We all know of the stereotype that agriculture is hard work. It takes effort but if you work efficiently and effectively the benefits outweigh the cons. Besides nothing worth getting is easy! In any case labor issues are a common problem in the Caribbean since machinery is difficult to purchase or the terrain of Caribbean islands limit its use.
However these are solvable problems (such as using farmer cooperatives to share machinery. The video link above highlights Robotic farm machinery still under research at Ohio State University in the United States of America. By now we are all aware that technology overcomes many problems and in this instance it solves both the problem of the lack of labor and unsuitable machinery.
The drawback here is that the technical know-how on the operation of these machines then falls to the farmer making his job a little harder than usual. He/she can then take his knowledge to the next level by becoming an agri-entrepreneur or technical expert. Fortunately many farmers are already at this level if not, they are up to the challenge; this from my own personal experience. Otherwise he/she has to outsource a specialist to operate this kind of machinery. This would be another cost to the farmer inputs.
Picture below: An engineer’s vision of an Robotic Orange Harvester (Photo Courtesy: Google Search)
It would be good if companies manufacturing those machinery also offer special packages (such as video clips) demonstrating the use of the product, or sending specialist to offer training to farmers (this may be unfeasible though…depends). Another suggestion is that if the machinery is in high demand by local farmers the Ministry of Food Production could provide avenues to train local specialist who could then train farmers at demonstration stations. These are just suggestions but a number of factors must be analysed such as cost to make it a reality.
[…] world to utilize robotic machinery for farming of every kind. Sooner or later agriculture will be Hard work no more! This prediction has come true! Coated.com has reported that Hapanese researchers have created a […]