How Automated Farms Could Change the World

Automated farms could make a huge difference in growing large amounts of food much cheaper than has been done in the past.

Many farms around the world, especially in more developed areas, already use advanced systems for planting and harvesting, but most of this still requires a lot of human intervention (i.e. manual work).

A lot of farming work is still done very manually. Automation of much of this will save significant amounts of labour and increase the amount of food produced per worker and per acre.

The increasing use of automation and other advanced methods to improve the growing of food is not a sudden change, but a gradual change. However, it has huge implications for the world as it progresses.

There have been significant increases in crop and livestock yields over the last 100 years or so, not all of this has been good for the environment or for the quality of the food. There is a lot of potential for advanced farming methods, using robotics, automation, vertical farming etc, to multiply the per acre yields much further. There is also potential for this to improve the quality of the food, and also reduce the environmental impact of farming.

For example, indoor vertical farms can be located in the middle of cities, close to where the food will be sold. These can have a significantly higher yield than broad acre farms (often 100 times the yield), and can nearly guarantee reliable delivery of produce every day of the year.

There is the potential to affordably grow food in a sustainable way, and in most or all environments.

Some of the technologies being applied to farming that is all part of this automation (and yield improvement) are:

Some example companies developing or applying some of these are:

What other positive or negative outcomes do you think may come from the widespread automation of farming?