A view of the rice paddies in central Taiwan. [XN Iraki] It's only 14 hours by flight from Kenya to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. From the airport at Taoyuan, a high-speed train takes you to ...

Hsinchu, Taiwan – A crane bird flies across a silent rice paddy, the water slowly trickling in the background. It is a tranquil and stereotypical image of an East-Asian countryside. Little seems ...

to take on the task of tending to vacant rice paddies. Once rice seeds have been planted by a drone, a succession of robotic technologies still to be developed would deal with weeding and reaping.