More farms are turning to automation amid labor shortages

Jeremy Ford hates wasting water.

As a mist of rain sprinkled the fields around him in Homestead, Florida, Ford bemoaned how expensive it had been running a fossil fuel-powered irrigation system on his 5-acre farm — and how bad it was for the planet.  

Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a solar-powered pump to periodically saturate the roots of his crops, saving “thousands of gallons of water,” he estimated. Although they may be more costly up-front...