A high-value commodity executive, a food business leader, and the leader of the planet’s No. 1 agricultural and environmental university walk into a bar …
No, wait … actually they walked into my office, or I walked into their office. And no joke, they have critical emerging ag tech insights.
The president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, John Aguirre, tells us that “viticulture has an unprecedented interest in devices.” This is due both to the perennial labor shortage and “compliance challenges.”
You know the meaning of this last term if you’re a regular visitor to this blog. Regulators of California’s water and inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) are busy planting an unprecedented (get the karma?) wave of overlapping rules.
These rules require sophisticated and, ideally, integrated ag tech that computes the application rates, measures the outcomes, monitors for exceedances and reports the results. Farmers, of course, want to keep the data confidential, but the ag tech must help determine compliance.
“We are adapting to a regulatory environment in which mechanization makes sense,” said Aguirre, who represents the first group of growers to adopt sustainability and who have global market presence.
Still, “growers are not connected to technology the way they should be. They need to see it work and understand how effective it can be in some detail.” Translation: Get off your duffs and get out in the dirt. Demonstrate immediate benefits to the grower, not cool features. If it doesn’t increase their profits (i.e., sustainability), they don’t care about cool.
Likewise for ingredient and food makers. Rob Neenan, the California League of Food Processors CEO, said his worldwide members — whose labels you all recognize — are focused on precision measurement and instant analytics: detecting the presence of unwanted substances in the ag products and determining those levels, then parsing the data points “so we can find and react to issues now and not be fined [by regulators] five years later.”
And consumers are increasingly drawn to organic fruits and vegetables, he noted. Organic status must be verified and transparent. There are opportunities for consumer-friendly interfaces.
Again, these are sophisticated business people who are frustrated with the antiquated platforms used by regulators.
Growers and food processors follow research, both applied and pure. The UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is rated No. 1, or at least in the top three, in the world. Dean Helene Dillard presides — a busy, outgoing leader who also finds time to serve on the California Board of Food and Agriculture.
Her professors are leaders in the field, literally and figuratively. They work with plants: shaping characteristics that resist disease, increase yield and adapt to mechanization, such as dwarf olive trees on which grapevine equipment can be used, or a strawberry variety dominant for decades.
And this is new: a harvester for sensitive plants with laser-guided, nimble fingers. Yes, really. No, wait, fingers are already leap-frogged by sticky rollers that pull gently.
“Farmers want prototypes now,” she said. UCD is upgrading its demonstration and research facilities into a smart farm focused on robotics and integrated technology, she explained.
Targeted projects, due to the new regulatory-driven urgency, are being accelerated, Dillard said, noting that integrated research to reduce nitrate damage to soil is an example.
Imagine connecting salt-tolerant crops, high-uptake root systems, sensors that determine quantity and timing of various inputs, sensors that detect and react to vadose zone throughput (Google it), mechanical pruners, and harvesters.
Imagine. Get to work.
