🫘 Beans should be jumping

AI may occupy a lot of space in our heads these days, but it can’t occupy our airspace — yet.

That domain belongs to another job-yoinking form of automation: drones.

Coming for scarecrows’ jobs…

… are drones that look like big birds, designed to scare off smaller birds.

The Drone Bird Company built a fleet of drones resembling birds of prey, hoping their lifelike robo-hawks can help bird-tormented professionals — like farmers and airport managers — keep avian pests away from crops and airplane engines.

• A German blueberry farmer who tested the drone birds saw crop loss decrease from ~50% to 5%.

These “birds” may soon become hawkish in yet another way; the Dutch startup suggests military espionage as a possible application.

It’s not just scarecrows losing opportunities to drones

Ad-towing pilots could soon be unemployed if Sustainable Skylines’ drones take over the sky-advertising business as planned.

There’s an environmental bent here — the Miami-based startup says its drones would reduce the banner-tugging industry’s carbon footprint by 90% — but this isn’t simply a feel-good story about the ozone; it’s a big business play in an aerial ad market estimated to be worth $8.5B by 2027.

Sustainable Skylines will analyze its drones’ routes alongside cellphone data, solving a current pain point for sky-marketers — clarity on how many eyes might’ve seen their banners.

Pilots, naturally, aren’t thrilled about losing a reliable way to accrue flight hours and score ~$50/hour.

Hey, drones replacing jobs isn’t all bad

The Indian government is testing drones for blood bag delivery, trying to improve timely delivery of lifesaving blood cells, plasma, and platelets to remote areas.

Beans, beans the magical fruit, the more you eat the more you… likely don’t live in the US?

That rhyme isn’t as catchy as the original, but the facts check out: Per Vox, Americans are majorly slacking in their bean consumption compared to other parts of the world.

Annually, the average person eats:

• 110-130 pounds of beans in countries like Rwanda and Burundi
• 12 pounds of beans in the UK
• 7.5 pounds of beans in the US

America’s lackluster legume consumption is confusing given the many benefits of beans: They’re protein-rich, cheaper than plant-based meat, and efficient to grow. Plus, they pack a punch:

• Raising livestock (like cattle, pigs, and chickens) uses 77% of the world’s agricultural land but provides only 37% of the global protein supply.
• Growing plants, like beans, uses only 23% of the world’s land but produces 63% of its protein supply.

So what’s the problem?

Beans might need to fire their PR person. While they were cleared off the shelves by terrified pandemic shoppers in 2020, in calm times beans are often forgotten in the depths of American pantries.

And growing them got complicated: In the 1980s, changes to intellectual property laws meant large companies like Bayer and Monsanto could patent seeds — and sue farmers who plant them (even by accident).

The good news: Groups like Beans is How and the Bean Deal are making sure beans get the recognition they deserve.