so what are us serfs going to do now?

While robots can help polyculture farmers, they can help monoculture farmers even more.

If robots boost permaculture outputs by 50%, but big-ag outputs by 200%, are we any closer to 'saving the world'?

If a technology benefits 'the bad guys' more than it benefits 'the good guys' what should one's position on it be?

I think that permaculture, in finer definitions, might be one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder, though with more strictures than beauty.

Firstly, though, low-paying unskilled labour isn't the same as serfdom. Unskilled labourers aren't tied to their land. Granted, they still have tax obligations, but they have mobility, which gives them more options than the landed poor.

People are going to fall through the cracks any time there's a disruptive technology or business introduced into society.

Do I necessarily like floor-cleaning robots and self-checkouts? For my own convenience, I must admit that, when the technology works, there are times I would rather not see anyone.

Is is worth it to me to relegate whole strata of society to joblessness and poverty? No. Do I think that's likely to happen? It depends.

The part about automisation that many ignore is this: why are the people working these jobs only working these jobs? Could they not do better? Are they truly challenged by the work? Why is a full-grown human adult of average intelligence doing work that a souped-up zoomba can do? Why do we need people to scan our goods in for us? Could these people not be doing something more fullfilling and useful than robot work?

If, growing up, none of us had known about jobs as custodians, truckers, check-out attendants, or bank tellers, except maybe as programmers and techs who ensure the robots are functioning properly, would anyone dream of unplugging the robot so they could replace it, to sweep floors all day, or would they dream bigger, learn more, and become better humans?

These are the cries of historical dutch workers throwing their wooden sabots into the gearing of machines, for fear they will lose their jobs. The answer isn't to stymie progress, but to embrace it.

And who is going to take up the retraining and repurposing of all these people who should have been helped to aim higher all this time? Well government's got to be good for something, right? If they're going to spend our taxes somewhere, I would rather more of it goes to training people for more advanced and rewarding jobs than on the usual politicking.

Tim Kivi wrote: Maybe innovative robots could make permaculture more competitive by innovative methods?

One iteration I see is the following. Imagine a field dotted with regularly-spaced centre-pivot irrigation systems, with the edges of the circles separated by access paths. Now instead of sprayers, imagine the gantry of the centre-pivot system outfitted much like a CNC machine or 3D printer, but with heads with interchangeable tools well-suited to minimal, or ideally no-till, systems, such as seed drills, and perhaps a weeding tool.

This centre-pivot stationary cultivator could be programmed with an intensely complicated polyculture pattern that takes in every variable we can think of and accomodates for it, and could plant it's whole surface area according to square-foot gardening spacing and companion planting, could remember what seed is planted where, to reseed in the event of non-germination, or to transplant seedlings to empty spaces instead of thinning, to regularly eliminate "weeds" (I don't normally use the term, but in the case of something so intricately balanced, that's exactly what they'd be, or they'd be sewn intentionally), and to harvest faster-maturing crops from in-between slower-maturing ones and reseed with something else.

I think, with this as a non-exhaustive example of what could be accomplished, that it can easily be argued that such automation could further the goals of permaculture and feed many more people much healthier food from smaller surface areas and resource outlays.

And if the four-arm diamond voidspace between circles was planted to pollinator crops, probably including a food forest-type copse featuring at least one food-producing member of each trophic level, each with a beehive or a collection of small bee hotels, then yes, I think you could call it permaculture.

If government endorses, or even allows, automation at the expense of the workers, it is the government's responsibility to find them new work, in the larger sense if not the individual one.

Do I think the government, any government, will get it right the first-time, or even second-time out? No, and not until they're made to do so, unless someone campaigns and wins on it, and is held to it by the electorate.

But automisation isn't evil, no more than better hand-tools than digging sticks are evil. Would you give up your spade for a digging stick with a fire-hardened point, even if it meant that a hundred digging-stick-using jobs would be created by banning shovels? Of course not, although in that example, the limiting factor would be the amount of effort in versus the amount of food extracted. Looking at it from the other end, why are resources being wasted on a hundred people with digging sticks when the same amount of work could be accomplished by one person with a shovel, without having to feed another 99 people on the produce?

-CK

Tim Bermaw wrote:While robots can help polyculture farmers, they can help monoculture farmers even more.

If robots boost permaculture outputs by 50%, but big-ag outputs by 200%, are we closer to 'saving the world'?

If a technology benefits 'the bad guys' more than it benefits 'the good guys' what should one's position on it be?

That is, of course, a good point.

I think, though, that you are fostering a false equivalency. Food grown in polyculture is vastly superior in a nutritional sense to conventional agriculture, mainly because of the sprays needed to keep a monoculture of pest candy pest-free, but also because of the soil-depleting nature of monocrops, and the practices associated with them.

This doesn't help the polyculturalists' bottom line unless they can capitalise on it, but to say the two are the same flies in the face of why we're here.

So the trick is, as with the larger "real food" issue, is to stop calling the edible poison that comes out of monocropped conventional agriculture, even organic, if it's monocropped, food. They're debatably edible goods. There's an american food industry term that describes questionable food additives as something to the effect of, "generally considered safe for human consumption," or, "if you eat it, it probably won't kill you, at least, not a small quantity, right away or over a short period." I think commoditised, monocrop-produced imitation food needs to be seen as a different thing than what we talk about as "food" in permacultural terms.

Then it doesn't matter how many times more it could benefit monocroppers. If they can't sell their "food" crops, there's no profit in the outlay for expensive chemicals and equipment.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:Food grown in polyculture is vastly superior in a nutritional sense to conventional agriculture ...

Agreed.

So the trick is, as with the larger "real food" issue, is to stop calling the edible poison that comes out of monocropped conventional agriculture, even organic, if it's monocropped, food. ... I think commoditised, monocrop-produced imitation food needs to be seen as a different thing than what we talk about as "food" in permacultural terms.

Then it doesn't matter how many times more it could benefit monocroppers. If they can't sell their "food" crops, there's no profit in the outlay for expensive chemicals and equipment.

Whilst I agree that that's a very important issue, several things come to mind:

1)  I seem to recall a law in the USA that allowed/required GMO products to be labelled as such.  Big-Ag bribed some politicians and had that repealed/replaced.  Now I think the situation is that individual states are actually prevented from passing laws that force foods containing GMO products (e.g. Roundup Ready X) to be labelled accordingly.  So, without wanting to stray too far into politics, I just want to assert my belief that "truth in advertising" is simply not possible in the corporatist/fascist states that constitute the bulk of the Western world.

2)  In the absence of meaningful food labels, consumers are unable to make informed decisions about what they buy.

3)  Uninformed consumers will purchase cheap, cleverly-packaged products — as they have done for decades, and do now.

4)  Cheap food products are — almost without exception — monoculture products.

5)  Jobless serfs with very low incomes will therefore consume monoculture products — not only through ignorance, but almost by economic necessity.

Good food costs more.  As neo-Feudalism develops and the middle-class degenerates into serfdom, fewer and fewer people will be able to afford good food.

Automation not only favours monoculture on the supply side, but the demand side as well.  That's one heck of a powerful feedback loop.

Which is where we get back to arguments for voting with one's dollar. For the reasons you've outlined, this is difficult.

Again, serfs are land-tied, not merely unskilled labourers. So serfs would actually have a leg-up on the unskilled labourers without access to land in that respect. Serfs could, at least, plant an intensive garden. Unskilled labourers who rent and likely don't have more than a container garden, if that, are more hard-pressed.

Corporatism is a problem, I will agree, and I have to applaud the use of that term where most would wrongly use "capitalism."

I think it's necessary for the food poison industry to undergo some painful spasms, which are hopefully forthcoming, considering Bayer/Monsanto's ongoing losses in the legal sphere with regards to glyphosate, problematic for the whole pro-GMO movement because most of that shit has to do with growing crops that will "survive" in an otherwise toxic environment. Without glyphosate, Roundup-Ready corn, soy, wheat, cotton, and anything else will be pretty much useless. Which is fine by me; Bayer should have stuck to making Asprin. Their pain is joy to me.

A funny thing happened to my eating when I decided that I would only, or at least mostly, buy my meat from the local butcher, who sources locally and ethically-raised animals. I went from eating meat every day, and sometimes twice a day, to less than once a week. I don't miss it anymore, and I really enjoy my meat when I do get to have it. I actually find myself making "accidentally vegan" meals, as most of the dried or frozen foods we keep on-hand are plant-based, and olive oil is cheaper than butter.

So while there are places where, because of stupid anti-labelling laws, it would be difficult to impossible to do, mindful eating, and mindful shopping, is the way to bleed the corporatocracy at the grassroots level.

Of course, the real change is to be had in eliminating the power that lobbyists hold over elected officials. But further conversation on getting the big money out of government is definitely cider press material, so if we want to pursue it, that's where we're going to have to take this.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:Again, serfs are land-tied, not merely unskilled labourers. So serfs would actually have a leg-up on the unskilled labourers without access to land in that respect. Serfs could, at least, plant an intensive garden. Unskilled labourers who rent and likely don't have more than a container garden, if that, are more hard-pressed.

I find it both interesting and amusing that in medieval times land-bound serfs would dream of escaping to the cities to be free of the oppression/conditions that their feudal overlords forced upon them ... whilst in modern times land-less serfs dream of escaping to the country to be free of the oppression/conditions that their corporate overlords force upon them.  Ties to land were once seen as a problem.  Now they are seen as a solution.  

Tim Kivi wrote:Maybe innovative robots could make permaculture more competitive by innovative methods?

That was my thought,  robots planting guilds instead of monoculture.     Robots cultivating friendly insects instead of pesticides.


A tool is only as good as the user, consider, you are reading this now on a computer powered by electricity,  does the computer ad to permacuture, or does it add to the problem?     The users decides.

Su Ba wrote:I agree that they easily could do it.  But is it permaculture?

My take: yes.  Or no.  It depends on how those machines are programmed.

If mechanized autonomous robots are tilling the soil and planting massive mono-crops using petrochemical inputs, spray Round-up all over the field to deal with weeds, and harvest the crop only to leave the soil bare for the rest of the growing season . . . then no, that's not permaculture.

But if these same machines implement permaculture design principles as they plant, tend, and harvest, then yes, it's permaculture.  Its not about the tool, it's about the design.

Can you imagine a machine that is programmed to know exactly the perfect depth to plant each seed, the perfect distance between plants, the perfect combination of plants to create optimum guilds, the perfect time to pull out cover crops and drop them as mulch next to the primary cash crop . . . all without tilling the soil?  That same machine would dispense a perfect amount of compost at the base of every plant that it is tending.  It might even give a perfectly measured squirt of water to each plant (perhaps infused with compost tea) to keep the soil at an optimal moisture level and not a drop more.  Such a machine might make its way across the field on pre-set rails once or twice a day, gently tweaking this or that, a prune here, a pulled weed there, a bit of mulch over on this place, etc.  And it never gets tired during its 24 hour work day.

Permaculturalists use machines all the time:

We use machines to determine the optimum placement of swales (laser levels and GPS mapping).

We use machines to stir compost tea or turn long windrows of compost.

We use machines to pump water for irrigation.

We use machines to electrify poly-wire to keep cattle in their paddock and bat-latches to drop open gates when it's time to move the cattle.

We use machines to optimize and simply the harvest of everything from greens to grains to ganders.  

We use machines to track storms, chart chill hours, predict frost and other weather related data that is so important.

And we use our computers to log onto this board to share ideas, seek solutions to problems, and gain inspiration from others who are doing this as well.

So why not use a machine that is designed to grow things using proven permaculture principles?

How many calories of fuel and energy go into the making of one robot? When does the robot "pay" for itself in the amount of calories harvested from the ground compared to those that went into it?

How many rare earth materials go into the making of the robot? How many people are underpaid and working in hazardous conditions to mine these materials?

Personally, I'd rather see humans do the work and be paid a living wage. I think that's probably more sustainable, rewarding, and has less human suffering. But then, I haven't run the numbers.

Nicole, even without running the numbers, it bothers me to see people losing work opportunities. I'm aware that change has been going on for centuries, and will continue until this species declines, but it bothers me. History shows that people lost their livelihoods due to progress, be it the development of the plow, the sickle bar mower, the tractor, the combine, etc . Most people adapted by acquiring new skills. But a group has difficulty adapting.....the older, the less educated, the less skilled, the less able, the less intelligent. This group struggles. And if there is no opportunity to acquire new skills, this group essentially sinks into deep poverty that it cannot get out of.

Nicole Alderman wrote:How many calories of fuel and energy go into the making of one robot? When does the robot "pay" for itself in the amount of calories harvested from the ground compared to those that went into it?

How many rare earth materials go into the making of the robot? How many people are underpaid and working in hazardous conditions to mine these materials?

Personally, I'd rather see humans do the work and be paid a living wage. I think that's probably more sustainable, rewarding, and has less human suffering. But then, I haven't run the numbers.

But it would be inhumane to suspend people from a centre-pivot irrigation rig in place of the robotic heads.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:

Nicole Alderman wrote:How many calories of fuel and energy go into the making of one robot? When does the robot "pay" for itself in the amount of calories harvested from the ground compared to those that went into it?

How many rare earth materials go into the making of the robot? How many people are underpaid and working in hazardous conditions to mine these materials?

Personally, I'd rather see humans do the work and be paid a living wage. I think that's probably more sustainable, rewarding, and has less human suffering. But then, I haven't run the numbers.

But it would be inhumane to suspend people from a centre-pivot irrigation rig in place of the robotic heads.

-CK

But there's other ways to irrigate (and to reduce the need to irrigate) that does not require a robotic head.

Much center-pivot irrigation is totally unsustainable.  https://sites.psu.edu/math033spring16/2016/02/19/center-pivot-irrigation-and-the-ogallala-aquifer/

Chris Kott wrote: One iteration I see is the following. Imagine a field dotted with regularly-spaced centre-pivot irrigation systems, with the edges of the circles separated by access paths. Now instead of sprayers, imagine the gantry of the centre-pivot system outfitted much like a CNC machine or 3D printer, but with heads with interchangeable tools well-suited to minimal, or ideally no-till, systems, such as seed drills, and perhaps a weeding tool.

This centre-pivot stationary cultivator could be programmed with an intensely complicated polyculture pattern that takes in every variable we can think of and accomodates for it, and could plant it's whole surface area according to square-foot gardening spacing and companion planting, could remember what seed is planted where, to reseed in the event of non-germination, or to transplant seedlings to empty spaces instead of thinning, to regularly eliminate "weeds" (I don't normally use the term, but in the case of something so intricately balanced, that's exactly what they'd be, or they'd be sewn intentionally), and to harvest faster-maturing crops from in-between slower-maturing ones and reseed with something else.

I was suggesting using the centre-pivot infrastructure, as detailed above, to program intensive polyculture guilds and to seed, weed, harvest, and reseed, according to square-foot gardening principles, without needing to accomodate for human access, and also thereby eliminating compaction. Pumping out aquifers you can't replenish is never good.

-CK

I'm very excited to see how permaculture evolves as it becomes the "mainstream" concept of how we live.

My job is to fix robots that took jobs from people. While I understand that it sucks for those who lost their livelihood I can't see how things could be different.  Why would I insist that we make nails by hand while we can build a machine that does it better and faster?

"so what are us serfs going to do now?"
It doesn't have to be exploitative. If nobody is going to build anything sensible then I'll build my own.

Chris Kott wrote:Why is a full-grown human adult of average intelligence doing work that a souped-up zoomba can do?

First off, I wanted to point out that roomba is the floor sweeper robot and zoomba is the fad aerobics program.  I don't know whether this statement was intentional or an autocorrect mistake, but either way, too funny!

Chris Kott wrote:One iteration I see is the following. Imagine a field dotted with regularly-spaced centre-pivot irrigation systems, with the edges of the circles separated by access paths. Now instead of sprayers, imagine the gantry of the centre-pivot system outfitted much like a CNC machine or 3D printer, but with heads with interchangeable tools well-suited to minimal, or ideally no-till, systems, such as seed drills, and perhaps a weeding tool.

This centre-pivot stationary cultivator could be programmed with an intensely complicated polyculture pattern that takes in every variable we can think of and accomodates for it, and could plant it's whole surface area according to square-foot gardening spacing and companion planting, could remember what seed is planted where, to reseed in the event of non-germination, or to transplant seedlings to empty spaces instead of thinning, to regularly eliminate "weeds" (I don't normally use the term, but in the case of something so intricately balanced, that's exactly what they'd be, or they'd be sewn intentionally), and to harvest faster-maturing crops from in-between slower-maturing ones and reseed with something else.

Interesting concept.  And as somebody said, "is it permaculture?"  Well, what if instead of doing a full 360, that thing is pivoting back and forth about the center point of a textbook "sun trap"?

On to a completely different question, I think another way of looking at "is it permaculture?" could be "is it sustainable without outside inputs?" if that were the case, then robots would always lose because they wear out.  Then again, we can/do argue the same things about solar panels, so...

Well, I don't know where we go from there
except to say: natural processes will always trump innovation / nature wins no matter how great the manmade tool gets.

Perhaps the entire thesis of this thread is upside down.  Rather than seeing AI as somehow being in opposition to permaculture, perhaps it will be the very thing that kicks the widespread adaptation of these principles into high gear.  

Given the choice between being a serf or a knowledge creator, I'd choose the later every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  Conventional agg creates its own kind of serfdom.  Intelligent design (whether that be artificially derived or conventionally acquired) is freedom.

I will never agree with the serf term (I will not comply) but the technology concept of the thread is fascinating. There was a university or government project about five years ago that would be interesting to show here. Can't find it & don't remember enough details to make a decent search. They had a big greenhouse with an overhead gantry. The gantry was controlled via the internet. Users could choose particular tools for the gantry to work the soil, plants, seeds, irrigate, & harvest their plants. Does anyone remember this?

I don't think anything requiring robots or other high tech fits the definition of permaculture but it might prove better than current big ag methods. I would venture a guess that it depends on who (or what) is controlling the technology.

That was a brainfart on my part. I had meant roomba.

The gantry idea could also be used in a non-stationary application, with one head per row seeding, weeding, and attending to a companion-planted square-foot gardening method in block-planted rows.

Not everyone wants to do what most of us permies want to, so permacultural methods that don't scale to levels equivalent to that which we wish them to replace aren't viable except on the cottage or homestead permaculture level.

Traditional permies, at this point, usually start talking about the human-scale aspect of permaculture. I like to keep in mind that, as anthropogenic climate change, from the wooden plow and goat through the industrial revolution, up to today have shown, the human-scale is larger than the homestead.

This kind of thinking, using technology as macro versions of 2D printers, with the landscape as a canvas and seed as the pigment, could allow for broad-acre intensive horticultural quality and scale food production, as well as intensive planting and management of pollinator food and habitat zones for, of course, the pollinators, and for topsoil runoff retention.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:
The part about automisation that many ignore is this: why are the people working these jobs only working these jobs? Could they not do better? Are they truly challenged by the work? Why is a full-grown human adult of average intelligence doing work that a souped-up zoomba can do? Why do we need people to scan our goods in for us? Could these people not be doing something more fullfilling and useful than robot work?


-CK

For the same reason a person with a master's degree ends up working as a parking lot attendant: because more fulfilling and useful jobs already have more applicants than openings.

When I apply for a better job, a job that would be, as you say, truly challenging, the rejection letter comes back saying they had 50 or 100 applicants for the one opening. And no matter what new skill sets I pursue, that stays the same, because all the other rejected applicants do the same thing.

"The Grand Farm initiative is designed to address what promoters say is the “pain points” of farm labor shortage and lack of venture capital to develop technology. Autonomous farming means farming robotically using artificial technology, even through the grain marketing phase, promoters say....."  (from linked article)


Thought it more appropriate to add to this thread instead of starting a new one....let me know if the link is bad:

https://www.inforum.com/business/agriculture/1015933-What-could-be-the-farm-of-the-future-is-taking-shape-just-outside-Fargo

The link is valid & an interesting read too. This seems like a good thread for it. Off to learn more about the drones it mentioned...  

A few interesting links on existing bots I found kicking around on the internet this morning:


1) FarmBot

Capabilities:
He can plant, spot-water, and hand weed.

Cons:
He's mounted directly to a raised bed, so limited use.

Pros:
On the other hand, he's also open-source/3d printed, therefore easier to get your hands on.  In fact, I could see his already designed tools being placed on another platform to reproduce any of the next options.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYrAWssrrY


2) Tertil

Capabilities:
He does nothing more than drive around and whack weeds all day.

Cons:
Limited functionality
$350 USD!

Pros:
Simple and chemical-free weeding solution
Seems to drive around rugged terrain very well!
Small size!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIFZewha1bI


3) Smallrobotcompany (UK) robots

Capabilities:
Can monitor, plant, and maintain farm (as three separate functions)

Cons:
They want to use separate robots to do separate things.

Pros:
Great designs.
Their seed drill is designed for never-till planting.
Can do non-chemical weeding (although they zap them with electricity, so seems like a bit of a fire hazard to me)

https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/


4) RIPPA

Capabilities:
More of an industrio-ag thing, but it has a lot of interesting features packed onto a legit all-in-one platform.

Cons:
A little large for most people
They do spot-shoot crops and weeds with chemicals (I guess it's at least better than spraying the whole crop)

Pros:
they do also have a robot hoe that can be used instead of the sprayer
I like that everything is all in one platform unlike smallrobotcompany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP7GoNKcTS4

Chris Kott wrote:Why do we need people to scan our goods in for us?

Because every time I used the self checkout, I got, "please remove items from the bagging area." Even though the only item in the bagging area was... the bag. Which I just told the machine I was using. And so the associate had to come and override it. Eventually I figured, if I need a human to assist me every time anyway, I might as well just use the regular checkout aisle.

Interesting interview with Greenfield Robotics