Exclusiva
The Headlines From Around Latin America and the Hispanic World
David Puente is the anchor for ABC News' "Exclusiva." He regularly reports on immigration and politics in Latin America and the Hispanic community in the U.S.
RECENT POSTS
EXCLUSIVA VIDEO
« Previous | Main | Next »
ROBOTS-THE NEW MIGRANT WORKERS?
September 06, 2007 12:58 PM
JULIA LA GRINGA- Though no hint of Hispanic heritage, she is a lover of everything Latin and is going to let you know about it. Here are her two cents on news in the Latino world.
Just when you thought the immigration debate couldn't get any more absurd, now robots are getting thrown into the mix. Yes, your heard right, robots.
Farmers in California are considering using specialized fruit-picking robots to respond to a dwindling migrant labor force.
Threat of increased illegal immigration crackdown from the DHS as well as ramped up enforcement and fence construction on the border, have left farmers short on laborers and apparently, with no other option than to search for solutions in the pages of a science fiction book.
A company in San Diego ready to respond to the crisis, is in the midst of fine tuning so called “agrobots.” These clever little machines can scan trees for fruit, determine if the fruit is ripe, pick, and clean fruit.
While these robots naturally have fruit pickers concerned, Jack King, head of national affairs for the California Farm Bureau, assures us that farmers still prefer the real thing. He told me they will continue to lobby Congress for reform to bring much needed migrant workers back to their farms.
“The urgency for reform is just as great or greater…we know we have no choice but to push ahead” said King.
And if pushing ahead doesn't work? We just may find ourselves eating oranges picked by R2-D2.
-Julia Hoppock
September 6, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (1)
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4df253ef00e54ed8a5a58833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference ROBOTS-THE NEW MIGRANT WORKERS?:
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
I am living in Japan and I can see where techonology can have it's advantages, and disadvantages. Fro the most part, the cost of fruits and vegetables are extremely expensive here due to the cost inherited with growing them. Labor may be an issue in USA but it's not the only problem. machines require technicians to service them so the job market for technology will expand as it has in Japan. Which means higher living standards for people who are now farm workers that will become mechanics.
Posted by: Frank | Sep 12, 2007 10:46:29 PM
Post a comment
