Saturday, August 6, 2016
FarmBot...not
Lately I have been seeing this FarmBot a lot on Facebook. The "gentleman farmer" taken to a whole new level. I admit that for a very brief moment this really caught my attention - until I started to think about it. This start-up has already raised close to a million dollars playing on people's fears with the notions of pesticides, GMO's, and factory farms - offering their cute little gizmo as a magic solution to wholesome food. They claim in the video they are here to change that..."a new paradigm in food production! With Farmbot, your garden will flourish - your plants with thrive - and you will gain access to fresh food grown right in your backyard with the practices that you believe in!" (Boy, that certainly sounds compelling!) You can pre-order one from their website for only $3,100 (and control it from your smart phone - sounds like a win win to me!). What you will get is a "robot" that will seemingly farm a 4' x 8' plot for you - seeding, watering, and weeding (no mention of pest control). A harvesting attachment with a salad spinner would be a nice touch. Correct me if I am wrong, but farming a garden that size is not exactly rocket science and wouldn't even take that much of your precious time or talents. I can't help but wonder how many people who own Roomba vacuum cleaners have placed an order. They claim the whole system is "open sourced" so you can build and program one yourself without paying their rather steep markup. The question is...if you are smart enough to build one of these then aren't you smart enough to care for a 32 sq ft garden without the help of a robot? Perhaps in the distant future when we evolve past the point of having arms and legs this will come in handy. We will probably need a robotic juicer too at that point since we won't have teeth anymore either. For me?...I will wait for the system that has a robotic laser that individually blasts spider mites and white flies and will send a daily death count to my tablet computer. 91,101,73,0,B
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11 comments:
I'm amazed someone will buy this "FarmBot." Sheesh! My best crop is grown indoors and requires very little effort. I grow sprouts in a jar.
I like it but 3 grand is way overpriced
Really??? For a lazy person, maybe. $3000 can buy a lot of seeds.
What happens when a part wears out or service or help is required. I gave up growing because my dogs destroyed everything. I still have random plants coming up from 20 years ago.
We've been experimenting with Paul Gautchi's method as shown in "Back to Eden" film. The no-till cover the ground with wood chips method takes some initial work and time, but afterwards is ideal for the "aging" gardener.
I will have my self driving car go pick up my self gardening garden at the automated postal kiosk. I'm getting too fat to get out much myself.
Over the course of a year, this might produce enough food to keep you alive for about a week or two. But prepare to get really hungry between harvests.
I live in the city and have a garden about six times the size of one of these and maintain it meticulously (manually other than an automatic watering system) and it produces what I would call a hobbyist level of produce. Much appreciated and high quality, but not exactly a survivalist type garden.
I have seen a lot of useless crap on the internet, however this has to absolutely be no 1 on the list of most useless crap ever. Where are the tomatoes, potatoes, squash, cucumbers and so forth that a real garden would have. You could barely make a salad with this crap.
Maybe another reason for not purchasing - nor even recommending such a pricey gismo - is the probability that some of the semi- domesticated animals - i.e., the pet javelina, or rabbits, or rats - might still be hungry after eating your whole 32 square feet of garden - and eat the FarmBot for desert?
Amen.
Very cool but a little pricey. I like my Earthboxes on a timer better. Grow all the food you can eat with 3 of them per 2 people.
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