Could AI robots with lasers make herbicides — and farm workers — obsolete?

The smell of burnt vegetation wafted through a lettuce field here one recent summer morning as nearly 200 farmers, academics and engineers gathered to witness the future of automated agriculture. “It’s a hurdle for people to get over, but the reality is, the numbers don’t lie,” said Tim Mahoney, a field representative for Carbon Robotics, a Seattle-based company that created one of the machines on display — a 9,500-pound apparatus known as the LaserWeeder. Steven Fennimore, a weed researcher and professor of plant sciences at UC Davis, said the industry’s technological shift arrives as state regulators are “weeding out the old stuff.” Assembly Bill 1963 — a bill seeking to ban the use of paraquat in California — is working its way through the state Legislature and will be heard by the Senate Appropriations committee in August. “It’s going to be a whole mixed bag of complications,” said Barbara Meister, a consultant with the Salinas Inclusive Economic Development Initiative, who also attended the field day. He noted that one machine his team is working on — a smart steamer that sterilizes soil — can be used near schools, where people don’t want “nasty chemical stuff.” In fact, a coalition of environmental groups, social justice organizations and teachers sued Monterey County agriculture officials and state pesticide regulators in April, alleging the use of restricted pesticides in close proximity to three elementary schools.