Electric vehicles take to the fields to ease the labor of crop picking

[Fumesucker]

These are brilliant, the second one is solar powered even.

[happyslug]

1. Are these really more effective then a man with a bag??

That is the alternative. These inventions have the advantage of have cover from the sun, but so can a white shirt and wide brim hat. The advantage of laying down is offset by NOT being able to stand up and look around you (given how herbicide and insecticides are sprayed today, something to consider, also standing up lets you see where you are in relations to other pickers, an important factor when trying NOT to pick the same area as another AND not to run unto another.

Now, given this has wheels it can carry more weight then one can carry in a bag, but except in certain locations, you empty the bag at the end of a row of crops before it gets to heavy. The big exception would be in the vegetables Fields of the Imperial Valley, but in the Imperial valley they are already using advance machines to help in picking vegetables.

Now, in certain locations this machine will work, here is an example of them being used in Lancaster County PA:

http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/farmers-love-pa-companys-new-picking-machine/nnDtp/

In the Imperial Valley of California, much larger machines are the norm:



http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2004-1/2004-1-02.htm

This machine can only fit a small niche, between the big machines as used in the Imperial Valley and a man with a bag used on smaller fields elsewhere. Lancaster county fits that bill, it is the richest agricultural County in the East and has been since the 1700s but does NOT have the huge fields of the Imperial Valley. Most farmers have much larger farms they they grandfathers did 40 or more years ago, thus you have bigger fields even in Pennsylvania, but much smaller then in the Imperial Valley. On these "Mid size" farms this machine may be ideal but once you get into farms of less then 100 Acres, these machines are just marginal (and before some farmer get upset about my comment about 100 acres, yes, I know 100 acre farm is NOT profitable to operate at today's prices, you either have to get more land OR find another source of income and treat the farm as a side line if you have less then 100 acres).

Thus this machine is designed for a very small niche, but it can be a very profitable niche if these machines are NOT that expensive.


Interesting concept but I suspect NOT competitive with a man (or woman or child) with a bag.

[Fumesucker]

3. I'm social security age and I could pick crops on that machine, wouldn't last a half hour with a bag

Something you miss is that in intense heat a fan could easily be put on the vehicle to keep the picker cool and comfortable, comfort makes a big difference in long term productivity. We have quite a lot of farming in my state and the lowest average wind velocity in the entire USA, it's brutally hot, humid and stagnant much of the year, a really miserable environment to work in.

Stooping up and down all day every day destroys your body eventually, knees, ankles, hips, back and neck all suffer long term consequences from repetitive motion.

If you watched the first video, it's quite easy to get off the machine and stand up, that's what the picker does with a carton he or she has just filled, stands up and puts it on a rack high and to the rear of the machine.

[Duppers]

5. I'm with you! nt

[NickB79]

2. A step backwards. We need to get away from overly mechanized, mono-crop mega-farms

The future lies in small-acreage farms worked intensively by families in a permaculture fashion, producing a diverse range of foods and goods.

[Fumesucker]

4. How ya going to keep them down on the farm when they've seen Paree?

People got the hell off farms as fast as they could as soon as it became possible to do so, farming is tough, demanding and insecure work with potential disaster right around the corner every day.

Even small farms need crops picked and tended. If you look upthread another poster says this would be useless on a mega-farm so I'm a bit confused, this idea is getting attacked now from both directions...

[NickB79]

8. We won't have a choice, once Paree is underwater and in ruins

Which is ultimately where we're going to end up based on the path we're on: http://www.democraticunderground.com/112796249

While McPherson's perspective might sound like the stuff of science fiction, there is historical precedent for his predictions. Fifty-five million years ago, a 5-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures seems to have occurred in just 13 years, according to a study published in the October 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A report in the August 2013 issue of Science revealed that in the near term, earth's climate will change 10 times faster than during any other moment in the last 65 million years.

In fact, a recently published study in Science Advances states, unequivocally, that the planet has officially entered its sixth mass extinction event. The study shows that species are already being killed off at rates much faster than they were during the other five extinction events, and warns ominously that humans could very likely be among the first wave of species to go extinct.

So if some feel that McPherson's thinking is extreme, when the myriad scientific reports he cites to back his claims are looked at squarely and the dots are connected, the perceived extremism begins to dissolve into a possible, or even likely, reality.

When you're fighting just to survive through a global mass extinction event, you don't really get a choice about where you're going to go on holiday.

[LouisvilleDem]

6. Merely an preliminary step...

...before we get a fully automated picker that does not require a person at all.

[Fumesucker]

7. Agreed

[LouisvilleDem]

9. Impacts

I have no idea how soon we will see fully automated machines for harvesting these types of crops. Sometimes it seems like things happen much faster than I expected (an end using to cathode ray TVs and incandescent light bulbs) and other times it seems to take longer (electric cars). Regardless, when it eventually does happen, I imagine the impact on illegal immigration will be huge.