> Robotic farmers allow us to dream of a world in which people can grow their food locally without having to do the manual labor or rely on large-scale farming. Many could move back to the countryside - closer to nature and type away on reddit just like before, while the robots take care of their food outside in the small field.

This will never happen in the form you describe. It would mean no bananas and coffee for most of the planet. It would mean no fresh vegetables in the winter. Most fruit would be highly seasonal.

There are only 2 ways of achieving this: global food sourcing, or complete climate control - which would need to be much more sophisticated than the "vertical farms" you see nowadays if you wanted to grow e.g. orange trees or banana palms.