roofer when your roof leaks. Your attitude speaks volumes about the problems in our society right now, both in the labor market and the general lack of respect for blue collar workers.
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Bullshit. I don't disparage those who work hard in whatever job they choose (or are stuck with). I also don't envy or admire them for it.
For whatever reason, you fell for the religious and political lie that hard manual labor is a virtue. Now you are passing that lie on to others, "good for you guys, keep up the good work, I really respect you (while I earn 5 times your pay with half the effort)."
The fact is that some jobs ARE better than others and ARE more desired than others and ARE paid more than others which (usually) leads to a higher quality of life for the worker and his/her family. Sending kids off to a work camp rather than science camp is NOT a good thing for those individuals even if it is a necessary byproduct of our flawed economy.
Bullshit, you just did disparage workers who work with their hands, and unlike you, I actually engaged in manual labor and made my opinion based on my own experience. I never said it was a virtue, just that it was valuable and should be respected. You may want to check and see how much plumbers, electricians, roofers, machinists et al make. I suspect that their annual income for the good ones are easily comparable with your salary as an IT professional/software engineer (most of Slashdot). Additionally, they are very unlikely to be replaced by H1B or fired by a megacorp.
"The fact is that some jobs ARE better than others and ARE more desired than others and ARE paid more than others which (usually) leads to a higher quality of life for the worker and his/her family. Sending kids off to a work camp rather than science camp is NOT a good thing for those individuals even if it is a necessary byproduct of our flawed economy."
I don't disagree that some jobs are more desirable than others on a per person basis, and that some jobs are menial, but your attitude is menial=manual and you are just flat wrong. Just admit that you have zero experience in manual labor and are ignorant and haven't really thought about how much your plumber makes (you know, the one you paid $150 for 30 minutes to fix the drip under your kitchen sink. Consider the possibility that you might be ignorant and prejudiced against people who work with their hands.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
I'll give you credit for attempting to prove things I don't believe using assumptions and "suspicions" that aren't even close to being true. That takes chutzpah.