That’s a goal of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), a statewide program and service housed in the Office of the UC President.
Your eyes, mind, work products and bank accounts should be drawn to the words “innovation … entrepreneurship … new technology. …” Your societal concern might embrace “… expand economic opportunities ... .”
Agriculture, of course, is a traditional function of the University of California, a land grant institution and the planet’s leading ag research university.
Not traditional is UC ANR’s restructuring under the leadership of (relatively) new Vice President Glenda Humiston, Ph.D. UC ANR, according to its new strategic plan, is an essential “engine for problem-solving” you are advised to be a friend if you are an ag and food tech developer.
First, you’ll likely appreciate a few numbers about ANR:
- UC Cooperative Extension, which it owns and operates, has 165 valued advisers living and working in the communities they serve. But wait, there’s more: 115 specialists and 268 local educators in all 58 counties.
- There are nine research and extension centers throughout California.
- The Agricultural Experiment Station program has 600 campus-based researchers in three colleges and one school.
- Volunteers in 4-H (bet you didn’t know that), Master Gardener, Master Food Preserver and California Naturalist programs — more than 20,000 adults and 6,000 amazing kids.
And here are insights from Humiston’s recent presentation to the state Board of Food and Agriculture on “Farm Labor Trends and Workforce Needs”: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/state_board/pdfs/presentations/Humiston_UC.pdf
As you probably knew and are designing to accommodate, farm workers from Mexico are decreasing sharply by more than 11,000 annually.
ANR’s response to this and other impactful trends, according to Humiston: “Competitive funding processes elicit new ideas not envisioned by farmers or bureaucrats; also encourage shift from programmatic research toward shorter-term project research.”
This is terrific for ag tech developers. But a word of caution: Ag tech is a unique endeavor in the world of venture capital. Patience, as we’ve discussed here, is mandatory. It still takes, Humiston noted, seven to 10 years to develop a new crop variety, and mechanization adoption can take decades.
She highlighted, for your thinking, a few ag tech innovations:
- New crops: A new variety of grape that dries into raisins on the vine is being perfected on different rootstocks and trellis configurations at the ANR Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension station in the San Joaquin Valley.
- Mechanization: Strawberry, lettuce and asparagus growers are experimenting with robotic planters, weeders/cullers, harvesters and associated devices. “Many questions remain,” she advised.
Commercialization is an avowed goal, as in: “Enhance all aspects of technology commercialization to create a vibrant innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem. ...”
To borrow the words of big thinker William Mulholland, “There it is, take it.”
