Hey, city slicker: Erase all preconceived notions about the technological competence of rural America. As you drive past all those rolling, pastoral fields during your summer road trips, you might be lulled into thinking our farmers and ranchers are stuck in the 1950s — or maybe even homogeneously Amish. But think again: The people who work the land are using technologies that rival what’s coming out of the world’s most advanced R&D labs.
Hell, they’re actually using technologies that come out of advanced R&D labs.
From autonomous tractors to robot fruit pickers to cow milking machinery of amazing complexity (see image above, and our explanation below), rural America is on the cutting edge. So throw away your twee, urban biases of country folk. They’re using the technology of the future to feed us all — and this holds true for the local produce, meat and poultry that you’re going to buy this weekend at the farmers market.