Webcast: Robot Harvest: Agribotics and the Food We Eat

With fewer people farming (only 2 percent of the U.S. population) on a generally non-expanding chunk of tillable land and with more mouths to feed expanding exponentially, everyone realizes that something must be done well before the global population balloons to 9 billion from its current 7 billion.

By Tom Green | October 11, 2016

“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want,
drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.” -Mark Twain

We all need to eat three times a day. Many don’t!

The coming food crisis is a lot like global warming: We caused it and we know it’s hurtling toward us and we’re only now doing something about it when it’s almost too late. That’s a formula for disaster.

With fewer people farming (only 2 percent of the U.S. population) on a generally non-expanding chunk of tillable soil and with more mouths to feed expanding exponentially, everyone realizes that something must be done well before the global population balloons to 9 billion from its current 7 billion.

Producing more food from existing acreage is necessary, especially from novel agro-schemes like vertical farms, hydroponics, marine farms or even farms in low orbit around the Earth. Everything is in play when it comes to staying healthy, avoiding hunger and all done with fewer or no herbicides, pesticides and definitely no GMOs. Throw in a looming immigrant labor squeeze for low-wage laborers, and we’re beginning to come up real short of possible solutions.

With all of the above gloom gathering itself up and heading our way, can we depend on technology to literally save our bacon?

See also (above): Newest webcast companion research report: Robot Harvest: Agribotics for Farm, Field & Orchard. Post date: Thursday, October 20. Free to members.

Farming goes digital

Digital farms are on the near horizon as places where productivity can max out while keeping costs at bay, while robots to produce our food are shaping up as the willing and able substitutes for human labor and agricultural acumen.

Maybe that’s why WinterGreen Research forecasts the agricultural robot market size to grow from just under one billion dollars to an anticipated $16.3 billion by 2020. That’s a fantastic growth spurt in just four years. Robot diets must be first rate!

Of course, things aren’t all the rosy.

With all the advances in agricultural robotics or agribotics over the last three years, there are still a few more hills to climb for these steel-collar farmhands before they get to don their overalls.

And that’s the purpose for our webcast: Robot Harvest: Agribotics for Farm, Field and Orchard.

The Boston Consulting Group in Crop Farming 2030 puts the five most influential trends in farming as:

Notice how agribotics impacts all five

Together with our distinguished guests, Frank Tobe , publisher of The Robot Report, and Sara Olson, lead at the Agro Innovation Intelligence practice at Lux Research, our webcast will move through these five trends to get a good look at agribotics and its marketplace, along with digital farming ‘s role in averting any future food crisis.

Join us for our webcast: Robot Harvest: Agribotics for Farm, Field and Orchard a