Will machines replace farmers?

Farm labour shortages are chronic. Very few Canadians want to do farm work because they don’t understand it or they think it’s too hard, or dirty, or noisy. So, farmers must look at alternatives. These include importing labour, as well as scenarios where machines carry out tasks traditionally done by humans.

Many people don’t want machines more involved in food production than they already are. They don’t like the optics. But, says the Conference Board of Canada, get ready for it. This Ottawa-based group, which claims to be Canada’s leading independent research organization, recently issued a report predicting that technology is set to replace many jobs in the agri-food sector in the next 10 years. Specifically, it says one-third of all farm jobs could be automated in that time, along with one-fifth of food processing jobs. Those are dramatic numbers. But really, farmers have always been receptive to technology that allows them to produce food as inexpensively and abundantly as possible. That’s what drove blacksmith John Deere to invent the self-scouring steel plow back in 1937, one of the greatest labour-saving devices ever.

A big challenge with technology though has always been the price. Most small- and medium-size farms can’t afford high-priced,automated equipment, like self-driving tractors. For them, unless manufacturers can bring down the cost, the conference board’s prediction won’t pan out.

Even large farms struggle at times with machinery prices. Profitability wavers from year to year, and regardless of the need, new technology purchases go out the window when farm income is strapped.

This year, farmers are facing some tough income scenarios. They’re finding everything costs more, just like it does at your own home. Farm expenses are still sky high for the likes of fertilizer, seed and crop protection products. And expectations of big harvests and bumper crops in the US are putting downward pressure on crop prices everywhere.

These realities are reflected in machinery orders. John Deere, despite its pre-eminence in the marketplace, is laying off 600 employees in US production plants. The company is bracing for some bad times.

All this may hasten the drive towards affordable technology. If so, the conference board says it will also open up more careers for more new professionals in agriculture – namely, more data scientists and software engineers.

On the upside, this may be a way to introduce the agri-food sector to a group of professionals who have traditionally been unfamiliar with it. And that’s a good thing for helping bridge the rural-urban divide.

Again, the key is affordability. The cost of technology ultimately gets passed onto consumers. And it’s well known that the price of food is one of consumers’ biggest concerns. Rising food prices have been blamed on processors, manufacturers and especially grocers. Farm technology has not been labelled a villain, at least not yet.

But ultimately, the way food is produced influences its price, and vice versa.

So if affordability can be achieved, modern farmers will introduce more labour-saving machinery into their operations. We can moan about increased mechanization, but if it’s sustainable and helps keep prices in check, we need to give it a chance.

Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist from Guelph and a communications instructor at the University of Illinois. He regularly visits family in Creemore.