Farmers have embraced power equipment for decades, part of the transformation of agriculture from small-scale farms that relied on manual labor to a highly mechanized sector with a much smaller workforce. “In a world where robotics and artificial intelligence are predicted to dramatically impact workforce needs in the future, agriculture has already been down that road,” says the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader in a story that tries to forecast the future of automation on the farm. In many ways, equipment and technology, such as auto-steering for farm equipment and GPS mapping of fields, fill the gap created by a smaller rural population.
Lucas Lentsch, the state agriculture secretary, tells the Argus Leader that labor formerly occupied on the farm has moved into value-added agriculture industries. He sees a greater demand for intellectual labor. Software developer Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, says the evolution of automation and technology will continue to transform the sector. The Argus quotes Ford as saying, “I’m sure you have cattle or hogs that require manpower in your slaughter houses. But you’ll see robots slaughtering animals in the future…And again, that will definitely impact agriculture jobs there.”