prong approach of having immigration reform, and funding ag technology at the same time…trying to find that mechanization that actually gets anywhere near the human capabilities that we have. We’re a long way away, but we're slowly getting there, not to replace workers, but to replace the lack of workers. Our ag workforce is shrinking and it’s aging. You have been such a staunch supporter for immigration reform. Where do you see this falling as a priority for the current and next administration? The reason people sat at the table for eight months grinding out the Farm Workforce Modernization Act is because it was the right thing to do. I believe that when you actually have conversations about it and get through the politics and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that unfortunately we saw all too often these past three and a half years, people realize it’s the right thing to do. A Biden-Harris administration clearly will not be based on anti-immigrant rhetoric. Therefore, I believe that we'll have an excellent
opportunity to put forward the Farm Workforce Modernization Act because we have laid such a solid foundation with such a bipartisan bill. I hope that if we have a Trump administration, they look at the policy and the people, not the politics. I know you visited the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology in 2018. What did you think about the Center? I not only visited the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology, I brought my ag research co-chair, Rodney Davis, there to have a town hall with our producers and our farmers and farmworkers. I wanted him to see the type of collaboration that can go on with having that type of Center right in the middle of an ag town. I also brought the current chair of the House Ag Committee, Collin Peterson. As a representative of the salad bowl of the world, I need to make sure that people understand how important our ag industry is. Getting in and encouraging and motivating companies to develop machines
and robots that will actually replicate the human discernment when it comes to harvesting our specialty crops is very, very difficult. When I had Secretary Perdue here in the district last year, I took him out to a strawberry field and we saw some of the technology that they're working on right now. One machine takes more pictures of a strawberry plant in one afternoon than has been taken previously in the entire history of the strawberry. It’s that outside the box thinking that you’d need in order to replace the humans’ ability to pick a fresh, ripe and safe strawberry. What’s your fondest memory of agriculture having grown up in, and now representing, Monterey County? I grew up here on the Central Coast, Carmel Valley, to be exact, on my grandfather's farm, who was an Italian immigrant. I grew up on a walnut farm. I have an appreciation of the hard work that it takes to produce products from our earth. I’ll be the first to admit I'm not a farmer, but I have an appreciation for it. I once took an ag-focused class, which is
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NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2020
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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