As crossing the border from Mexico becomes more dangerous and difficult, and Mexico’s population becomes older and better educated California growers last year had a difficult time finding enough people to harvest their crops. From November 2010 to November 2011 375,000 people crossed the border from Mexico compared to 1.5 million in 2005-2006. California growers are turning to technology to make up for the lost labor. One project in development is a robotic fruit harvester. The self-propelled harvester will travel down orchard rows day and night using cameras and four arms and legs to pick fruit from trees doing the work of 4-8 people and would be able to harvest apples, pears, peaches and other stone fruit. More delicate robots are planned for the future that will be able to pick strawberries, cherries and olives. At an initial price of $300,000 the harvester is expected to reach the market in two years and eventually the price is expected to drop with demand. To read more about this and the lettuce-bot that can do what it would take 25 workers a whole day to do in 1-2 hours, and drones that can herd cattle:
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