Smarter and cheaper robots. If the cost of labor for growing food organically on a large scale could be reduced, it would have a disruptive impact on conventional agriculture.
But heavy usage of robots and large-scale food growing are exactly what conventional agriculture is about, and small-scale, local, human labor-based growing is the goal of the organic movement.
Not saying that undercutting Monsanto is impossible, but any startup will have an uphill battle to win over "organic" supporters.
> But heavy usage of robots and large-scale food growing are exactly what conventional agriculture is about, and small-scale, local, human labor-based growing is the goal of the organic movement.
This is incorrect. There is nothing in the charter of any organic farming organization I've seen regulating the use of automation and machinery in agriculture, nor the scale of the operation. Organic farming is strictly about eliminating the use of chemical and genetic additives (herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, chemically-treated fence posts, direct genetic modification, etc.) in our farmed food and textile products. A huge factor limiting the spread of organic farming practices over conventional is the increased production cost and decreased yields due to the difficulty of managing pests and weeds.
As an example, an organic farmer in many cases must employ workers at great expense to go through the crops once a week or two with a hoe and manually clear out weeds, rather than being able to drive through with a tractor and spray herbicide every couple months. This adds substantially to the cost and difficulty of growing organically. If robots could be leased or purchased to do this work instead, the viability of organic growing would be significantly improved. In many areas, there is no labor infrastructure allowing farmers to find workers to do such work, and so growing certain crops organically is not even a realistic option for them.
I have, though not any large-scale intensive farming operations. I'm talking about robots with the dexterity and intelligence to replace human labor all but completely, to allow a large or small farm operator to manage pests and weeds without the use of hazardous chemicals.
