It’s impossible to see what’s going on inside the big machine since the working parts aren’t visible, so here’s an explanatory video from the company Harvest CROO [...]]]>
It’s impossible to see what’s going on inside the big machine since the working parts aren’t visible, so here’s an explanatory video from the company Harvest CROO Robotics from last fall:
Big immigration types have cited strawberries in the past as a reason to keep the borders open, but now the smart machines are about to make foreign pickers unnecessary.
In the near future, American farmers definitely won’t need illegal alien pickers because the robots will do the job more cheaply. Automation may have its downside for some American workers, but the technology is all good in the agriculture realm: the US will no longer need unskilled welfare-using foreigners to pick crops.
In short,
Automation Makes Immigration Obsolete.
The Post article was reprinted in the New Orleans paper, linked below:
]]>How do big farmers hope to pick the next crop? Carefully — but with robots, Washington Post, February 17, 2019
Human and machine have 10 seconds per plant. They must find the ripe strawberries in the leaves, gently twist them off the stems and tuck them into a plastic clamshell. Repeat, repeat, repeat, before the fruit spoils.
One February afternoon, they work about an acre apart on a farm the size of 454 football fields: dozens of pickers collecting produce the way people have for centuries — and a robot that engineers say could replace most of them as soon as next year.
The future of agricultural work has arrived here in Florida, promising to ease labor shortages and reduce the cost of food, or so says the team behind Harv, a nickname for the latest model from automation company Harvest CROO Robotics.
Harv is on the cutting edge of a national push to automate the way we gather goods that bruise and squish, a challenge that has long flummoxed engineers.
Designing a robot with a gentle touch is among the biggest technical obstacles to automating the American farm. Reasonably priced fruits and vegetables are at risk without it, growers say, because of a dwindling pool of workers.
“The labor force keeps shrinking,” said Gary Wishnatzki, a third-generation strawberry farmer. “If we don’t solve this with automation, fresh fruits and veggies won’t be affordable or even available to the average person.”
The problem is so pressing that competitors are banding together to fund Harv, which has raised about $9 million from corporate behemoths like Driscoll’s and Naturipe Farms, as well as from local farmers.
Wishnatzki, who created Harv with former Intel engineer Bob Pitzer, one of the minds behind the television hit “BattleBots,” has invested $3 million of his own money.
The electronic picker is still pretty clumsy.
During a test run last year, Harv gathered 20 percent of strawberries on every plant without mishap. This year’s goal: Harvest half of the fruit without crushing or dropping any. The human success rate is closer to 80 percent, making Harv the underdog in this competition.
But Harv doesn’t need a visa or sleep or sick days. The machine looks like a horizontally rolling semitruck.
Peek underneath and see 16 smaller steel robots scooping up strawberries with spinning, claw-like fingers, guided by camera eyes and flashing lights. (Continues)
Below, Mendota in California’s Central Valley was 98.6 percent hispanic according to 2010 Census, with 50.3 percent foreign-born persons, 2013-2017.
[...]]]>Below, Mendota in California’s Central Valley was 98.6 percent hispanic according to 2010 Census, with 50.3 percent foreign-born persons, 2013-2017.
Therefore the California Valley community of Mendota deserves attention, and it got a good look by Tucker Carlson on Friday. He observed that the town is dirt poor in the middle of an important agricultural area where a third of residents are farm workers, yet both parties in Washington want more cheap labor for the fields. He could have mentioned that more foreign workers are even less needed now and in the future because of agricultural robots coming on the scene.
If there’s one thing America doesn’t need, it’s more unskilled foreign workers of any legality.
And regarding the crime topic, it’s easy for foreign gangsters like the MS-13 bunch to get by in California, a sanctuary state where lawbreakers are normally left alone by the crime-friendly Democrats in charge.
Spare Audio:
]]>TUCKER CARLSON: If you read the USA Today this morning, you may have seen the list of the 50 worst cities in America. In the highly non-coveted number one spot was a place called Mendota, California. It’s a town of about 11,000 outside Fresno in the Central Valley. It used to be the cantaloupe capital of the world but now, sadly in Mendota, pretty much all the numbers are depressing. The unemployment rate there is maybe the highest in the country. Half the city lives below the poverty line. The per capita income in Mendota is about $9,000 a year. Crime, not surprisingly, is completely out of control.
The former city manager of Mendota says the city is ground zero for MS-13 on the west coast. Last August the feds made more than two dozen arrests of MS-13 members. This was primarily in response to 16 recent murders in the area — it’s bad. The local police department is so outmatched by MS-13 that according to local media, gang members have been threatening individual cops by name and with impunity. It’s like another country.
So what’s so striking about this and so sad about it is it’s the opposite of what they promised. Here’s how — a third of Mendoza’s population is temporary farm workers. Both Republicans and Democrats in Washington are telling us right now that we need many more of those, and they’re pushing for it in secret talks at the White House. But if what they’re claiming is true, then why are there so many unemployed people in Mendota?
This is a city at the center of America’s most productive farmland. if you can’t get farm work in the Central Valley of California, there is a huge problem. We clearly have a major oversupply of low-skilled labor — we do — but we’re planning to import much more anyway because Democrats and the Chamber of Commerce want it?
Okay, we know what the net results are gonna be — more sad poor cities like Mendota. It’s lunacy. It’s horrible for the people who live there and for everyone else. Someone who cares about the country should say that because it’s true.