The Robotic Solution to Food Waste In the Field

What's with all the wasted food, heck wehave enough to feed the world, but unfortunately it is a transportation issue or distribution challenge. Remember produce is perishable, and thus, agriculture is always challenged to get those products to market. Okay so, let's talk about potential solutions tothese challenges.In the Journal of Health Affairs there was in interesting piece of research (November 2015) "Reducing Food Loss And Waste While Improving The Public's Health" by Roni A. Neff1, Rebecca Kanter, and Stefanie Vandevijvere, with an abstract that noted:"An estimated 30 percent of the global food supplyis lost or wasted, as is about 40 percent of the US food supply. There are valuable synergies between efforts to reduce food loss and waste and those promoting public health," and "Some interventions are both opportunities and challenges. With deliberate planning and action, challenges can often be addressed and turned intoopportunities. In other cases, it may be necessary to strike a balance between potential benefit in onearea and risk of harm in the other."The same issue had a paper titled; "A Food Systems Approach To Healthy Food And Agriculture Policy," by Roni A. Neff, Kathleen Merrigan, and David Wallinga, where the abstract noted;"This article outlines the diverse ways in which agriculture affects public health. It then describes three policy issues: farm-to-school programming, sustainability recommendations inthe Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and antibiotic use in animal agriculture. These issues illustrate the progress, challenges, and public health benefits of taking a food systems approach that brings together the food, agriculture, and public health fields."Now then, you can obviously see the problem, but what about a solution using robotics? Why waste all that food, especially food in the field which rots due to the scheduling of labor to pick the crops at the most optimum time to get the most produce, even if that misses much of what is available before and after the pick?Not long ago, I was cycling by a field of orange colored Bell Peppers, and I noted at least 50 full grown peppers sitting in the first water furrow closest to the road, meaning there were at least 50 in every row, they grew and were not picked in timeand wasted, I suppose the labor will show up at the most optimum time to get the most ripe produce the most efficiently, so those peppers ready before or after the pick are wasted, perhaps 30-40% of them.What if we had a little robot which picked all the ripe Bell Peppers each day, instead of waiting for only one or two of the most perfect picking times tobring in the labor to pick the vegetables? If so, we could increase the yield of that field by 30-40%. This could go a long way to feeding more people. Think on this.Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds.http://www.WorldThinkTank.net- Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow. Lance also writeseBookson all sorts of topics including this one, check out the selection.Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Lance_Winslow/5306