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THE PROMISE OF AGTECH
John D’Arrigo D’Arrigo California
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FEATURES 8
DEPARTMENTS 4 President’s Notes 6 Director Profile 18 Innovation 22 WG Member Welcome & Anniversaries 24 Update from the WGCIT 30 Agriculture & the Law 32 Federal Government Affairs 34 Arizona Government Affairs 36 California Government Affairs 38 Western Growers Assurance Trust 40 Connections 41 Contact Us 42 Inside Western Growers
WESTERN GROWER & SHIPPER Published Since 1929 Volume XCIII | Number 4
WG Women Reaches Membership Milestone 10 The Promise of Agtech 12 Agtech is Already Here 19 WGCIT SPONSOR
To enhance the competitiveness and profitability of Western Growers members
Dave Puglia President & CEO Western Growers davep@wga.com
Editor Tim Linden Champ Publishing 925.258.0892 | tlinden@wga.com Contributors Cory Lunde 949.885.2264 | clunde@wga.com Ann Donahue 949.302.7600 | adonahue@wga.com Production Diane Mendez 949.885.2372 | dmendez@wga.com Circulation Marketing 949.885.2248 | marketing@wga.com Advertising Sales Dana Davis 302.750.4662 | dana@tygermarketing.com
For Farm Credit, Supporting Agtech Means Supporting Family Legacies 20 WGCIT RESIDENT Biodegradable Plastics Within Reach 26 AgTech Updates 28 Farming for Food Banks: A Novel Concept for an Ageless Issue
TOGETHER.
WGA.COM
Western Grower & Shipper ISSN 0043-3799, Copyright © 2022 by the Western Grower & Shipper is published bi-monthly by Western Grower & Shipper Publishing Company, a division of Western Growers Service Corp., 15525 Sand Canyon Avenue, Irvine California 92618. Business and Editorial Offices: 15525 Sand Canyon Avenue, Irvine California 92618. Accounting and Circulation Offices: Western Grower & Shipper, 15525 Sand Canyon Avenue, Irvine California 92618. Call (949) 863- 1000 to subscribe. Subscription is $18 per year. Foreign subscription is $36 per year. Single copies of recent issues, $1.50. Single copies of issues more than three months old, $2. Periodicals postage is paid in Irvine, California and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Western Grower & Shipper, PO Box 2130, Newport Beach, California 92658.
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A Sharper Focus on American Food and Farm Policy By Dave Puglia, President and CEO, Western Growers Among the more irritating adages used in political discourse is: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” It is often applied inappropriately, kind of like: “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over,” which is both painfully overused and mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain. And yet, most of these well-worn phrases reach peak utilization precisely because they are valid in so many situations.
nutrition priorities and block grants to states make up the bulk of our funding. As a new Farm Bill process gears up, the specialty crop industry is preparing to defend our position, since there is always an interest group that would like to poach our funding. Interests representing products that are clearly not specialty crops are seeking to be defined as such. Among them: Hemp, shellfish, wild rice and other niche grains…and even decorative stone. Beyond protecting what we have, we need a unified effort to expand federal support for our industry. We face domestic and international crises and the status quo won’t cut it. We are well organized in the form of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance, a coalition of more than 120 organizations. I am privileged to serve as one of three national co-chairs, following the footsteps of Tom Nassif (whose leadership in the early 2000s led to the first-ever investment of federal Farm Bill funds for specialty crop priorities). Our first action for the 2023 Farm Bill is to strongly oppose adding hemp and other non-produce crops to our sections (or “titles”) of the Farm Bill. The larger question is whether we should be content protecting what we have? I have been warned not to ask for new funding, because “there just isn’t any new money for the Farm Bill.” Didn’t Congress just finish finding, or rather printing, $5 trillion in “new funding” for COVID relief, much of it highly questionable in its connection to the impacts of the pandemic? Immense amounts remain unspent, but we’re supposed to accept that there isn’t any new money available for food production? No way. The needs are clear: Step up research into pests, diseases and the strategies needed to protect our food production. Fund harvest automation, which would put the federal government into a true partnership with private sector innovators. Fund improved data collection and analysis to enable the USDA to support the fresh produce industry— especially for disaster relief—the way it does with corn, soybean, wheat and rice. These programs need additional federal support. After all, we should never let a good crisis go to waste.
The crisis adage is attributed in modern times to Rahm Emmanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama—but historians give the credit to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who made the remark in the final days of World War II about his work to create the United Nations. We have a lot of crises buffeting American agriculture—and especially the Western fresh produce industry—so maybe we should not let them go to waste. The COVID lockdowns threw the global economy into chaos at the outset, and the effects of economic restarts sparked a host of headaches, from supply chain turbulence to inflationary pressures. Russia’s war on Ukraine crimped the production and supply of fertilizer inputs and threatens to greatly reduce the global supply of wheat. The UN projected that the number of “severely food insecure” people across the globe increased from 135 million prior to the pandemic to 276 million people today. Here at home, drought and climate impacts exacerbated by water management policies are forcing a major reduction of food production in the Central Valley. The water shortage in the Colorado River system is getting worse, which will impact farm production. We face a chronic shortage of labor, arbitrary restrictions on crop protection tools and escalating energy costs. We have a collision of crises that presents a danger to America’s food security. Policymakers must act wisely, or we could see a large and permanent reduction of food production capability within our borders. That brings us to the federal Farm Bill, which is due to be reauthorized next year. Few in the fresh produce industry know that the Farm Bill is relevant to us. That’s understandable— from its inception during the New Deal until the early part of this century, it had virtually nothing for “specialty crops.” The Farm Bill was the province of the “program crops” such as corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. But today the Specialty Crop sector benefits from nearly $4 billion in Farm Bill programs. Funding for research, pest and disease threats,
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John Powell Jr., Peter Rabbit Farms, Coachella, Calif. Director 1996-2012, 2022 | Member since 1977 (Cardinal Distributing Co.) It’s All in the Family By Tim Linden John Powell Jr. first joined the Western Growers Board of Directors when he just entered his 30s and was one of the younger chairmen when he took the helm in 2005. During his first stint as a director representing the Coachella Valley district, Powell served from 1996 to 2012. He was preceded on the board by his father John Powell Sr., who was a director from 1983 to 1995, and was elected chairman of the board in 1988. John Jr. recently rejoined the WG Board and has kept his name on the ballot for re-election. Powell explained that he very much enjoyed his
He is also excited about the diverse group of people on the current WG board and welcomes the opportunity to serve the industry again in that capacity. “It is not a homogeneous group,” he said. “It represents a good cross section of our industry.” As he looks back at his career and the industry he was born into, Powell said there have been many changes. On the top of the list, the “family business” concept that dominated the industry for generations is changing with consolidations, corporate ownership and private equity companies acquiring more and more family farms every year. While he notes that change, Powell believes it does give a company like Peter Rabbit Farms a competitive advantage. Necessarily, he said corporate farms and private equity ownership have many levels of leadership. “When you are family business, the operators, managers and decisionmakers are the same people. I think it is a
first run on the WG board and is ready to serve again if his colleagues in the desert district are like-minded. He admits that two Western Growers officials spurred his interest. “I live a few doors down from Albert Keck [the current chairman] and I thought it would be fun to serve on the board with my neighbor. Plus, I was the chairman in 2005 when Dave Puglia was hired,” he said. “I’m excited that he is the President and CEO and I’d like to help him in any way I can as a director.” As far as getting elected to the board this year, Powell said he leaves that up to his district colleagues who will determine if he is the best candidate. “I don’t plan to campaign,” he said. “I think the best thing to do is be a good steward for the industry. I think that is a characteristic that all board members should bring to the table.”
The Powells: Steve, Jake, John Sr., Garret, Collin, John Jr.
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great model, especially for fresh produce.” And make no mistake about it, Peter Rabbit Farms has been a family business since Palmer Powell (John Jr.’s grandfather) started the company as Cardinal Distributing in 1950. Powell was a wholesaler in San Francisco in the 1930s and ‘40s as a partner in Sunrise Produce when he saw the trend toward direct sales from shippers to retailers. He started the Coachella Valley operation and moved the family down to the desert a couple of years later. Palmer Powell was 49 years old when he became a grower-shipper and his son, John Powell Sr., was a teenager. After graduating from University of Southern California in the late 1950s, John Sr. joined his dad and worked alongside of him until the elder Powell passed away in 1988. “He died in the saddle, working to the end,” said John Jr. John Jr. and his sister, Suzanne, and brother, Steve, followed the same route as their father. Each one of them joined the company after graduating from college. Suzanne Powell also went to USC and then joined the firm as director of sales marketing in the mid-1980s. She retired in 2006. John Jr. graduated in 1987 from Stanford while Steve got his degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1989. “When each of us came aboard full time, we took positions based on need,” said John Jr. “I became the inside guy doing a lot of the internal business management work while Steve became the outside guy running the operations side.” The two have remained in those roles ever since. John Powell Sr. retired in 2003, turning over the company to his offspring. When Suzanne retired, the two sons became 50/50 partners. “I think one of the keys to our success is that we have never been at loggerheads,” said John. “A lot of times family businesses don’t work when there are two heads at the table. What happens when you are deadlocked? That’s never happened to us.” Today, three of the four members of the fourth generation have come aboard and John says “I look forward to welcoming my daughter (Nicole) into the business sometime in the future.” John’s son Jake is involved as are Steve’s sons, Collin and Garret. All four children are in their late 20s or early 30s. The three members of that group are in management positions that involve decision-making but are not yet in senior management roles plotting the future of Peter Rabbit Farms. That is still the domain of John Jr. and Steve,
who, at 57 and 55, still have many years of work life ahead of them. John Jr. believes the future is still bright for Coachella Valley farming but acknowledges that there are significant challenges. The valley thrives on water from the Colorado River and that is certainly a topic of concern. “Farming has never been a sure thing,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has a crystal ball that can tell us what’s going to happen to Colorado River water over the next five years, but I think we are in a good position to continue to grow the high quality crops that we are producing.” As the company name suggests, the carrot crop is the top commodity for Peter Rabbit Farms, as it has been for decades. The company also grows lemons and has robust bell pepper and leafy greens programs as well. It markets its lemons through Sunkist and its carrots are grown for Bolthouse Farms. Peter Rabbit Farms also grows crops for other shippers, including winter vegetables for Ocean Mist Farms. It also has a team to handle sales of its own label. Over the years, the grower-shipper has altered its product mix as it dropped its sweet corn production years ago because it didn’t fit with its commodity mix and within the last five years eliminated its table grape acreage as an economic decision. “A lot of the table grapes in the valley have been replaced with lemons,” Powell said. He does note that there will come a time when the next generation has to take control and determine how they will make the family business work for them. With potentially four members in leadership roles, Powell acknowledges that they will also have to figure out how to traverse potential deadlocks and create a workable business plan. But he is convinced that the foundation of Peter Rabbit Farms can potentially support the next generation and beyond. “There will be lot of challenges in the future that will be on their shoulders. They will have to look at the trends and it will be up to them to stay ahead of those trends.” John Jr. and Steve did insist that each of their children get a four-year college degree or the equivalent and work for two years elsewhere before making the family business their career. Powell is energized and feels fortunate that all four members of the fourth generation did go off to college and have returned to the Coachella Valley to pursue their life goals.
WESTERN GROWERS OFFICERS – 2022 ALBERT KECK, Chair STUART WOOLF, Vice Chair NEILL CALLIS, Treasurer DON CAMERON, Executive Secretary DAVE PUGLIA, President & CEO DIRECTORS – 2022 GEORGE J. ADAM Innovative Produce, Santa Maria, California ALEXANDRA ALLEN Main Street Produce, Santa Maria, California KEVIN S. ANDREW Illume Agriculture, Bakersfield, California ROBERT K. BARKLEY Barkley Ag Enterprises LLP, Yuma, Arizona STEPHEN J. BARNARD Mission Produce, Inc., Oxnard, California BARDIN E. BENGARD Bengard Ranch, Salinas, California LOREN BOOTH Booth Ranches, Orange Cove, California GEORGE BOSKOVICH III Boskovich Farms, Oxnard, California RODNEY BRAGA Braga Ranch, Soledad, California NEILL CALLIS Turlock Fruit Company, Turlock, California DON CAMERON Terranova Ranch, Inc., Helm, California EDWIN A. CAMP D. M. Camp & Sons, Bakersfield, California CAROL CHANDLER Chandler Farms LP, Selma, California LAWRENCE W. COX Lawrence Cox Ranches, Brawley, California STEPHEN F. DANNA Danna Farms, Inc., Yuba City, California JOHN C. D’ARRIGO D’Arrigo Bros. Co. of California, Salinas, California THOMAS DEARDORFF II Deardorff Family Farms, Oxnard, California SAMUEL D. DUDA Duda Farm Fresh Foods, Inc., Salinas, California CATHERINE A. FANUCCHI Tri-Fanucchi Farms Inc., Bakersfield, California DAVID L. GILL Rio Farms, King City, California BRANDON A. GRIMM Grimmway Farms, Arvin, California JOHN JACKSON Beachside Produce, LLC, Nipomo, California A. G. KAWAMURA Orange County Produce, LLC, Fullerton, California ALBERT KECK Hadley Date Gardens, Thermal, California J.P. LABRUCHERIE LaBrucherie Produce, El Centro, California FRANK MACONACHY Ramsay Highlander, Inc., Gonzales, California JOHN S. MANFRE Frank Capurro and Son, Moss Landing, California STEPHEN MARTORI III Martori Farms, Scottsdale, Arizona HAROLD MCCLARTY HMC Farms, Kingsburg, California TOM MULHOLLAND Mulholland Citrus, Orange Cove, California ALEXANDER T. MULLER Pasquinelli Produce Co., Yuma, Arizona DOMINIC J. MUZZI, JR. Muzzi Family Farms, LLC, Moss Landing, California THOMAS M. NUNES The Nunes Company, Inc., Salinas, California STEPHEN F. PATRICIO Westside Produce, Firebaugh, California JOHN POWELL JR. Peter Rabbit Farms, Coachella, California RON RATTO Ratto Bros. Inc., Modesto, California CRAIG A. READE Bonipak Produce, Inc., Santa Maria, California ERIC T. REITER Reiter Affiliated Companies, Oxnard, California JOSEPH A. RODRIGUEZ The Growers Company, Inc., Somerton, Arizona WILL ROUSSEAU Rousseau Farming Company, Tolleson, Arizona RYAN TALLEY Talley Farms, Arroyo Grande, California BRUCE C. TAYLOR Taylor Farms California, Salinas, California MIKE WAY Prime Time International, Coachella, California STUART WOOLF Woolf Farming & Processing, Fresno, California ROB YRACEBURU Wonderful Orchards, Shafter, California
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FEATURE STORY WG Women Reaches Membership Milestone
By Ann Donahue A t the midway point of 2022, WG Women reached a significant milestone: There are now more than 100 women participating in the leadership development program. The mission statement of WG Women is to identify and prepare women in production agriculture for positions of leadership with Western Growers and the fresh produce industry. Through virtual and in-person trainings, mentoring and network events, the group envisions a fresh produce industry that reflects the value of women in production agriculture and promotes women to the highest levels of company and industry leadership. Recent training events have included Arbinger Leadership Training, Performance Coaching: Learn How to Lead Employees to Succeed and Social Media Training, which used a proprietary Social Media Toolkit developed by Western Growers. Upcoming trainings in 2022 are DiSC—Productive Conflict in addition to Advocacy and Media Relations trainings and a rollout event to welcome WG Women members in California’s Central Coast. All training and events are free to WG Women members, an estimated annual savings of $3,000 in professional development costs. For the women who participate in the program, dedication and investment in these trainings lead to recognition. Once accepted into the program, WG Women must complete a minimum of 36 program hours to earn an official certificate of completion. To date, three women have achieved a certificate of completion and were recognized at the 2021 Western Growers Annual Meeting: Lacy Litten, Operations Manager of Teixeira Farms; Heather Mulholland, COO of Mulholland Citrus; and Sarah
McClarty, CFO of HMC Farms. With 34 program hours to date, Marisol Moreno, Controller at Allied Potato, is very close to completing enough program credits and on track to be recognized within the next year. Participation in WG Women is limited to employees of WG member companies, and participants are admitted following formal acceptance of the program application. To apply for WG Women and join the 100 women who have taken advantage of this member benefit, please visit www.wga.com/services/ wg-women.
Sarah McClarty, CFO of HMC Farms
Lacy Litten, Operations Manager of Teixeira Farms
Heather Mulholland, COO of Mulholland Citrus
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FEATURE STORY The Promise of Agtech
By Tim Linden I t was a glorious June morning. D’Arrigo California CEO John D’Arrigo and the company’s tech guy, Andy Holtz, Director of Mechanized Equipment Development, were riding on the front end of a working romaine harvester as it moved through a pristine field of beautiful heads of lettuce. Directly underfoot were a number of cameras feeding images of the romaine crop into a computer, which was digitizing those photos to find the exact center of each. Within a few seconds, the computer would send a message to one of several robotic arms equipped with a cone-like, stainless steel cylinder and a cutting blade. The robotic arm would situate the cone over the center of the romaine head and clamp down as the blade would cut the head at its butt. The robotic arm would then place the captured head on a conveyor belt that would take it to a companion truck equipped with an automatic bagger that would place three heads in what would become a familiar
romaine heart three pack. In between, there were a handful of farmworkers overseeing the operation at each step offering human touch when needed. On this particular day, the automated process was not perfect as the robotic cones mishandled a head here and there. But a look back at the 80-inch bed that it was traversing revealed that the field was picked sufficiently clean to warrant the excitement exhibited by the two D’Arrigo
executives. Holtz later reported that the missed head or two were the result of a loose bolt. “Big problems often have simple solutions,” he wrote in an email, attaching a video taken the next day of the harvester operating without a glitch.“The video shows the performance of the robots after finding the one critical bolt that had loosened up. It just so happened to be attached to our steering sensor! Once tightened up, we pressed a few buttons for
D’Arrigo California CEO John D’Arrigo and Andy Holtz, Director of Mechanized Equipment Development
Romaine harvester as it moved through a pristine field of lettuce.
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Romaine hearts inserted into the familiar three-pack bag.
alignment, and our system started to unzip this field of romaine hearts very efficiently.” John D’Arrigo revealed that this machine is in competition with another romaine harvester D’Arrigo has developed that uses different technology to accomplish the same task. Whichever one proves to be the most efficient and cost effective will get the nod, and D’Arrigo will build what they need to accomplish the task of harvesting their romaine fields with less labor. Holtz pointed to another harvester across the field that is the traditional winged unit used throughout the lettuce fields of California and Arizona. That harvester has some packers riding on the equipment while pickers are walking through the field cutting the romaine heads by hand and placing them on conveyor belts to deliver them to the packers. Over the years, those harvesters have been updated and configured with some labor-saving devices, but they still represent a labor-intensive operation. Holtz said that traditional harvester has a crew that is supposed to top 30 members but often it falls short and operates with fewer farmworkers because of lack of available labor. The robotic harvester
and the companion bagging truck are utilizing about a dozen workers to pick, pack, palletize and transfer the pallets to another truck that butts up next to it to take the pallets to the cooler as they are filled. D’Arrigo has no doubt that an automated harvester, as well as other mechanical harvesters being developed for other crops the company grows and markets, will be used extensively someday, sooner than later. He said the industry has no choice. “Six or seven years ago, I saw the handwriting on the wall,” he said. “Lack of labor was going to be the dominant issue.” Even before the coronavirus experiences of the past two years that led to much disruption on the labor front, agriculture was facing chronic labor shortages. Passing immigration reform has been a stalled endeavor for 30 years and there is no doubt that fewer workers are available for farm work. D’Arrigo established a mechanical engineering department on his ranch and he staffed it with people who could envision and build labor-saving devices. D’Arrigo California has mechanized many different operations. It has equipment that can automatically plant seeds, weed
and thin. It has automated much of its irrigation work including laying and removing drip tape, employing mulch film and moving irrigation pipe around a field. It is working on the romaine harvester as well as one to aid in the harvesting of broccoli. Holtz said its broccoli rabe harvester is no longer in the experimental phase as it has several machines in use or on order. Much of the company’s rapini [rabe] is already being mechanically harvested and packed. D’Arrigo noted that there are 450 rapine stems in one carton…that’s a lot of hand labor that has been replaced. He believes that it is imperative that agriculture continue on a fast track to automation. Not only does it reduce the need for labor, but the industry will have a better chance of attracting more skilled workers to the jobs created by the adoption of high-tech machines. D’Arrigo has been on a mission to convince educators at the university level that they should be training the ag workers of the future who will need to be tech-savvy to operate and fix this advanced equipment.
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FEATURE STORY Agtech is Already Here
By Tim Linden T here are many very cool high-tech ideas bouncing around the specialty crop industry, moving forward at various levels of speed, jumping one hurdle after the next. But there are also success stories and real agtech being utilized on the farm. Below are two companies that are well past concept development and are offering equipment that materially reduces the need for labor.
Bear Flag Robotics could well be the poster child for agtech startups. Co-Founders Aubrey Donnellan and Igino Cafiero started the company in 2017 in Silicon Valley, focusing on the development of autonomous farming tractors that are compatible with existing farm machinery. The emphasis was on retrofitting existing tractors with patented artificial intelligence technology to increase their efficiency and productivity. They soon joined a startup accelerator program and received seed money. They also became a resident of the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology. In 2018, Bear Flag partnered with a venture capital company and over the next couple of years received significant funding to move its concept forward. They first put an autonomous tractor in the field in 2018 and launched a commercial version of their technology in late 2019. By 2021, they were involved directly with many growers, including partnering with Church Brothers. Along the way, Bear Flag Robotics began working with John Deere as part of its Startup Collaborator program. The collaboration was a success, and the Bear Flag Robotics was acquired by John Deere about a year ago. The agreement has been valued at $250 million with Bear Flag staff still in place and running the operation, albeit with significant help from John Deere. Cafiero said the agreement has resulted in a significant acceleration of the development and implementation of its farm automation. He recently told WG&S that while Bear Flag Robotics has successfully launched and been acquired, he has learned a lot in the process and would do things a bit differently if he had it to do all over again. In creating an autonomous tractor, Bear Flag concentrated on tillage, reasoning that the operation was a time-consuming
Top: Bear Flag in Action Above: Bear Flag Robotics in a Salinas field
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that has done tens of thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of passes without a driver. That is clearly creating value. And Cafiero said the beauty of the high- tech equipment on the tractor is that those passes are also generating a mountain of data. “The more passes we make, the more that data becomes meaningful.” For example, he said the passes are basically mapping every field and a farmer can quickly see where he has compaction. That data, he said, can be used to work those areas and increase yield and productivity. But Cafiero was quick to add that “data for data’s sake is useless.” It has to actually do something that benefits the farmer. The company is not resting on its laurels, and, in fact, Cafiero said the acquisition by John Deere has allowed the firm to speed up development on other ag technology. The common thread is that the company is focused on “developing the best-in-class technology for autonomous agricultural equipment.” Its goal is to reduce the need for labor in terms of “mundane tasks” and free them up for more revenue-generating operations. Speaking of the ag space, Cafiero said farmers are not trend chasers, and in any endeavor, there will be those early adopters and those that trail behind waiting for the concept to get a bit more mature. “But we have found plenty of early adopters,” he said. “If you show value and they see something that will move the needle, farmers are quick to adopt it.”
Bear Flag’s night service
process that could be automated, saving time and money. The startup had a goal to deliver value to the end user as quickly as possible. Bear Flag had this philosophy and executed it well, but Cafiero said the move to the field was still too slow. Farmers, he said, are not looking for perfection. They are looking for something that works. “My advice is to get out into the field with what you have as quickly as you can and work with farmers as soon as you can.” He explained that the trap some startups fall into is that they gather a lot of smart people in a garage, and they develop and build a high tech piece of equipment that’s really cool but doesn’t necessarily do what the farmer needs it to do. “When we started Bear Flag, we were a robotics
company trying to create an autonomous tractor to deliver to the farm community. Now we are an ag farming company trying to deliver value to the farmer through the use of robotics. That’s not just semantics. It’s a big difference.” Cafiero said the great thing about farmers is that they are not looking for perfection, they are looking for value. If you can provide something that does the job better, they will quickly embrace your technology. “They are very quick to adopt new technology if it has value,” he said. At its core, the Bear Flag concept was pretty simple: create an autonomous tractor that could do a job in a more efficient way. Cafiero said tillage is an operation every farmer employs. Bear Flag has now put real equipment in the field
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F armWise Labs, Inc., an American agricultural technology and robotics company and another resident of WGCIT, also is moving forward on many efforts to mechanize. But it’s also already operating in the space with an automated mechanical machine that uses a combination of AI, computer vision and robotics to pull out weeds in vegetable fields. The company currently has 12 of the weeders in the market and is offering a weekly weeding service to many growers in the Salinas Valley this summer. The company, founded by Sebastien Boyer, is well past the concept stage. “We charge a simple fee per acre for the service,” he said. As a rule of thumb, one machine replaces about 10 workers…a FarmWise weeder can weed 5-10 acres a day. He added the service saves the grower money as the fee works out to be less expensive than the cost of the labor it replaces. As a rule of thumb, Boyer said one machine replaces about 10 workers doing the job manually. Depending upon the crop, a FarmWise weeder can complete the task on 5-10 acres a day. FarmWise continues to offer trials and is marketing the service, but Boyer said the 12 machines now in service are solidly booked for the next 12 months. “Demand is very high, but we are in the process of adding more units,” he promised. He estimated that by early 2023, the company will have expanded its capacity with additional units. The current FarmWise business model is to offer the weeding as a service, providing the equipment and the operator. All a contract customer must do is order the service via a
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cell phone app, specifying the date and the field to be serviced. “Eventually we will have a purchase option as well,” Boyer said. “In fact, we are taking orders for delivery next year.” Boyer noted that there are quite a few companies that are currently touting automatic weeders. He expects that two or three, including FarmWise, will survive, but he does expect there to be consolidation. And he also expects automated weeding to be quite prevalent in a relatively short time span. “What sets us a part is the team that we have built,” he said. “We have two sets of workers. We have a group with technology expertise such as AI (artificial intelligence). And we have another group of workers with farming expertise. That helped us loop in farmers in our development process very early.” Boyer said the early involvement of people that knew exactly what happens in
the field and what a weeder had to be able to do and the challenges it faces helped FarmWise develop a workable unit very early in the process. He said the business strategy has worked. FarmWise has created an automated weeder that does the job, does it economically for the user, and the economic model works for the company. “Each machine is profitable,” Boyer said, noting that the company isn’t yet profitable because of the high cost of development. But he said as FarmWise scales up, the financials will pencil out. In addition, Boyer has greater ambitions for the machines the company is continually upgrading. They are developing this automated equipment so that one machine can do multiple tasks and work on multiple crops. In the future, he expects both the service and purchase options to be available. When a grower buys a machine, Boyer envisions that he
or she will be able to weed a leafy greens field one week and a broccoli field the next. The same machine will be able to be programmed to spray multiple crops, the week after it weeds a ranch. Boyer said he wants to “democratize” ag automation by building equipment that allows the user to determine how it will be utilized. This, in a nutshell, is the promise of AI. The machine will continually learn offering new services and new data. Already, Boyer said a machine that moves through a 10-acre field weeding also is gathering data that the grower can access. For example, after weeding a broccoli field, a report can be generated that will tell the grower how many plants are in that field and their stage of growth. The data generated is an important aspect of how this new technology will compound its value to the user.
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More Talk Between Startups and Growers Needed: Tech Should Do the Listening By Walt Duflock, Vice President of Innovation The 2022 Automated Technology Field Day was held in June at the Hartnell East Campus in Salinas, Calif. There was a great crowd with over 150 attendees and a great mix of growers, startups, and equipment dealers were in the audience. It was probably the largest agtech field demo day for startups since the Forbes AgTech demo day in 2019. I talked to growers that were asking some in-depth
excellent opportunities: (1) FIRA USA – October 18-20 in Fresno, Calif., which is focused on specialty crop automation solutions; and (2) World Ag Expo – February 8-10 in Tulare, Calif. The promise of agtech automation solutions is growing and the need for them is accelerating. Given the decreasing availability of farm labor, the increasing usage of H-2A labor for immigrant workers (which pushes costs for labor higher but makes them more predictable), and the overall cost of labor of all sources from regulation (minimum wage, overtime, break rules, and adverse wage regulations), the need for more automation solutions in agriculture has never been more urgent. Growers and startups can see the promise and the need but based on the reality that few automation startups have raised a C round, there is still a lot to be done. Growers are still not seeing enough solutions to address the labor shortage and solve the economics of it. Growers need to be open to more field trials and willing to have candid conversations with startups that have potential solutions that are not ready for market. Startups need to be open to these discussions and walk away when the grower feedback indicates a lack of market fit. Conversations that turn into pushy sales pitches make the space harder for everyone. As always, startups need to really listen to the customer to hear the feedback being delivered. If growers give candid feedback and startups can listen and make product changes, the entire space can move forward more quickly. The biggest reminder from Hartnell—it’s not enough for automation solutions to just complete the task (i.e. harvest the crop or weed the field). The solution has to do the task at economics that work for the grower (i.e. weeding robots that weed perfectly but cost $600/acre will never get a field trial) and ideally leave economics in play for a potential sales partner like an equipment dealer. It’s the job of the startups to understand and develop product that meets economics demanded by growers, including the preferred buying metric ($x/acre or $x/yield metric) and current spend to complete the task. Both of these can vary by grower.
questions to the startups about business models, service areas and pricing. I also talked to startups that were able to move conversations forward and start some new ones. In short, the event did what it should do: it gave growers and startups a chance to engage and get conversations turned into valid opportunities…or not. Conversations at and leading up to the event provide some clarity around the state of the market for agtech automation: 1. There is continued fundraising momentum in the automation space. Recent fundraising includes $45 million for FarmWise, $27 million for Carbon Robotics, $10.9 million for Burro, and $20 million for Tortuga. This indicates that startups are making progress toward targets set by investors and are able to secure additional funds that are needed to scale. This is good because it indicates that startups and investors are learning to set expectations that can lead to future fundraising success for startups that execute well. 2. Overall, it is still very early in automation. As part of the Harvest Automation Report, we talked to more than 50 automation startups and found that 75 percent do not have any venture capital raised and the other 25 percent only have gone through an A or B round. Traditionally, the first group is still in product design and build mode and not ready for market, and the second has built a version 1.0 product and is just starting to get into market and/or accelerate sales and marketing efforts. Serious scale rarely starts before C round funds are raised. There’s a long way to go to get automation solutions tested and scaled. 3. We need more events like the Hartnell event. Talking to growers and startups at and since the event, it is clear that the in-person event gets both sides focused on the topic at hand: What needs to happen to get automation solutions into field trials and/ or sales motion? The agtech industry should work to deliver more of these events and do it at scale. Sales pipelines are the lifeblood of any startup, and these events can help build pipelines and start or improve relationships. Luckily, there are multiple events coming up that can help, including these two
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FEATURE STORY
WGCIT SPONSOR For Farm Credit, Supporting Agtech Means Supporting Family Legacies
By Ann Donahue N eedless to say, the world has changed quite a bit since the Farm Credit System was established in 1916 with a mandate from the U.S. Congress to serve agriculture and rural communities with consistent and reliable credit. Sure, it was after the Industrial Revolution, so mechanization existed—but computers? Robots? Biologics? To someone of that era, it would all seem like science fiction. But right now the agriculture industry is in the thick of exploring a new frontier, and Farm Credit has adapted to the times while staying true to its mission. As a sponsor of the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology, the Farm Credit Alliance (comprised of several California-based Farm Credit associations including American AgCredit, CoBank and Farm Credit West) sees the support of agtech as a way to adhere to one of the organization’s most important duties: preserving the legacies of family farmers. “As an ag financier, we recognize that our customers need to invest in technology and innovation to become more efficient
as the cost of production increases in California,” said Mark Littlefield, President and CEO of Farm Credit West. “We’re seeing financing requests from our customers that are well planned and forward-looking, this aligns well with the work Western Growers is doing at the Center for Innovation and Technology.” And the planning for the future doesn’t stop for Farm Credit with the funding of hands-on work on the farm. “We lean very heavily into the relationship aspect of lending,” Littlefield said. “Yes, we are a finance provider, but we are also a connector in the community. Our lending teams work hard to position themselves as a central resource for the agriculture industry.” Dennis Donohue, the Executive Director of the WGCIT, said that the support of sponsors like Farm Credit is critical to the operation of the Center because of the bridge building the company excels at doing. “We’re a not-for-profit, and we’re just looking to cover our costs,” he said. “Financial support matters and Farm Credit is a marquee name. It’s important to point out that organizations like Farm Credit support us.” For Farm Credit, helping to find technological solutions for the perpetual problems of labor, water issues related to Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and other regulatory costs is part of their broader mission to support family farming. “Growers seek efficiency,” said Curt Hudnutt, President and Chief Executive Officer at American AgCredit. “Operating costs continue to increase, and farmers meet these challenges with creativity. They look for ways to grow their business and build a legacy for their children. Really,
for the majority of growers we serve, that’s their goal.” One common trait Farm Credit frequently observes among their grower- clients is the dedication to due diligence, which they value when it comes to testing new technology and building confidence in implementing innovative ideas. Growers often experiment with new technology at their operations, expanding a new approach slowly in an effort to determine the long-term implications of applying the technology to their entire acreage—and then they commit to the change and seek financing. “Financial support matters and Farm Credit is a marquee name. It’s important to point out that organizations like Farm Credit support us.”
—Dennis Donohue
“It’s an intentional way of working by the ag community that is born out of an understanding that their family legacy is on the line,” Hudnutt said. “If growers and ranchers are looking to invest significant dollars in technology, they require assurance that they are going to get a strong return. They evaluate the associated risks and proven results. And when they’re ready, we are there to jump in with them,” he said. “This is an area where Farm Credit excels—supporting our customers as they work to achieve their goals by providing a reliable and consistent source of financing.”
Mark Littlefield
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FEATURE STORY
WGCIT RESIDENT Biodegradable Plastics Within Reach
By Tim Linden A handful of years ago, Yelena Kann read an interesting research paper on a mining waste product that found a home in agriculture as a soil amendment. The paper published the composition of the material and Kann thought it might have applicability in degrading plastic. By that time, she had spent three decades in the industrial sector working on the durability of polymers. In analyzing the properties of this specific waste product, she thought it might work to add it to polymers to create biodegradable plastic. “No one had tried doing this,” she said, as she set out to do just that. Working in her garage in 2017, she was excited by what she discovered. By early 2018, Kann had filed a patent application for the use of this material in the extrusion
process used to turn polymers into plastic. By the middle of 2019, Kann and co-founder Kristin Taylor, who is also a veteran in the polymers industry, had launched Radical Plastics in Beverly, Mass. Taylor serves as CEO while Kann is the chief technology officer. The pair entered their discovery into a couple of accelerator competitions and won seed money to start the process of building a company. They soon attracted venture capital and have since built a state- of-the-art lab to perfect the invention, trial it and commercialize it. The problem of non-biodegradable plastics is well publicized and perfectly articulated on the Radical Plastics website. “Plastics are one of the most important inventions of the last century. They’re strong, lightweight, cost-effective materials that have transformed our lives. That’s why plastics is a $650 billion industry. But plastics have a problem. They don’t go away. In fact, around 80 percent of all the plastics ever made are still here. We produce around 380 million tons of plastic each year and only around four percent of that is being recycled.” Radical Plastics is initially focusing its effort on developing biodegradable mulch film. Kann explained that the technology involves blending conventional plastics with the company’s proprietary, naturally occurring catalyst. When properly compounded, the catalyst has the ability to make the mulch film biodegradable in the natural environment. The free radical catalyst converts the plastic into a material that microbes recognize as food. This allows them to metabolize the material turning it into biomass, CO 2 and water. The degraded plastic leaves no residue, no toxic substances and no microplastics. “We are still testing,” Kann said, noting that they are working on ways to alter the speed of the degradation. In some
instances, faster is better. But there are other mulch plastics in which a longer usable life is desired and, in that case, slower degradation might be best. Radical Plastics has trialed the material and expects a soft launch in early 2023. In the meantime, Kann said the key to success is interacting with farmers to find out their needs. She notes the company has done a very good job on the technology side developing a product that she calls a “game changer.” Now they need to marry the product with the need. Radical Plastics has joined the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology and hired Robert Baillargeon to be the main contact between the company’s tech team and the growers. “We do have two patents that have been issued, but we need to talk to farmers,” said Kann. “We need to know how farmers use the mulch film. What should be its thickness and width? Should it be black or would other colors be better? How about transparent film? We have tons of questions we need answered. I am not
Peter Steeves, plastics engineer, and Sean Flynn, our lab technician
Yelena Kann at recent conference in France
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