Genuine question: I'm aware that 100% automation for pretty much all agricultural processes is likely highly impractical if not borderline infeasible. As someone inexperienced with either robotics or agriculture, are you saying that chasing the "100%" is bad or are you saying that we're already mostly past the point of diminishing returns? My uninformed opinion is that I agree with the statement "let farmers farm", but we should keep looking at robots / software / AI to find ways to let farmers farm more for less. But keeping the mindset of building tools to enable individuals to do more is essential, moreso than the idea of replacing the farmer.
Many agricultural processes are already automated, in the field.
Combines drive themselves, drone spraying, on and on. If you go to a real, modern farm you will find a ton of automation. We don't need them to be vertical or indoors to do so.
Farming is HUGELY automated, its not automation that is the problem, it is people outside of farming thinking they can improve processes without FIRST understanding what they are doing.
For example, vertical farming aims replace the SUN with LED lights. The "garden bot" aims to replace rain and watching the weather with a watering robot. These are not the things plants "want".
From what I've been hearing is its all marketing and no farmers are actually using it. Basically it is financially nonsensical compared to chemical herbicides. That and driving a tractor through the fields 2, 3 or 4 more times at 2-3 MPH per season isn't great. Basically more of a solution looking for a problem.
"Vertical farming" has got to be one of the stupidest ideas the tech bros have tried to introduce to agriculture pretty much ever.
Also topping the list are laser weed removal and automatically growing plants with robots. Please guys please just stop and let the farmers farm.
1. https://carbonrobotics.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqIm_B...
2. https://robovision.ai/resources/success-story/ai-in-horticul...