Without Mexican Workers, California's Ag Industry Is Relentlessly Mechanizing

Immigration from Mexico--both legal and illegal--has been declining for over a decade. Driscoll's is so secretive about its robotic strawberry picker it won't let photographers within telephoto range of it. But if you do get a peek, you won't see anything humanoid or space-aged. AgroBot is still more John Deere than C-3PO -- a boxy contraption moving in fits and starts, with its computer-driven sensors, graspers and cutters missing 1 in 3 berries. "We don't see -- no matter what happens -- that the labor problem will be solved," said Soren Bjorn, president of Driscoll's of the Americas.