233050


Apple-picking robots?

Harvesting Washington state's vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farmworkers, and many of them work illegally in the United States.

That system eventually could change dramatically as at least two companies are rushing to get robotic fruit-picking machines to market. The robotic pickers don't get tired and can work 24 hours a day.

"Human pickers are getting scarce," said Gad Kober, a co-founder of Israel-based FFRobotics. "Young people do not want to work in farms, and elderly pickers are slowly retiring."

FFRobotics and Abundant Robotics, of Hayward, Calif., are racing to get their mechanical pickers to market within the next couple of years.

Harvest has long been mechanized for large portions of the agriculture industry, such as wheat, corn, green beans, tomatoes and many other crops. But for more fragile commodities, harvest is still done by hand.

Members of the $7.5 billion annual Washington agriculture industry have long grappled with labour shortages, and depend on workers coming up from Mexico each year to harvest many crops.

President Donald Trump's hard line against immigrants in the U.S. illegally has many farmers in the country looking for alternative harvest methods.

The eventual loss of jobs for humans will be huge, said Erik Nicholson of Seattle, an official with the United Farm Workers union.



More Business News



232708
230970
Data from CryptoCompare
RECENT STORIES
229713
227964
Castanet Proud Member of RTNDA Canada
Press Room
232391