Subjectivity about automation makes its problems complex to solve—The case of mechanization in American Industrial Farming
First article of the series on Automation in Industrial Farming
With the advent of new technological advancements in the agricultural industry, it has become easier to support domestication while increasing production for driving economic incentives. While the improved technology for domestication and farming techniques has helped many animal species by satisfying all their needs for survival and allowing them to reproduce, it has made it extremely hard to establish a ground for their subjective well-being. Moving on from the plight of animals to that of workers and producers in the U.S. economy, these advancements in technology have brought a huge shift in the economics of production, proving detrimental to workers and beneficial to producers. Whom do we favor? Protect animals, workers, or producers? Here the discussion works towards building arguments on whether the progression of mechanization or technological advancements in Industrial Farming does more harm than good. Three authors, Yuval Noah Harari, Michael J. Coren, Yoav Sarig in their articles, talk about the plight of farm animals, producers, and workers respectively as a consequence of technological improvements in Industrial farming. Harari, the author of the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, argues in his article “Industrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in History” that mechanization deemed extremely detrimental to lives of various farm animals as it causes harm to the collective life forms on our planet. Sarig in his article “Alternatives to Immigrant Labor?” leans on towards accepting mechanization in Industrial Farming to carve a way to aid U.S. Producers. Michael J. Coren brings in data in the article “Cheap Robots Are Coming for Our Farm Jobs by Taking the Most Brutal Tasks First” to suggest that mechanization in the field has worked against an American labor’s opportunity to work. This conversation, a product of these articles, builds from different subjective interpretations about whom should be favored the most to maximize the overall reduction of negative side-effects of mechanization in Industrial Farming, making it complex to solve.
Poor animals!
Harari’s stance on mechanization deals with the plight of farm animals while describing the ways it is detrimental to their subjective well-being, pointing towards how life, as the collective union of all species, over time has faced a majority of oppression by mechanization. His article’s title “Industrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in History” itself rejects the whole concept of mechanization in Industrial farming being beneficial. He argues that progression in industrial farming has severe detrimental consequences on the lives of farm animals despite technology aiding the survival of the respective species. To start off with, Harari’s background suggests that his opinions stem from a view that results from his research in the history of Homo sapiens and their impact on the planet’s ecosystem. He considers all consequences affecting every species Sapiens influenced over the generations. He talks about ethical obligations to the lives of farm animals which are influenced by the progression of Industrial farming. He points out that although such progression ensured farm animals such as pigs, cows, and chickens to satisfy their needs of survival, their subjective well being that is derived from evolutionary processes have fallen prey to cages and ill-treatment by Humans.
Harari adds that humans “continue to mold the subjective experiences of the animal. The physical, emotional and social needs of present-day cows, dogs, and humans don’t reflect their current conditions but rather the evolutionary pressures their ancestors encountered tens of thousands of years ago.” (Harari 235). This means that suddenly changing how these species experience their respective worlds, made it harder for them to acquire their needs for subjective well-being they inherited from their ancestors. This involves pigs, cows, and chicken needing open land to freely wander, suddenly finding themselves trapped in cages, deprived of the freedom to move. With this deprivation affecting billions of these animals at scale, a result of technology aiding the species to grow rapidly only to cage them, Harari argues that mechanization has been, and will be detrimental to life overall.
Producers are going to be happy
Not concerning his arguments with the plight of farm animals, Sarig in his article “Alternatives to Immigrant Labor?” discusses the benefits of mechanization the U.S. Producers need to survive in the Agricultural Industry, specifically its advantages in cost-effectiveness to help end the dependence on foreign suppliers. The author claims “Declining labor availability and increasing labor costs are reducing U.S. growers competitiveness with foreign suppliers. Harvest mechanization and improved production technologies show promise for keeping U.S. growers in business” (Sarig). This shows that data that points out that hand-harvesting of fruits and vegetables count towards 50% of the total production costs in the U.S.
Due to the unavailability of labor and increasing costs has been extremely difficult for the U.S. producers to keep up with the demands, thereby making them have a hard time competing with foreign suppliers to fuel the industry. The authors argue that if there is an effort made to improve mechanization to reduce costs, U.S. producers will gain an ability to stay in the market, reducing the need for foreign suppliers. The author favors mechanization in the industry as they’re concerned about the plight of U.S. producers, as it might result in them not being able to stay in the industry’s market.
Workers might hate Robots
Unlike the articles mentioned, “Cheap robots are coming for our farm jobs by taking the most brutal tasks first” by Michael J. Coren documents data about how an increase in mechanization negatively impacts the availability jobs of workers in the industry. Coren talks about how Human presence is being replaced with data science and computer vision in the process of carefully applying pesticides to the crops. Here’s the data showing how such technology as shown to be cheaper than human labor in the case of lettuce weeding.
Coren adds the requirement for human labor in this field “will end as ‘precision agriculture’ brings data and automation to traditional tasks, making farming more productive and profitable” (Coren). This deals with labor jobs being replaced with technology and how its consequences are the exact opposite that of mechanization to help U.S producers. This is a result of the author considering technological improvements might end up hurting worker jobs, thereby leaning towards not favoring mechanization.
So what?
To determine the overall impact of mechanization, it boils down to understanding the plight of various subjects in question. The differences in these authors interpretations of the impact of mechanization are subjective, which makes the problem of minimizing negative side-effects of mechanization complex to solve. “Whom do we favor?” has become the anchor of this argument, reflecting complexity as making sense of the impact of mechanization from the eyes of different subjects such as farm animals, agricultural producers, and workers gets harder as this subjective view limits the ability to observe the overall impact.
So, should this subjectivity end up deciding our fate?
References
Coren, Michael J. “Cheap Robots Are Coming for Our Farm Jobs by Taking the Most Brutal Tasks First.” Quartz, Quartz, 10 July 2016, qz.com/726667/cheap-robots-are-coming-for-our-farm-jobs-by-taking-the-most-brutal-tasks-first/.
Yoav Sarig. “Alternatives to Immigrant Labor?” CIS.org, cis.org/Alternatives-Immigrant-Labor.
Harari, Yuval Noah. “Industrial Farming Is One of the Worst Crimes in History.” The Guardian, Guardian News, and Media, 25 Sept. 2015, www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question.
