Kubota shows New Agri Concept at CES 2024 - Future Farming
Kubota unveils the New Agri Concept combining automation, AI and electrification, designed from the ground up to support a wide range of tasks.
www.futurefarming.com
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Forget robotaxis. How about an electric robotractor?
- Thread starter jabloomf1230
- Start date
www.futurefarming.com
I both love and have a lot of concern about including more agricultural robots in the future food system.
Love because we have a real labor supply issue in agriculture, that's only getting worse as birth rates are going down, cost of land is going up, and farmers are increasingly disrespected by the financial and industrial food systems. Driving a tractor back and forth in a pattern, even on my relatively small pastures, is mind numbingly boring.
Until it isn't.
When there's a prairie dog hole, or a fence post dragged by an elk, or some other anomaly that I have to steer around, stop and move out of the way, then I either catch it early enough or I risk damaging equipment. Is the robo tractor going to be smart enough to avoid obstacles, detect equipment damage and stop, etc? Maybe. But the farmer / equipment operator is still going to have to be on standby, nearby, or have to make a long trip to fix a little oops if not.
The "answer" to these anomalies by the industrial food system is going to be even more monoculture grown on more laser leveled, straightened, fenced to exclude wildlife, etc. Which to me really isn't farming. It's extractive exploitation of soil turned to dirt and then dust.
So, build me a robo farm implement that can deal with complexity in a Permaculture style system, I'll beat a path to your door to buy it. Build a self steering mono crop tractor, and I know some bean counter will think it's awesome, even though it just hastens ecosystem destruction instead.
Love because we have a real labor supply issue in agriculture, that's only getting worse as birth rates are going down, cost of land is going up, and farmers are increasingly disrespected by the financial and industrial food systems. Driving a tractor back and forth in a pattern, even on my relatively small pastures, is mind numbingly boring.
Until it isn't.
When there's a prairie dog hole, or a fence post dragged by an elk, or some other anomaly that I have to steer around, stop and move out of the way, then I either catch it early enough or I risk damaging equipment. Is the robo tractor going to be smart enough to avoid obstacles, detect equipment damage and stop, etc? Maybe. But the farmer / equipment operator is still going to have to be on standby, nearby, or have to make a long trip to fix a little oops if not.
The "answer" to these anomalies by the industrial food system is going to be even more monoculture grown on more laser leveled, straightened, fenced to exclude wildlife, etc. Which to me really isn't farming. It's extractive exploitation of soil turned to dirt and then dust.
So, build me a robo farm implement that can deal with complexity in a Permaculture style system, I'll beat a path to your door to buy it. Build a self steering mono crop tractor, and I know some bean counter will think it's awesome, even though it just hastens ecosystem destruction instead.
The video Kubota produced is all about AI, and very little about EV. And it is their “2030” vision, so don’t look for products for the next 6 years! Wake me up when someone, anyone, has a commercial EV tractor for sale.
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