[stelonix]

Hello, also a developer who's interested in agroecology. I actually also left development (as a job, not as something I do) in order to pursue a more human-centric approach to agriculture. With automation, it seems obvious we'll be seeing way more unemployment than what's happening right now, which is already alarming; small farms with synergistic crops & forestation seems like a no-brainer to achieve food sustainability. Plus, chemical pesticides are usually not used in syntropic systems, which makes it good for your health too.

I dropped out of Agroecology course in 2018 but I actively work with it or did before the pandemic at least.

[neltnerb]

I am skeptical that "more farm workers" is a trend that anyone really wants. Maybe at small scale you can sell produce at vastly higher prices to make up for the higher costs, but I don't think that what you're suggesting would be good for agriculture if adopted broadly.

[stelonix]

Like others said, from a pov of global economics and current geopolitics, it might not make sense. But when you factor in sustainability, independence from the system and health, things begin to make more sense. Mono-cultures degrade the soil, up to a point when it'll no longer be able to sprout that culture anymore, so what do these millionaire farmers do? They just log more and more of our forests in order to plant. That's where all this logging in the amazon rainforest comes from.

All of this happens due to the green revolution & mass automation. We have papers plus empirical evidence you can turn any used up soil into good farming soil, if only we mimic the way nature does it, creating micro-climates with different cultures next to each other. One of the good outcomes of this method is that you don't even need chemical pesticides, because policultures are inherently more resistant to plagues. That and with this method, we attempt to use natural predators to cope with them too. It's basically a method of rebuilding forests, which is why it's called an agroforestry system

[entangledqubit]

How much of this not "good for agriculture" is a result of a mispricing that doesn't factor in the unsustainability of the current mainstream approach? Like many areas this may involve more human workers before later transitioning to smarter machines in the long run.

[neltnerb]

Sure, that's fine. I was too unclear, I don't think jobs should be a reason to intentionally make farming less automated and that if fully manual or mostly manual farming somehow became the dominant approach it would simply not scale.

I am aware that family farms are more productive per acre and more sustainable usually, but there just aren't that many farmers or people who want to be farmers as a percentage of the population... it's hard work and exactly the kind of labor I'd expect to see automated right back away again ASAP.

Helping farmers with new automation tools that enable sustainable farming seems like a far better option than trying to disrupt farming in a way that intentionally increases the labor required to feed people. If the goal is to help people get back in touch with nature that's a great goal. It's just not a goal I think could be widely adopted.

Farmers are very smart, as the article mentions. If you give them the tools they need, they will use them if they make sense. Heck, farmers are pushing hard for the right to repair and modify their equipment (i.e. http://repair.org/agriculture/)

Edit: In case this is still unclear (it's hard to phrase right), I'm trying to make the point that you're better off trying to create a win-win with existing farmers rather than trying to start from scratch. If they are given better tools they will generally prefer to make their farms and soil healthier because it improves their bottom line. I don't think it makes sense to flip it around and completely change the agriculture system twice.

[feteru]

Might not be good for agriculture economy, but more farmers means more people with the means to feed themselves. Sounds like something I want.

[mixedCase]

Trade is fairly efficient at that too.

[lm28469]

> With automation, it seems obvious we'll be seeing way more unemployment than what's happening right now

I fully support the underlying message, but automation has been happening at large scale for 70+ years now, unemployment rate doesn't follow automation, jobs are just shifted to other industries/sectors.

[dustyleary]

In other words, "Automation hasn't increased unemployment in the past, even though some pesky scientists and economists said that it would eventually be a problem. Some of those people were wrong in the past, therefore automation will never increase unemployment, ever."

[imtringued]

This topic is boring me to death already. I'll keep it short. Automation+competition mean cheaper potatoes (or anything really). Cheaper potatoes means you save $10 per month. Now you can spend $10 on something else. Maybe on a movie or you save the money and go to a theme park with your kid. This represents a new employment opportunity (less farming more entertainment). Therefore automation isn't causing structural long term unemployment.

However there is a darker side to automation. What if automation is used without any competition? e.g. your company has a first mover advantage and it takes 4 years for the competition to catch up. What happens is that the potatoes stay at the same price but the company is increasing its profit margin which benefits the owners/shareholders of the company at the expense of workers. This isn't about unemployment. This is about wealth inequality. When a company replaces a worker with a machine it becomes more profitable but the worker gets nothing.

Society needs to change in a way that the laid off workers benefit from automation to the point that people are hoping their job gets automated or they decide to automate their own job. If someone gets laid off by automation for the third time that person should be happy, not sad.

[primroot]

Contrast this with J.S. Mill.

"Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot. "

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Yes; if people claim that X will cause Y, and over decades of doing X it continues to not cause Y, I'd like some very compelling reasons to suddenly believe that X is going to start causing Y.