An Autonomous Grape-Harvester Robot: Integrated System Architecture

This work pursues the potential of extending “Industry 4.0” practices to farming toward achieving “Agriculture 4.0”. Our interest is in fruit harvesting, motivated by the problem of addressing the shortage of seasonal labor. In particular, here we present an integrated system architecture of an Autonomous Robot for Grape harvesting (ARG). The overall system consists of three interdependent units: (1) an aerial unit, (2) a remote-control unit and (3) the ARG ground unit. Special attention is paid to the ARG; the latter is designed and built to carry out three viticultural operations, namely harvest, green harvest and defoliation. We present an overview of the multi-purpose overall system, the specific design of each unit of the system and the integration of all subsystems. In addition, the fully sensory-based sensing system architecture and the underlying vision system are analyzed. Due to its modular design, the proposed system can be extended to a variety of different crops and/or orchards.

A systems approach to navigating food security during COVID-19: Gaps, opportunities, and policy supports

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a series of concatenating problems in the global production and distribution of food. Trade barriers, seasonal labor shortages, food loss and waste, and food safety concerns combine to engender vulnerabili­ties in food systems. A variety of actors—from academics to policy-makers, community organizers, farmers, and homesteaders—are considering the undertaking of creating more resilient food sys­tems. Conventional approaches include fine-tuning existing value chains, consolidating national food distribution systems and bolstering inventory and storage. This paper highlights three alternative strategies for securing a more resilient food system, namely: (i.) leveraging underutilized, often urban, spaces for food production; (ii.) rethinking food waste as a resource; and (iii.) constructing produc­tion-distribution-waste networks, as opposed to chains. Various food systems actors have pursued these strategies for decades. Yet, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic forces us to urgently con­sider such novel assemblages of actors, institutions, and technologies as key levers in achieving longer term food system resilience. These strategies are often centered around princi­ples of redistribution and reciprocity, and focus on smaller scales, from individual households to com­munities. We high­light examples that have emerged in the spring-summer of 2020 of household and community efforts to reconstruct a more resilient food system. We also undertake a policy analysis to sketch how government supports can facilitate the emergence of these efforts and mobilization beyond the immediate confines of the pandemic.

Seasonal Labor Mobility in the Pacific: Past Impacts, Future Prospects

The Pacific islands have weak economic growth and limited structural change compared to the rest of developing Asia. Remoteness and low economic density are two causes. To mitigate these constraints, bilateral arrangements with Australia and New Zealand let Pacific workers seasonally migrate to access higher-paying, more dynamic labor markets. Managed circular schemes are designed to benefit employers in labor-intensive sectors like horticulture, Pacific workers with limited employment opportunities in their own countries, and the communities providing workers. Several studies show large, positive impacts, but more general development impacts have been harder to find. Likewise, clear quantitative evidence of positive impacts in host countries has been hard to obtain. In this paper, we review the main seasonal labor mobility schemes in the Pacific and provide new evidence on community-level and aggregate impacts.

European Union: Seasonal Workers under COVID-19 Pandemic

The article deals with the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the seasonal workers in the EU. Based on the examples of several Member States, in particular Germany and France, the author demonstrates the problems that seasonal workers and their employers, as well as governments, have experienced because of the closed borders and restrictions on the seasonal workers trips to their place of work. The article analyses the measures taken by the governments in the world and the EU Member States, in particular, to resolve the situation and further use of seasonal labor. At the same time, the author points out the emerging threats to the health of mobile workers due to the inability to comply with preventive requirements, as well as cases of violation of their rights by employers. Recommendations of the EU Commission to Member States on ensuring freedom of movement, social rights and protection of health of seasonal workers are presented. At the same time, the author comes to the conclusion that restoring the channels of disrupted seasonal migration will depend on uncertain circumstances, which may prompt producers in the agricultural industry to rethink their business models by reducing their reliance on cheap labor.

Trends and strategies of labor emigration from Tajikistan to OECD countries

The article discusses the trends and strategies of labor emigration from Tajikistan to OECD countries. Waves and types of emigration from Tajikistan, adaptation of emigrants from Tajikistan to OECD countries. As well as the migration policy of the OECD countries in relation to immigrants from Tajikistan. Tajik labor migrants are becoming increasingly brighter than the prospect of getting a job not only in the CIS countries, but also in Europe, Asia and North America, where working conditions are better, and wages are much higher than in Russia and Kazakhstan. The OECD countries can rightfully be considered as new directions of Tajik emigration. An important feature of the tendency and strategy of labor emigration as a result of our research would be to note the combination of educational and vocational qualifications, resettlement and seasonal labor, labor migration - mostly unskilled and skilled with retraining and internship of labor migration from Tajikistan. Adaptation of immigrants is accompanied by some difficulties. The main one is job searches, which usually take several months. For the most part, the emigrants of Tajikistan consider Eastern Europe and Greece as countries of temporary residence, their main goal being moving to Western Europe (Austria, Germany, Scandinavian countries, etc.). There are cases of intentional destruction of their passports by Tajik migrants when they move to Germany with subsequent appeal to the authorities under the guise of refugees from Afghanistan, since both Tajiks and Afghans speak Farsi (Dari) to receive refugee status and corresponding benefits in Germany. In the OECD countries, new Tajik communities are being formed, which may become, in the near future, networks of attraction for new migrants from Tajikistan.