Robohub.org
 

Finding a place for cultibotics in Obama’s rural agenda


by
23 November 2008



share this:

It’s not like there was any shortage of ideas for how to improve the stability of U.S. agriculture, the lot of farmers, and the economic vitality of rural America. Just have a look at President-Elect Obama’s rural agenda.

 

What would the ideas encapsulated here look like if embraced by the Obama-Biden team? What might they be called? Here’s a few focused statements that occur to me…

  • Help insulate farmers and farming regions from dependency on volatile bulk commodity markets by encouraging greater diversity of production.
  • Facilitate production improvements through both simultaneous and sequential polyculture.
  • Enable farmers to grow more of their own food without need for much time investment or manual labor.
  • Reduce the time spent in machine operation.
  • Reduce the acreage needed for an economically viable farming operation.
  • Reduce the initial investment required to start a farm.
  • Provide farmers and their children with high-tech experience.
  • Create a demand for skilled technicians and technical instructors in rural areas.
  • Create opportunities for rural youth.
  • Preserve local crop varieties and experiment with new crops.
  • Improve the quality and diversity of locally available produce.
  • Reverse the impoverishment of rural culture.
  • Reduce exposure to pesticides and pesticide residues.
  • Reduce the dependency of agriculture on fossil fuels and feed stocks.
  • Reduce contamination of runoff and ground water.
  • Reduce and eventually reverse the loss of soil fertility.
  • Reduce wind-borne dust.
  • Enlist productive land in the efforts to preserve endangered species and provide wildlife habitat.

This list could be far longer, but that should be enough for a sample.

 

Reposted from Cultibotics.



tags: ,


John Payne





Related posts :



A flexible lens controlled by light-activated artificial muscles promises to let soft machines see

  30 Oct 2025
Researchers have designed an adaptive lens made of soft, light-responsive, tissue-like materials.

Social media round-up from #IROS2025

  27 Oct 2025
Take a look at what participants got up to at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

Using generative AI to diversify virtual training grounds for robots

  24 Oct 2025
New tool from MIT CSAIL creates realistic virtual kitchens and living rooms where simulated robots can interact with models of real-world objects, scaling up training data for robot foundation models.

Robot Talk Episode 130 – Robots learning from humans, with Chad Jenkins

  24 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Chad Jenkins from University of Michigan about how robots can learn from people and assist us in our daily lives.

Robot Talk at the Smart City Robotics Competition

  22 Oct 2025
In a special bonus episode of the podcast, Claire chatted to competitors, exhibitors, and attendees at the Smart City Robotics Competition in Milton Keynes.

Robot Talk Episode 129 – Automating museum experiments, with Yuen Ting Chan

  17 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Yuen Ting Chan from Natural History Museum about using robots to automate molecular biology experiments.

What’s coming up at #IROS2025?

  15 Oct 2025
Find out what the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems has in store.

From sea to space, this robot is on a roll

  13 Oct 2025
Graduate students in the aptly named "RAD Lab" are working to improve RoboBall, the robot in an airbag.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence