11/14/18 - Robots May Soon be Harvesting Your Crops

Host and American Family Farmer Doug Stephan www.eastleighfarm.com offers news about how Family Farmers are reacting to the Midterm Election and how they are investigating alternative markets for their products. Next, Doug welcomes Paul Bissett, Chief Operating Officer of Harvest Croo Robotics www.harvestcroo.com . Paul is a Wall Street bond trader, PhD in Computational Science, Naval Oceanographer, who says: "This year a half-million dollars of crop was left on the ground at one farm because there wasn’t sufficient labor." Harvest Croo, a robotics company is tackling the problem of ag automation. U.S. strawberry farms spend nearly a third of their budget on harvest labor, and the cost is rising. Harvest Croo is building a strawberry picker that can take the place of 30 people in the field. By 2030, technology like this could be common place on fruit and veg operations. Finally, Doug Stephan opines about all kinds of Robotics in farming and his future plans to become a Hemp Farmer.