What is the future of farming? There were 12 million people employed in agriculture in the U.S. in the year 1900, which was 1 out of every 6 people. Today, there are about 1.7 million, which is just 1 out of every 50 people who are employed in agriculture. Two professors from the University of Florida say a robotic revolution is going to allow for increased food production in a sustainable way. Dr. Senthold Asseng, who teaches at UF’s Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, and Dr. Frank Asche, a UF professor of Natural Resource Economics, concludes that future farmers will likely be data scientists, programmers and “robot wranglers.”
Joining us from the studio at WUFT in Gainesville, the professors discuss their recent paper “Future Farms Without Farmers,” which was published in the journal of “Science Robotics.”