Dear Friends:
In the vacation times of my childhood, I traveled with my
father who was selling insurances to the farmers to cover losses of crops due
to hail storms.
That experience helped me to understand a little about the work
and contingencies of the agriculture since I was very young.
The time has passed and during my years living in big cities
I lost part of my knowledge about the farm work. However, I always remember my
walking through the rows of crop and the material that I was collecting for my
school: grains, seeds, flowers and leaves.
Some years ago, trying to learn more about the life of America
in the country side, I made a series of trips across different states from the
south to the north and the east to the west.
My surprise was the experience that I lived traveling
through the eastern sector of Idaho
from the end of the winter to the summer: big farms, a lot of activities in the
field, machinery to plow and to work the soil, irrigating systems and extensive
golden “carpets” during the harvest season.
This was a new vision of the rhythm of life in the farms
during the times of plowing, sowing and harvesting.
Again several years passed, and in recent days during a
nocturne trip through the south of Florida,
I had the opportunity to learn something more about the farm activities today.
One night, I was driving for a narrow road in between farms
when suddenly; in one side of the path I saw lights, different lights from the lights
of the cars. They were flying lights. But I didn’t see people walking across
the rows of the crops. “Strange!”
While I continued driving more miles; the lights were coming
near the road. In that moment, I felt fear: “Aliens, Aliens flying over the
farms!”
Next, one of the lights started to fly over my car. It was
not a bird. It was not a helicopter. It was like a giant “metal” spider that
produced a lot of noise.
This artificial spider had four arms and a big eye: a
camera. The camera shot my car.
At that moment, I realized that this giant spider was not a
spacecraft of aliens. It was a drone.
Sometimes in the darkness of the night, without moon light,
we see the objects, also the flying objects with fantastic shadows that produce
panic.
Here we come to the main message of this story. The drones started
to invade our farms recently because they can help in the “labor” of ground in
special capturing massive data and imagery before and during the harvest
times. How many of our farmers till now
don’t use drones?
For them is the message: Solutions of hardware and software
with drones can reduce the human input the farmers need to take crucial
decisions about water efficiency, crop yield and fertilizer waste.
The drones can map the field in the way to see where the
plants are or are not growing and the levels of growing day per day. The drones
can collect data from the field faster than a troop of laborers walking across
the rows of a plantation.
These artificial spiders take instant pictures of the ground
in different moments, also after crucial events like a hail.
The drones help to the farmers to answer a series of
questions related to storms, bad climate conditions, irrigation problems or
other negative events to reduce damages or losses.
The data and pictures captured by the cameras and sensors of
the drones come immediately to computers that run analytic software and show in
the screen graphics and numeric tables with the evolution of the crops and the localization
of any incident that can changes the levels of grain production.
The current state of art of technology gives to countries
with advanced infrastructure a strategic advantage in front the classic
techniques of the agriculture work.
Farms are factories of food, critical to feeding our people.
And, in the United States,
we can recover the leadership that we lost recently in the hands of other
international competitors, thanks our technology.
If we improve our agriculture sector with the support of technology
and smart decisions, we will surpass the negative effect generated by the
international players that work with very low cost of laboring due to they use
the troops of cheap workers who only work as slaves to survive.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
IMPORTANT: I wrote this story as an extensive answer to an
article published by Wall Street Journal under the title “Plowed Under” and
written by Jesse Newman and Jacob Bunge several days ago.
The authors said “U.S. Farmers, Who Once Fed the
World, Are Overtaken by New Powers. Bumper soybean and wheat harvests in Brazil
and Russia push
down global prices, imperiling America’s
growers; ‘hard for our psyche’ ”
They remark that Brazil
is growing as a big player in the agriculture market thanks cheap lands,
weather conditions and low worker costs, and despite its poor infrastructures.
My surprise was that this interesting article of Wall Street
Journal doesn’t inquire about the resources that U.S.
has to recover ground.
Personally, since more than one year, I am researching the
potential of the drones as a tool for different commercial applications. During
this time, I learned that technology companies are working seriously to
implement powerful software-hardware solutions based on drones for the
agriculture industry.
Probably, till now, the costs are high for small farms, but
I believe in short time, every American farmer will able to use fleets of
drones and go ahead with the agriculture businesses with very competitive
prices thanks the advantages the technology will give to them.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Next, you can read
some of my last comments in the blog of the WSJ – Journal Community during the
last few days.
Domingo A. Trassens
Email: d.a.trassens@gmail.com
WORLD RETHINK
Rethinking the world
with you
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Wall Street Journal
– Journal Community page:
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(Domingo Trassens)
(More than 8600
recommendations received from other members since the new Journal Community
started in 2014 and 7900 in the previous JC.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY BLOG COMMENTS
(Now the U.S. Vice
President is traveling across South Asia
and the Pacific, in a diplomatic trip that started in South Korea and Japan.)
Vice President Pence
is making a good work as special ambassador of the Trump administration. Surely,
he is preparing the ground for future trips of the President.
04/21/2017 04:33:48 PM
1 Recommendation
Posted In The
Attack in France
(After the terrorist
attack of Champs-Élysées days before the French vote, all the candidates
reacted condemned it. The majority of the observers think this situation helps
to Marine Le Pen.)
Ironic! Islamic
State is working for Marine Le Pen who hates Muslims.
The problem is that
Marine Le Pen talks a lot, but she has not government experience.
04/21/2017 04:24:30 PM
4 Recommendations
(The New York
Governor is promoting tuition-free in college for everybody.)
Tuition-free without
restrictions is a political “ploy” to gain the votes of youngsters who like to
live with the money of others.
04/21/2017 12:59:44 PM
1 Recommendation
(Despite the
optimist position of President Trump after the visit of the President Xi, the
Chinese hacked South Korean systems associated with U.S. for the missile fight against North Korea.)
This new incident
confirms that U.S. cannot trust in the neutrality of China related to North Korean aggression.
04/21/2017 12:33:21 PM
9 Recommendations
(Like after other
terrorist attacks across Europe, now
the French Police say that the “Paris gunman” was interrogated before the incident
but they didn’t expect he could make this attack.)
Something that
deserves special observation: In a lot of cases, frequently the police didn't
pay enough attention about the danger of the terrorists before they committed
the crimes.
04/21/2017 12:08:56 PM
3 Recommendations
Posted In Republicans,
Learn the Limits of Loyalty (Column of Peggy Noonan)
(Peggy Noonan makes
a question about the limit of loyalty of the Republicans to the President
Trump. The column inquires if the Republican lawmakers have to support the
President also in the cases that it is evident that he is wrong.)
In a democracy, the
really important is the loyalty to the constitution and the institutions.
Politicians only
deserve respect for their good actions and criticism for their bad behaviors.
04/21/2017 01:30:04 AM
3 Recommendations
(“Plowed
Under” written by Jesse Newman and Jacob Bunge)
Farms are factories
of food, critical for feeding our people. U.S. has to put all its energy to push our plows
in the way to lead the world farming industry.
04/20/2017 05:05:08 PM
3 Recommendations
(A famous Jews TV
anchor without previous political experience is gaining ground against the
current Israeli leader in the campaign for the next elections.)
The celebrities of
the media and TV like to play like politicians but they don’t have experience
about complex government issues.
04/20/2017 10:14:51 AM
6 Recommendations
(In a previous issue
of Rethinking (“Your Brains Connected to Computers), we commented the launch a
Neuralink, a project of Elon Musk, to
link human brains to computers.
This week, in a
special conference, Facebook introduced its own project to read the brain of
human beings with advanced computing technologies.)
If Facebook reads our
brains, we will lose our privacy. This is a new way to dominate the world.
The
"brain-computer interface" is only good for sick persons, but it has
to be used very carefully.
This interface could
become a dangerous hacking tool of the brain of the people.
04/20/2017 10:04:09 AM
2 Recommendations
(The turmoil against
President Maduro continues with protests in the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities with fatal
victims.)
While the poor
Venezuelans suffer oppression in their country, the rich Venezuelans enjoy the
good life of Florida.
04/19/2017 08:25:25 PM
4 Recommendations
(IBM reported a decline
in its profit of the last financial quarter despite the good results of its
businesses associated with Watson and cloud computing. Again the traditional
business units – mainframes, storage and software - of the technology company
reported negative figures.)
IBM is paying high a
series of innovation waves than don’t produce revenues and sometimes they are
cannibalized by other tech inventions. Its glories of mainframes rest in
the past.
04/19/2017 07:22:49 PM
2 Recommendations
Vice President Pence
is pushing Toyota for more investments in U.S. The question is who will buy more GM,
Chrysler, Ford, Toyota cars if the normal workers earn less $10/hour.
04/19/2017 12:29:13 PM
2 Recommendations
Surely, the negative
numbers of polls related to the U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan are linked with
his inability to manage the new healthcare bill.
04/18/2017 05:42:51 PM
2 Recommendations
(This week, British
Prime Minister Theresa May surprised to the domestic and international observers
with to the call for early election in the British Parliament.)
The call for early
election looks like a tactic movement of British Prime Minister Theresa May to
have more power in her hands for future decisions.
However, we don't
know if there is something more behind the scene: Scotland resistance, EU punishment...
The pending
questions are: What will happen if she loses? Who will take the “Brexit package”?
04/18/2017 05:34:17 PM
3 Recommendations
Posted In Turkey
Vote Results Spark Protests
(In the Turkish
referendum, President Erdogan chanted victory.)
A new Sultan is
taking the total power of Turkey. Any action to reverse this situation will
push the Turks to a bloody oppression.
Can the Turkish
opposition fight against tanks and heavy weapons and avoid jail and torture?
04/18/2017 11:25:11 AM
5 Recommendations
In South Korea, the corruption and economic crimes are paid
with jail.
In recent days, we saw
that Lee Jae-yong - Samsung boss - was punished with jail for his corrupt
practice in the management of the electronic conglomerate.
Now, South Korean
Former President Park Geun-hye is walking to jail too.
04/17/2017 09:12:48 AM
2 Recommendations
Posted In U.S.
Turns Up Heat on North Korea
(During his visit to
South
Korea, Mike Pence talked about the recent military actions of U.S. against Syrian regime and ISIS in Afghanistan.)
The comments of U.S.
Vice President Pence in Seoul reflect that the air-strikes on Syria and Afghanistan were thinking as a warning to North Korea.
04/17/2017 08:57:27 AM
2 Recommendations
Posted In Turkey’s
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Declares Victory in Referendum to Expand Presidential
Powers
(Immediately, after
the closure of the polls of the referendum to expand the presidential powers,
the Turkish President declared victory.)
The Turks were
suicides. Now, they will learn how terrible is to live under the feet of Mr.
Erdogan.
04/16/2017 08:20:25 PM
7 Recommendations
(The new security adviser
of the White House, General McMaster warned North Korea for its continuous aggression against its
neighbors and the United States.)
Yes, the North Korea's behavior 'can't continue', but U.S. has to walk very carefully because Kim
Jong-Un is a very dangerous maniac.
04/16/2017 03:50:49 PM
6 Recommendations
Posted In David
McCullough’s History Lessons
(In a very
interesting article posted by Wall Street Journal, the historian David
McCullough gives us a series of history lessons to understand recent events of
the domestic and international politics.)
Great statement from
David McCullough: “History gives us a sense of proportion, he says: “It’s an
antidote to a lot of unfortunately human trends like self-importance and
self-pity.””
04/15/2017 10:00:44 AM
4 Recommendations
(Last week, U.S. and Afghan forces attacked a refuge of
tunnels used by ISIS in Afghanistan.
The attack was
perpetrated with a massive bomb named the “Mother of Bombs”.)
My Comment: This massive
bomb killed terrorists like ants.
04/15/2017 09:53:34 AM
2 Recommendations
(Europe and the free world is looking in detail the
new events in Turkey with the voting to extend Erdogan’s powers.)
President Erdogan is
ending with the last stones of the Turkish democracy.
04/14/2017 10:38:06 AM
2 Recommendations
(During the last
weeks, a series of news comes from Venezuela, where the opposition is trying to demolish
the Maduro’s regime.)
Venezuela is deep in the swamp!
04/13/2017 11:45:38 PM
3 Recommendations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES:
1) External Sources:
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Twitter and PBS NewsHour.
2) Own Sources: My
own research for previous publishing projects like TTT of Comlab Corp and
others.
Website: http://world-rethink.blogspot.com/
