{"id":8298,"date":"2018-10-31T22:28:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T21:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298"},"modified":"2018-10-31T22:28:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T21:28:49","slug":"the-future-of-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298","title":{"rendered":"The future of agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wheat\"<\/a>I’ve been thinking about the future of agriculture this week.\u00a0 This first arose since I read a very interesting article on the use of robots in agriculture.\u00a0 They are already in use to a limited extent.\u00a0 At the moment robots are pruning grapes, milking and picking lettuce and strawberries.\u00a0 They are also mapping farmland in a forensic manner.\u00a0 Soil varies over farmland due to the underlying geology, topology and physical features.\u00a0 This affects light, shade, moisture and soil pH.\u00a0 Small robots are mapping farms in incredible detail which allows precision agriculture.<\/p>\n

But all this is only the start.\u00a0 Two British companies are developing robots that will do precision weeding and add fertilizer in precise ways at the level of the plant and harvest broccoli.\u00a0 All this raises a whole series of ethical and other questions.\u00a0\u00a0 Precision agriculture using robots offers clear environmental benefits at the plant level.\u00a0 The weeding robot identifies the weeds and blasts them with a laser rather than using pesticide.\u00a0 Robotic farming according to its proponents offers less ploughing, ripping out hedgerows as well as less pesticide use (and presumably higher yields).\u00a0 However I see some big potential drawbacks.\u00a0 First robots will require energy.\u00a0 Both to run and also to make (often forgotten).\u00a0 Some of the small ones could be fitted with solar PV but this vision is one of a high energy future which is not necessarily the way things are going to go.\u00a0 The second issue is that of employment.\u00a0 The number of people employed in agriculture has been falling for the last 200 years and is pretty minimal now.\u00a0 The areas where large numbers of people are employed is in seasonal fruit picking.\u00a0 Brexit has thrown this into sharp relief since British people do not seem to want to do this anymore and many of the workers are from the EU (reports have suggested they are not always well treated).\u00a0 Wherever the production is done the process at the moment creates some employment.\u00a0 At least one of the companies involved recognises this and is determined its products will not put people out of work although how they can do this is unclear to me.<\/p>\n

The future of agriculture has another vision that I saw on the TV news tonight.\u00a0 That is rewilding.\u00a0 The vision is non intensive agriculture with the land turned over to free foraging cattle, pigs and tourism. Unlike the vision above its a high employment vision with the farmer talking about the farm now having 1870’s levels of employment.\u00a0 Its a reasonably low energy vision. \u00a0 The problem is this is not about feeding the world.\u00a0 There you have it two different futures.\u00a0 Diametrically opposed.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been thinking about the future of agriculture this week.\u00a0 This first arose since I read a very interesting article on the use of robots in agriculture.\u00a0 They are already in use to a limited extent.\u00a0 At the moment robots … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,3,15,1],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-8298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-food","category-peak-oil","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-uncategorized","tag-food"],"yoast_head":"\nThe future of agriculture - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298\",\"name\":\"The future of agriculture - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-31T21:28:49+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/b6f2831189b0d01294e9672bb540ba6f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The future of agriculture\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil\",\"description\":\"Blogging by Neil and Andy about Peak oil and faith.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/b6f2831189b0d01294e9672bb540ba6f\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2070f70411f2eab27f08cd0b2332e27e3987c781423ecba6c16b575181ce2a6a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2070f70411f2eab27f08cd0b2332e27e3987c781423ecba6c16b575181ce2a6a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The future of agriculture - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298","url":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298","name":"The future of agriculture - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg","datePublished":"2018-10-31T21:28:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/b6f2831189b0d01294e9672bb540ba6f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/wheat-300x201.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8298#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The future of agriculture"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/","name":"The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil","description":"Blogging by Neil and Andy about Peak oil and faith.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/b6f2831189b0d01294e9672bb540ba6f","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2070f70411f2eab27f08cd0b2332e27e3987c781423ecba6c16b575181ce2a6a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2070f70411f2eab27f08cd0b2332e27e3987c781423ecba6c16b575181ce2a6a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8299,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions\/8299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}