The fruit and veggies you eat might quickly be cultivated and processed by a military of drones and robots, some powered by artificial intelligence. The truth is, it is already taking place on farms throughout America.
Hylio, a Houston-based tech firm, was granted an exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration in February for a single pilot to function swarms of heavy drones over farms. Three battery-powered drones, some weighing as a lot as 400 kilos every, can now be used at one time to spray fertilizer and pesticides on fields of produce. That activity is often dealt with by farm employees or crop-dusting planes.
Earlier than the FAA choice, deploying this sort of drone swarm would have required a crew of licensed operators, which makes the method extra difficult and costly. Utilizing a swarm of three drones at one time, one operator can spray 150 acres each hour.
“The exemption we bought is precedent setting,” stated Hylio CEO Arthur Erickson. “[Our] prospects and different firms can now cite it and obtain the identical permissions.”
Drones, lasers and robotic “palms”
Crop-dusting drones have been among the many many high-tech agricultural instruments on show on the February 2024 World Agriculture Expo in Tulare, within the coronary heart of California’s Central Valley.
Greater than 1,250 exhibitors appeared at this 12 months’s Expo, which drew greater than 100,000 guests. They noticed demonstrations of merchandise together with an autonomous crop sprayer and an AI-powered robotic that lightly picked berries with a silicone “hand.”
“Each farmer goes to be a coder sometime,” stated Ethan Rublee, whose firm farm-ng demonstrated an all-electric, robotic micro-tractor able to utilizing AI parts that may be programmed to haul gear, seed, domesticate and unfold compost for hours on one cost. The product is known as the Amiga.
Primarily based in Watsonville, which is about an hour’s drive from San Jose, Rublee’s firm has caught the attention of Silicon Valley buyers.
“We have raised about $16 million whole and we have been in operation for 4 years,” he stated. “[We have} $10 million in the bank and a team of 30 people, just an amazing an amazing collection of people that are basically moving to Watsonville to figure out how to re-invent agriculture.”
Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder of Carbon Robotics, showed off his company’s Laser Weeder, which uses powerful infrared lasers and high-speed cameras to identify and blast weeds to oblivion in a matter of seconds.
“Before you had a Laser Weeder, you had to have people out in the field with hand tools, spraying chemicals,” said Mikesell.
Could this be a solution for the labor shortage?
Developers of these high-tech tools said their inventions could help ease the decadeslong labor shortage that’s been impacting the U.S. agricultural industry. Between 1950 and 2000, the number of hired farm laborers declined by more than 50%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hiring has continued to be a challenge for farm owners into the 2020s.
While the shift towards automation could offset the labor shortage and relieve farm workers of some arduous, monotonous and at times dangerous tasks, 61-year-old farm worker Lulu Cardenas fears this new technology will put her job at risk.
“I feel replaced by something like that,” said Cardenas. “I’m going to have a hardship to help my family.”
She has worked the fields in California’s Central Valley since immigrating from Mexico 20 years ago. When CBS News described the new kinds of farm robots to Cardenas, she was disappointed, citing the spiritual connection between humans and plants.
“You cannot replace human heat with a cold machine,” she said.
Cardenas’ friend Asuncion Ponce, who came from her same village just south of Mexico City 36 years ago, was also upset when he saw images of the new farm robots.
“The farmers benefit from it, but they’re taking a lot of work from us,” said Ponce, who just became a U.S. citizen.
He has already seen equipment take over some work on the farm, but this was his first time seeing the new crop of “thinking” machines.
“There’s a lot of machinery that [now harvests] onion, garlic, lettuce, broccoli,” Ponce stated. “As a substitute of extra individuals laboring, now you are having three individuals.”
Some large-scale farms and advocacy teams have launched coaching applications to assist farm employees develop the abilities to adapt to the brand new know-how and tackle new roles as drone operators or programmers.
“I believe that we are able to use equipment and nonetheless maintain our individuals,” stated Adrián Miramontes, a Mexican immigrant and navy veteran who now manages a big farming operation. “They’re prepared to be taught they usually’re prepared to do higher for themselves and their households.”
The following steps
The U.S. Division of Labor can also be monitoring the difficulty. A spokesperson advised CBS Information that subsequent month the division will ship President Biden an inventory of suggestions for an support program that might assist farm employees who’ve been displaced by AI. Any new support package deal would require congressional approval. It is also folded into a brand new Govt Order that might follow one from October 2023.
It is unclear whether or not such an support program would profit the a whole bunch of 1000’s of undocumented immigrants who work on American farms.
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