I believe we need to make sure food production is not impacted by the current pandemic in the short term (next few months/years). The tools we have are tests, quarantines, and maybe a pay hike to insentivize people to keep at it.
In the longer term I believe that you are right. We should probably automate more, to ensure efficiency, and decentralize more to ensure sustainability and redundancy. However it would probably be incredibly difficult to do this during a pandemic. Though, i guess decentralization could be achieved in a way by people replacing their lawns with food producing gardens.
Pay them $100/hour and provide breaks and good work schedules and watch people flock to the jobs. Some people may be unable to afford the new prices of the produce, but it is what it is.
Why can’t people be laborers regarding their basic needs some times, and academics sometimes?
It’s a pretty traditional values “I am king now and forever” notion to think one life one career.
There’s nothing biological preventing a rotation between work over our lives.
And many philosophers too have warned about division of labor making for a society of ignorant humans. Following orders rather than their curiosity.
IMO first worlders who can should. You’re not a god and the billions that outnumber us are catching up fast. Pointing big guns at them and saying “lol, no” isn’t gonna work forever.
Because they are weaker and less efficient than machines.
If I had the choice and can afford to choose between a person picking fruit and a machine picking fruit, I will pick the machine.
A human will get sick. A machine won’t.
A human needs breaks and insurance and have to be paid. Machines don’t.
If a human is broken, a life is affected. If a machine breaks down, it can be repaired and sent to the fields to work again.
Also, I can depreciate a machine as a deduction. When a human ‘depreciates’ for someone to profit from that, it is a crime against our own species.
I am a god in my farm because I own it. I don’t know any farmer who would pick unreliable, easily breakable, under paid(if they have a conscience, it should bother them) human worker over reliable machines because the prime directive of a business is to stay viable and profitable. The farmer wants to make a profit and hopefully in an ethical and sustainable manner.
Human workers for repetitive manual unskilled jobs is not sustainable.
The only solution is automation of most Ag operations, create many more decentralized food production/distribution hubs that is more sustainable. Food security necessarily means assured labour supply.
No one wants their kids to be farm labourers. As we educate more of the world population, why would they come to the field and do manual labour? We need Ag robots and automated platforms of all sizes for farms at different scales. Farm labour is implicitly exploitative.
The only solution is automation and reducing manual labour/labour costs for food crops.