> "organic"
I've been going to my local farmers' market for a while. It's interesting to see what people use "organic" as a proxy for. For some, they want to support small family farms. Others will settle for "no spray" produce that's not certified organic. Some people are scared to death of GMOs, and that's one way to avoid them. Organic eggs are also free-range (but it' still not as nice as you'd picture), and there's minimal use of antibiotics during production.
Re:The Farm Automation Breakthrough
by 11235813213455 on Monday July 29, 2019 @06:02AM
(#20552996)
Just crushing, cutting or suffocating weeds (under a tarp) are really more effective indeed, it acts as mulch and protection
It's sold as "weeding as a service". If you need large-scale weeding, Pacific Ag Rentals in Salinas, CA, will rent you a Robovator. That's made in Denmark, and Pacific Ag Rentals beefed it up for serious use. It kills weeds by chopping them out of the ground with computer-controlled knives. No chemicals, so, "organic".
Making these things rugged enough to do the job is a problem. The R&D projects tend to have flimsy mechanical engineering. You want to be able to pressure-wash the thing. Dust-tight and water-tight are solved problems, but most machine learning people have never dealt with that.