Could AI robots with lasers make herbicides – and farm workers – obsolete?
A field day in Salinas showcased agricultural robots like the LaserWeeder, which use AI to eliminate weeds, highlighting a shift towards sustainable farming amid health concerns over traditional herbicides.
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In Salinas, California, a recent field day showcased advanced agricultural robots designed to replace harmful herbicides. Attendees observed machines like the LaserWeeder, which uses AI and lasers to identify and eliminate weeds without chemicals, potentially transforming farming practices. This shift comes as California grapples with the health risks associated with traditional herbicides, such as paraquat and glyphosate, which have been linked to serious diseases. Legislative efforts, including Assembly Bill 1963 to ban paraquat, reflect a growing movement towards sustainable pest management.
Experts highlight the dual impact of this technology: while it promises environmental benefits by reducing chemical use, it raises concerns about job displacement in an industry heavily reliant on manual labor. Agriculture is a major employment sector in Monterey County, and the introduction of robots could threaten many positions without clear alternatives. Some farmers, however, are already adopting these machines to address labor shortages and improve efficiency.
Environmental advocates argue for a broader approach to pest management, emphasizing organic methods and integrated strategies over reliance on technology alone. Despite resistance from established agricultural companies, the potential for robots to enhance farming while minimizing health risks is gaining traction. The ongoing debate underscores the need for a balanced transition that considers both technological advancements and the socio-economic implications for workers in the agricultural sector.
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18 commentsPro-pesticide lobbies will modify the political landscape to their needs, neutralize public dissent with thinktanks and production of studies that show that lasers are a plot to rob you of your God-given right to consume chemicals produced by corporations that provide jobs to blue-collar communities, and we'll be stuck with the poisons until the next plague or world war fundamentally rearranges the power reaches of the dynastic centers of wealth that own it all.
This is where you can have three or four sympathetic crops growing side by side, allowing for greater resistance to various environmental factors. It also, if you give them enough attention, increase yeild.
We could probably side step a lot of issues, simultaneously, more elegantly, more efficiently, by driving down to the foundational technology and considering alternatives with our newer technological arsenal.
In farming that foundational technology is monocultures, it simplifies scaling, efficiency of planting, managing and harvesting, but the cost is soil degradation, disease, and susceptibility to pests. All of these issues evaporate with multicrop farming, it would be more interesting to apply robotics and ML to making the planting, and harvesting of that practically scalable.
What could possibly go wrong? [1]
I didn't expect fire to work well but I thought it would be fun, which it was, which is gardening.
It's hard to tell how well it works, depending on how much patience you have you can burn it to the ground and keep going heating the soil and in theory roots and stored energy but that's time and money.
Plants will die if you keep damaging them enough before they can recover it'd be interesting to see what the specs are here. Totally fine in theory.
Mechanical methods could be better, but just not micromanaging it and using permaculture methods would be the best solution.
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