I know little about farming or harvesting, but I’m curious what types of crops actually require manual harvesting?
Do we really need to rely on stoop labor to hand-pick crops, or has a relatively cheap labor pool allowed farmers to avoid the costs of automation?
If labor is to be in perennial short supply in the future, I wonder if American farmers will simply be forced to turn to crops that allow machine harvesting.
There are some crops that they've been trying for years to harvest robotically but they just require too many input variables that a human can see in seconds but a robot just can't do it yet. Do a search on harvesting cabbages with robots, for example they're close but not yet there.
Things that are grown on trees and bushes and are also delicate. Most cereal crops and plenty of ground/root vegetable cultivation is already mostly automated.
Do we really need to rely on stoop labor to hand-pick crops, or has a relatively cheap labor pool allowed farmers to avoid the costs of automation?
If labor is to be in perennial short supply in the future, I wonder if American farmers will simply be forced to turn to crops that allow machine harvesting.