From The Economist:
Cairo, a town at the southern tip of Illinois founded in the early 19th century, was given that name because it was expected to grow into a huge metropolis. Located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, it was the transport hub of a region that became known as “Little Egypt” because of its huge deltaic plains where farmers could grow anything.
Today, however, the name is redolent of lost civilisations. To walk around is a strange experience. Turreted Victorian houses gently crumble, being reclaimed by the weeds. What was once downtown (pictured) resembles an abandoned film set. Cairo has no petrol stations, no pharmacies and no hospitals. It has gone from six schools to two, both half-empty. “When I was growing up in the 1970s, we had two grocery stores, we had two gas stations. You know, a lot of businesses were still open,” says Toya Wilson, who runs the city’s still operating and beautiful Victorian library. One modest grocery store remains, but it is run at a loss by a charity and, when your correspondent visited, was deathly quiet, with many bare shelves.
Cairo is on its way to becoming America’s newest ghost town. Its population, having peaked above 15,000 in the 1920s, had fallen to just 1,700 people by the 2020 census. Alexander County, Illinois, of which it is the capital, lost a third of its people in the decade to 2020, making it the fastest-shrinking place in America
Link to the rest at The Economist
Unfortunately, Cairo (pronounced like the Karo in Karo Syrup) is not an isolated case.
PG grew up in rural Colorado and rural Minnesota. Every place PG lived during his K-12 years has a smaller, usually much smaller population than it was when PG was living there. The elementary schools and the high school where PG was a student have been demolished and not replaced. Today, the students who live where PG lived are bussed to school, riding at least 30 minutes each way.
The American Midwest contains some of the most fertile soil in the world, but farming finances are becoming worse and worse for family-owned farms. They’re simply too small and undercapitalized to support a family these days. So the owners, often quite old, are selling out to investment banks and other large financial enterprises, typically located on the coasts of the United States.
Somebody needs to operate the farms, so the large financial owners hire professional farm managers are hired to handle that task. Because of their size and financial strength, the large banks and financial enterprises have access to financing on far better terms than an individual farmer can obtain, they can purchase expensive new farm equipment that is far more sophisticated and efficient than anything a small farmer can afford.
Large finance enterprises hire a professional farm manager to handle all their holdings. The farm manager then hires a few middle managers to supervise the hiring and supervision of low-cost labor, importing such workers from other countries to handle the day-to-day work.
Laborers are likely organized in work groups to be moved about regularly so they can do the manual work of operating a large number of former family farms. Basically, farming is run like a factory, and nobody has roots in the many small farm towns that previously survived by providing goods. services and education needed by family farmers, spouses and their children.
Thanks for your one-man/one-person job with great comments on the OP.
After watching the Boston Robotics video below, and reading about farm labor here, I have a hard time believing that we have hit anything resembling a steady state.
Farm labor will be fine.
(As I said, the OP is dated, based on bad reads of inadequate old data.)
AI-driven automation is being adopted avidly. Not just the million dollar John Deere combines but much smaller devices for family farms that are affrdabe to buy or *rent*.
CBS, among many, has been documenting it regularly.
Here, take your pick:
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=cbs+news+farm+ai
Not mentioned are the range of fruit picking robots that replace the need to exploit the uninvited as the gerontocracy, stuck in 60’s think, refuses to accept.
The OP titles gets it the opposite of reality, because there are no luddites on modern farms. If anything, modern american farmers are technocrats, highly educated and economically literate. Proper 21st century entrepreneurs.
Even CBS gets it, but not the Economist; they’re too far away and too focused on the old ways.
For balance, here is The Guardian’s pearl clutching view:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/15/us-agriculture-census-farming
Straight from the USDA identity politics, “equity” driven, reported numbers.
Now, who do you believe? A left wing site thousands of miles away relying on ifeologue number or the reality captured by an east coast left wing site trying to figure why they’re not starving?
The Guardian doesn’t even get that manure is a good,valuable product. 😉
The euros just don’t get the new century. But they’re slowly learning, the hard way. Might be too late in some areas.
I expect robotic solutions will drop in cost, but a typical farm in the midwest and the dry-land west operates on pretty narrow margins, so I doubt that Boston Robotics-style machines will be cost-beneficial for some time to come.
However, autonomous tractors are currently being sold. I think John Deere is still produces more tractors than anybody else. It says it will be offering autonomous tractors in the $500,000-$800,000 range.
Here’s a link to a video of one of the autonomous Deere tractors in action – https://youtu.be/fNy0SZ-JWck?si=Rdn9v0nqEx7CnN1b
Here’s another longer video that includes a veteran farmer talking about what autonomy means for him. The farmer operates a 2,000 acre farm in Blue Earth, Minnesota, in very Southern Minnesota about 20 miles from the boundary between Minnesota and Iowa. In this part of the world, 2,000 acres is a large farm. The average size of a farm in Iowa and this part of Minnesota is about 360 acres.
https://youtu.be/QvFoRk4JsPc?si=YeM74oqui7UTZPW7
You’re right.
Humanoid robots aren’t the best solution for farms. They are meant for general purpose use as indoor one-for-one replacements for humans, using human gear. Farm robots don’t need that. Their most common form is as evolved roombas: small wheeled platforms. No need for the sophisticated actuators and bipedal motion of the humanoids.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4mJCgsmdM&pp=ygUkaXMgdGhpcyB0aGUgZmFybSByb2JvdCBvZiB0aGUgZnV0dXJl
The value is in the software and sensors so they can be a lot cheaper than a tractor or combine.
Oh boy.
Is that piece dated.
The US is the *best* positioned country for the generational transition.
Even with a crappy immigration policy.
The economic story is well documented all over.
The urban vs rural “divide” is misrepresented because, unlike Europe and Asia (indeed, most of the world) the US population spread isn’t megapolis vs small town. There is an entire range of population centers ranging from big cities to medium cities to small cities to suburbs, exurbs, and big towns and small towns.
The US took over a century to urbanize and even the big cities have metastized at almost manageable sizes. Take a look at the biggest cities in the world and look at where NY, LA, Chicago rank.
And with the US population mobility, the biggest cities can’t grow out of control. As they hit a doom loop the smarter folks leave so they either reform or go Detroit.
Also, look at where the gerontocracy investment largesse is going: it’s not the mega cifies but the mid-sized cities of the midwest, south, and southwest. Columbus, Phoenix, Rochester. Not Silivalley or Boston or NYC.
As to the fertility rate, it has historically varied with the *economy* and with the economy looking to a 90’s style boom, the rate is already recovering to levels unlike anything in Europe or Asia.
Here’s a sample:
The current fertility rate for U.S. in 2024 is 1.786 births per woman, a 0.11% increase from 2023.
The fertility rate for U.S. in 2023 was 1.784 births per woman, a 0.11% increase from 2022.
The fertility rate for U.S. in 2022 was 1.782 births per woman, a 0.06% increase from 2021.
The fertility rate for U.S. in 2021 was 1.781 births per woman, a 0.11% increase from 2020.
The curve is trending up.
No, it won’t soon hit 2.1, but it doesn’t have to.
Not with immigration legal and otherwise brain-draining the rest of the planet.
Plus AI and Automation reducing the need for rural workers even for family farms.
Finally, the angst over the generation shift is missing three basic facts:
1- the boomers retiring are the biggest generation ever
2- their nominal “replacements”, the zoomers, are the kids of Gen X, the smallest 20th century generation
3- However, the US boomers did one thing (demographically) right that their counterparts in the rest of the developed world didn’t: they had kids. Averaging about 2-2.5 kids (less in the big cities, more elsewhere.) Those are the millenials. And they too are having kids (hence why they are moving from big city closets to the ‘burbs and smaller cities) just a bit later in life than their parents because of the banking crisis of 2008 (solved in the US but not in Europe). And the oldest millenials are hitting the mid forties. And starting to deal with teenagers and mid life. (Whee! Bring out the snacks!)
So not only is US fertility going steadily up at 11% per year the growth rate is increasing. If the GENERATIONS pattern of the last 500 years holds, we’re in for another “greatest generation”: AI-native, tech sophisticated, self-starter civic minded space explorers.
In the meantime, Europe is looking at…none of the above.
I would not give much credence to any assessment that doesn’t factor in the above.
Things look bad for now but underneath the last gasp of the gerontocracy reactions are brewing. If we make it to 2035+ the spacers will start taking over. 🙂