Robotic strawberry picker nears completion - Australia

[housewolf]

The prototype for a new Australian robotic strawberry picking machine will be complete this June

Australian strawberry pickers may soon be able to cut their biggest cost, labour, with the completion of a prototype robotic strawberry picker later this year.

The new technology is a product of the company Magnificent Pty Ltd, a collaboration between agricultural engineer Rudi Bartels and Queensland strawberry grower Ray Daniels.

The machine will not only cut down on labour, which is more than 50 per cent of production costs for some growers, but is also more efficient than human pickers, reported Stock and Land.

“This revolutionary robotic harvester will allow us to pick straight into punnets which will reduce the majority of our wages bill and remove the need for a packing shed,” Mr Daniels said.

“Another major advantage is the provision of reliability and continuity. The robot will be able to be programmed to pick the correct colour and grade of fruit 24 hours per day, even when it is raining or temperatures are too hot for human pickers.”

more..
http://www.fruitnet.com/content.aspx?cid=3228&ttid=2

[Journeyman]

1. I picked strawberries one summer -- nasty, backbreaking labor . . .

Sticky, itchy, a constant battle with flies, heat, and pain. No matter what we pay for strawberries, those who labor in the fields will never be compensated enough. If a machine can be created to do that work, more power to us all.

[Billy Burnett]

2. Hooray! More unemployed.

We don't need no stinkin jobs, even if they are hard.

More power to us all (less wages too).

:eyes:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Someone has to build and maintain the robots.

[Journeyman]

7. So how's the blacksmith business these days? . . .

You know, if you junked that computer you sit before and wrote your comments on a manual typewriter instead, or better yet with a quill pen, think of all the many varied jobs you'd enable -- everything from hot type compositors to screw press operators (depending on which era of technological development you prefer to revert to and how primitive the conditions you wish for labor).

Ah, nothing like a Luddite to brighten the day for we who enjoy satire.

[MercutioATC]

15. Pony Express Riders Local 341 thanks you for your support.

:eyes:

[thelordofhell]

17. Bring back human cotton pickers!!

Those dastardly machines destroyed the entire slavery industry!!

:eyes:

[Speck Tater]

4. I wondered how they were going to pick those robotic strawberries. nt

[cutlassmama]

5. No more e-coli from workers taking a dump on the fruit.

[rocktivity]

6. All they have to do now is get those robots to BUY the strawberries.

:eyes:
rocktivity

[Newest Reality]

8. I hear that

robotic strawberry buyers will slowly be phased in and then they will upgrade them to eat the fruit, also. The robot poo will then be dumped by auto-fertilizing units on the crops and the cycle will start again. No messy "consumers" or humans required. Such perfection!

Voila! Solutions! We then just have to be cooperative and die, (with the aid of the new, auto-euthanasia-bot) and all will be well. The GOP Repustules might like this idea for their platform ... just needs some profit like giving the robots credit cards or something simple like that.

Perfect world coming thanks to the miracles of science. Good luck to our robot friends.

[Meldread]

9. Cue the Luddites.... oh wait, damn - too late.

"We must never have technological advancement! Immigrants from other countries must come to the United States, be forced to work in near inhuman conditions, for wages I wouldn't pay a small child for doing chores! Now, damn it... where is my latte... and, you there Jose! Stop complaining about the heat, those strawberries won't pick themselves!"

:crazy:

[rfranklin]

10. How will picking machines help those put out of jobs?

It's nice that people are spared the harsh conditions of the fields, but where will they go for jobs?

[Meldread]

11. They'll have to retrain.

Some of them will have the ability to work or oversee the machines, and their wages and their quality of life while on the job should improve as well. Others will have to retrain and find new lines of work. Unfortunately, in the United States most who toil in the fields are illegal immigrants who are exploited, which means it'll be hard for them to take advantage of any government retraining programs that could be offered.

Ultimately, though - my opposition is not based upon whether or not jobs are lost or gained. My opposition is to individuals who oppose technological progress for backward reasons. There will always be jobs lost as technology strives to improve the quality of our lives. Just imagine how many jobs were lost with the invention of the personal computer. What happened to the typewriter and file cabinet manufacturers? You can bet the demand for their products decreased, and with less demand meant less need for workers.

The reality is that, as technology continues to evolve, someday it'll be able to replace the bulk of human labor. It just requires us to rethink how our economy works - human labor is based upon antiquated notions of serfdom and peasantry. It's -NECESSARY- in our current world, just as it is necessary for someone to toil away in the fields picking strawberries. That doesn't make it desirable or a -GOOD- thing.

In my view, technological advancement is a good thing, because it brings us closer to a day when humans are freed from toil - toil that is demanded and required because it results in payment, and that payment is what allows us to provide food, clothing, and shelter. However, at the same time, it requires planning for a future in which human toil is less necessary, and thus a new economy that is not based upon labor must be imagined.

[Billy Burnett]

18. That's some utopian dream you have there.

Whatcha smokin'? Can I get some?

[customerserviceguy]

12. Interesting that this machine is being developed in Australia

A nation that has reduced illegal immigration as a matter of geography.

I've long said that such innovations are being crippled here by the existence of illegal immigrants. As for the loss of jobs, a farmer from 100 years ago could scarcely imagine how food is grown today (for better or worse), and it would be folly to suggest that a century from now, we'll still have commercial food production that depends heavily on stoop labor.

May as well get started towards that future, and American farmers who finally have the spigot of illegal immigrants cut off will likely buy Australian equipment to use on their farms. Sometimes it's good to have circumstances that force necessity to be the mother of invention.

[depakid]

13. Australia has a long history of agricultural innovations

If you go to the national museum in Canberra, you'll be surprised (as I was) to see this Aussie invention on display:

[Ex Lurker]

16. with all the poisonous critters Down Under

picking strawberries is a job I would not want to do.

[DonCoquixote]

14. Where you will see this

Florida, as many complain about how the Strawberry industry needs Mexican labor. Now, no more need for them (sigh)