China has launched a pilot program to replace farmers
with robots. And people are at risk of losing their jobs.
The seven-year pilot, which is
running in Jiangsu Province, features unmanned tractors, pesticide applicators,
and rice transplanters, according to
Bloomberg. These technologies are not yet widely used
in China.
With a rise in automated farming,
China may experience greater yields and cheaper food production. Coupled with
data, automation could lead to a decrease in the use of fertilizer and
pesticides. A new farming model could also alleviate losses in productivity due
to an aging workforce.
But more automation means fewer
farmers will be able to find work. Although the percentage of the Chinese
workforce involved in farming has dropped - from 55% in 1991 to 18% in 2017 -
about 250 million people are still farmers.
Feeding China's 1.4 billion people
is also complicated by urbanization, which has eliminated millions of acres of
arable land. Of the land that remains, about 20% is contaminated by heavy
metals from industrial development, according to
Bloomberg.
In the United States, automated
farming goes back at least 16 years, when Deere & Co. revealed a system for applying GPS to tractors.
Before that, tractors would waste a lot of land and fuel. The GPS system
allowed farmers to drive straight and avoid any overlap. Some US farms also use robotic
milking machines; there
are currently 2,000 of them.
Automation in China could help
create new jobs in other areas; while robots would take over numerous tasks,
people will still
need to
code, regulate, maintain, and repair machines. Those who remain in farming will
need to develop new skills to use the emerging technology.
Reference:
China
is moving ahead with huge robot-farming pilot project that could one day put
many of the country’s 250 million farmers out of work,
Peter Kotecki, Business
Insider (8 August 2018)
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