Future Farms Without Farmers?

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Tom Fisk

What is the future of farming? There were 12 million people employed in agriculture in the U.S. in the year 1900, which was 1 out of every 6 people. Today, there are about 1.7 million, which is just 1 out of every 50 people who are employed in agriculture.Two professors from the University of Florida say a robotic revolution is going to allow for increased food production in a sustainable way.Dr. Senthold Asseng, who teaches at UF’s  Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, andDr. Frank Asche, a UF professor of Natural Resource Economics, concludes that future farmers will likely be data scientists, programmers and “robot wranglers.”

Joining us from the studio atWUFTin Gainesville, the professors discuss their recent paper “Future Farms Without Farmers,” which was published in the journal of “Science Robotics.”

Copyright 2019 WGCU

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Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.