Agriculture is the single most critical and important supply chain in the world. The first Agricultural Revolution redefined humanity and created the first civilizations. The new Automated Agricultural Revolution is just as drastic, and China is at the forefront in many areas.
The first thing to understand is that none of this is theoretical. None of it is hype. China is reinventing agriculture and it’s all true.
Global Big Ag feed producers such as Canada, the EU, Eastern Europe, India, Australia and South America are now facing highly advanced and cost-efficient competition unlike any in history. It’s so fundamental, it’s like reinventing the wheel, much improved.
The news about Chinese automated farming is a constant flow of new technology and new methodologies. There is some karmic justice in this situation. China’s ancient history of stubborn subsistence farming is legendary. That story took shape against a harrowing backdrop of famine, drought, and almost unbelievable centuries of endless hardship and survival.
Now, when food and water supplies are becoming huge, dangerous and unavoidable global issues, the only way out is change. China has now linked automation, robotics and AI directly to humanity’s most basic needs.
The speed, scale and increased dimensions of China’s automation
China is deploying automation at breakneck speed, supported by smart new manufacturing on a truly massive scale. “Scale” means that, according to People’s Daily Online:
“To date, China has built more than 35,000 entry-level smart factories, over 8,200 advanced-level facilities, more than 500 excellence-level factories and 15 excellent smart factories.”
Now consider the impact of highly competitive automated industrial production from thousands of factories on world markets and apply it to agriculture.
USA and Europe can to be slightly better technologically in some areas. In terms of the actual deployment of large-scale technologies for production and now agriculture, it is decades behind. The rust belt still boils in the sun and the museum still goes on.
China’s version of frontline job automation is in full swing now. The West is still ingloriously worried about everything from layoffs to finding uses for agent chatbots. This is no longer a contest. It’s embarrassing at best, disastrous at worst.
Western Big Ag is now facing competition at the most fundamental levels.
To pronounce it:
Automated farming requires ultra-efficient water supply management and massive volumes of treatment facilities for planting, harvesting and distribution. This is an entire industrial ecosystem.
Pest management, quality control and environmental issues on this scale as automated operations require new and thoroughly proven technologies. The global cost of these critical issues is truly dire, directly affecting wholesale and consumer prices.
The food sector in general, in its multi-generational coma on so many critical issues, is likely to take more than a few bullets. Their mostly superficial technologies are now essentially redundant. It can’t even compete. Forget GMOs, ridiculously dangerous additives, useless filler pseudo-foods and good old “smart” costs. There is no need for any of these in a truly efficient food production environment. Automation can accurately test, produce, store and cost your food in a single grain of rice.
In the field of agricultural robotics, China is now way ahead. This is a repeat of the full automation of Chinese factories in the mid-late 2000s. It is a game changer, improving all aspects of production and distribution.
The future of agriculture
The giant issues for future agriculture are mercilessly clear.
The main issue of efficient use of agricultural land is unavoidable. So much land is devoted to agriculture. This land typically uses inefficient, outdated technology and even worse distribution throughout the supply network.
It’s archaic. It’s completely unsustainable, even by current metrics. There is even one emerging pressure point for conflict over resources. It’s futile to the point of unsustainability. The current situation simply cannot meet the requirements at any level. That too water supply is now a multi-decade guessing game in the USA.
Automation and intelligent land use are the ways out of this ugly mess. How do you argue against improved productivity, better prices and improved quality?
No one is arguing with him, in theory. They are doing much worse, not addressing any of these perennial issues in any meaningful way. Future global hunger may be based entirely on the inefficiency of the food chain. Food deserts invade the supply chain.
This idiot-ridden sector echoes the industrial ideas of the 1950s in almost all aspects of the food supply. Ridiculous “just in time” idea. it’s leaving the shelves bare, costing time, space and money at the retail end. It’s a farce.
One of the biggest problems, in fact, seems to be that old industrial ideas are still reliable. You see economists muttering about “revival of industrial centers” as if it were even possible, let alone desirable or realistic. That world is gone and there is nowhere to put it.
The West is showing a profound lack of leadership and understanding in all these areas. Big problems have simply dragged on for decades. China, which until recently was a rural economy, has come a long way. The future needs survival strategies, not nostalgia.
