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Economic and Societal Aspects

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Advanced Automation for Tree Fruit Orchards and Vineyards

Part of the book series: Agriculture Automation and Control ((AGAUCO))

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Abstract

This chapter discusses economic and societal aspects of automation in tree fruit orchards and vineyards. We start by explaining economists’ views on the drivers of technology development and move to a discussion about the social welfare implications of automation under scenarios of farm labor abundance and scarcity. We also discuss the relationship between economic development and the societal transition out of farm work, how farm labor scarcity influences farming decisions, and how economists model the decision to adopt labor-saving technologies. We conclude with some thoughts about the possibility of a future with advanced robotic harvesting systems operated by highly skilled personnel.

Zachariah Rutledge gratefully acknowledges funding from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) (proposal number 2018-08525).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See California Agrarian Action Project, Inc. v. Regents of the University of California (1989).

  2. 2.

    The National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) is a nationally representative annual survey of crop farm workers that is administered by the US Department of Labor.

  3. 3.

    Farm labor contractors are employers who enter into contracts with farmers to provide certain services, such as pruning, weeding, and harvesting.

  4. 4.

    The survey collected information on farmers spanning a period of 5 years between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2018.

  5. 5.

    A number of media reports and technologies are featured on the farmlabor.ucdavis.edu website.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Zachariah Rutledge

  2. Department Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    J. Edward Taylor

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  1. Zachariah Rutledge
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  2. J. Edward Taylor
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Correspondence to J. Edward Taylor .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Stavros G. Vougioukas

  2. Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington State University, Prosser, WA, USA

    Qin Zhang

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Rutledge, Z., Taylor, J.E. (2023). Economic and Societal Aspects. In: Vougioukas, S.G., Zhang, Q. (eds) Advanced Automation for Tree Fruit Orchards and Vineyards. Agriculture Automation and Control. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26941-7_10

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