[jcims]

Depends on what you’re harvesting but the challenges are likely to be in the actual picking motion not dropping/bruising/cutting the food, if there is any selection happening the senses of touch and smell are largely gone, navigating the plant without damaging it, not compacting the soil around the roots more than necessary, overall speed, etc.

Bespoke harvesters for things like potatoes and almonds obviously destroy humans in the productivity department. If we’re still picking it that’s a good signal that automation will be tricky.

We probably have the technology to do most of it now, but you may wind up with a half million dollar robot.