The FarmBot - Farming 3D Printer looks to solve world's food shortage

[Feign]

Wait, the NYT waited twelve years after Sputnik proved them wrong to retract their statement? I thought they were bad today about retractions today, but I guess they were a lot worse back then.

I'm being sarcastic, I know their retraction was a purely symbolic gesture. The point though is that none of the naysayers are degrading the idea of automated farming, but the mechanics in use with this machine have a cost and difficulty of maintenance that scales exponentially to size. While it may be physically possible for a simple three-axis gantry to scale up indefinitely, the costs in using it instead of other more cost efficient methods of automation (autonomous vehicles for instance) make it impractical in the extreme.

An XYZ gantry starts becoming impractical at around 1,000 square feet. That's respectable for a home's floorplan, but miniscule in comparison to a farm.

[Geoff]

It's a plough, it's a discer, it's a seeder? Are you kidding me?
Have you seen a large farm-scale tractor plough a 40 acre field? Have you seen the speed at which broadacre seeders work?
Can you imaging this contraption replacing huge harvestors or even being a serious consideration?
'Cause all farm fields are flat and perfectly suited for some massive mechanical gantry to span it's entire width.
Wow, some people really get carried away pushing "new technology" into places it just isn't suited to go.

In a greenhouse, planting and tending to seedlings maybe, large scale farming to feed the world's starving, not likely.

Not everything in the world can be 3D printed. Not that this thing is in any way a printer.

^^ no point saying the same thing as Oz, that's pretty much it. This does not really classify as a 3D printer, automated imaginary high school project maybe?

lol.. how big would the gantry need to be.. and even then it needs to physically plot the field. Although I live on a farm, I know little about farming yet as it's all new to me, but already from what I know, that sort of system isn't even available for the high end farming equipment, let alone doing it in a 3rd world country.

[Sams]

I am guessing that these would be for each row, but then the issue is once in place then how about other equipment that needs to get in there? like how might one plow a field?

sfrench27: you want negative? then how about the moral question of if we as humans should even encourage more efficient farming methods instead of using food shortages an an indirect method of population control to stop further devastation to the planet. Now that's a touchy topic!

[Feign]

Sams, that's pretty tangential to the conversation, but I think it's worth noting that nobody who supports population control is willing to be the first in line for it themselves to lead by example.

I for one say our best very-long-term strategy is colonizing space... That I would be first in line for.