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Comment by kyle_morris_ | Hacker News Reader

I hope this doesn’t discourage farmers from using technology to improve efficiency, yields, profits, etc.

I can’t imagine how tough it is to farm for your livelihood. The pressure on farmers must be brutal - from John Deere making it impossible to fix/own your own tractor[0] to climate change, and now your landlord might not renew your lease.

At that point, why put so much effort into something with so little upside and so much downside for the farmer.

[0] https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

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> I hope this doesn’t discourage farmers from using technology to improve efficiency, yields, profits, etc.

Throughout history of settled humans, Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress. The wheel, the plow, and all sorts of machines. It's a common theme to depict them as technologically backwards, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Another common but misguided theme is to depict them as stupid, which they aren't in any form or fashion. They know when something is harmful to them, and this is an instance.

> Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress.

You would think we would see more automation and fewer cows being milked by hand were this true.

You should do a web search for cow milking technology. Moral milk? DeLaval International, a large Swedish producer of dairy and other farming equipment, is installing 24 robotic voluntary – meaning the cows approach the stations on their own

Did you have specific areas where there should be more automation? There is a lot of automation in farming.The tractors can drive themselves and planters continuously monitor and correct themselves. What is your definition of milking by hand? I suspect the percentage of cows milked by hand is extremely low. Even small family farms use milking machines.

I worked on a dairy farm for years. The jobs done by hand are done by hand for a reason.

The primary method of milking cows in the US has been by machine for decades...

And most farms in the US are highly automated: automated sprinklers, automated tractors, automated planters, automated harvesters (of crops that are amenable to machine harvesting).

It's simply that there are a lot of food crops that are trivial for humans to harvest by hand that would require very expensive machinery and technology to accomplish with a machine.

This. The supply of cheap human labor tends to make technological progress slower.

The amount of hand milked product in the western world is miniscule. Probably there is a niche market but eco yuppies for hand milked pasture etc.

> improve efficiency, yields, profits

But those are already maximized to hell and back, to the detriment of the other crucial factors (e.g. Monarch Butterflies going extinct.)

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