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Taylor Farming's Joe Pezzini Embraces Biological Systems TALKING ABOUT AN EVOLUTION
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WESTERN GROWER & SHIPPER Published Since 1929 Volume XCV | Number 3
To enhance the competitiveness and profitability of Western Growers members
Features
Dave Puglia President & CEO Western Growers davep@wga.com
P. 19
TALKING ABOUT AN EVOLUTION: TAYLOR FARMING'S JOE PEZZINI EMBRACES BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS EXPLORING THE WORLD OF SOIL HEALTH WITH MEGAN KAVANAUGH FROM BIO S.I. P. 25 HOW WG CAN PUSH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO CREATE POLICY TO TREAT FOOD AS MEDICINE P. 28
Editor Ann Donahue 949.302.7600 | adonahue@wga.com Contributors Cory Lunde 949.885.2264 | clunde@wga.com Julia Nellis 949.885.2270 | jnellis@wga.com Michelle Rivera 949.885.4778 | mrivera@wga.com Kara Timmins 949.885.4786 | kmtimmins@wga.com Circulation Marketing 949.885.2248 | communications@wga.com Advertising Sales Dana Davis 302.750.4662 | dana@tygermarketing.com
Articles
P. 32 WGCIT Startup Helps Unlock New Secrets to Plant Growth
TOGETHER.
WGA.COM
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Western Grower & Shipper ISSN 0043-3799, Copyright © 2024 by the Western Grower & Shipper is published bi-monthly by Western Grower & Shipper Publishing Company, a division of Western Growers Service Corp., 6501 Irvine Center Drive, Suite 100, Irvine California 92618. Business and Editorial Offices: 6501 Irvine Center Drive, Suite 100, Irvine California 92618. Accounting and Circulation Offices: Western Grower & Shipper, 6501 Irvine Center Drive, Suite 100, Irvine California 92618. Call (949) 863-1000 to subscribe. Subscription is $25 per year. Foreign subscription is $50 per year. Single copies of issues, $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.
4 President’s Notes 8 Agriculture & the Law 10 Advocacy | California 13 Science 16 Director Profile 23 WG Member Welcome & Anniversaries
33 Updates from the WGCIT 36 WG News You Can Use 39 Connections 40 Contact Us 42 Farm Dogs and Barn Cats of Western Growers
3 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
SPIRALING LABOR COST AND THE OPPORTUNITIES LOST By Dave Puglia, President & CEO
America’s agriculture sector has been through the ringer these last several years. First came the trade wars and exceedingly high tariffs imposed by China on numerous American agricultural products. Then the COVID pandemic and the supply chain disruptions that created logistical and economic chaos for many food producers. More recently came spikes in fertilizer and other input costs amid world conflict. For growers reliant on the federal agricultural guest worker program to meet their labor needs, none of these pain points matches the anguish caused by rapidly escalating wage costs. Mention the H-2A wage rate in a gathering of farmers for whom that program is the only labor supply lifeline, and you’re likely to get an earful. And possibly worse if you are charged with advocating for the interests of growers before Congress and the federal government. For those fortunate enough to be uninformed, the federal H-2A agricultural guest worker program is a mess of bureaucratic red tape and a multitude of rules that test the fortitude of growers who only turn to the program because they cannot find adequate domestic labor to ensure their perishable crops are harvested on time. No one engaged in federal public policy seriously argues that American farmers have access to enough domestic workers. Some argue, simplistically, that farmers just need to raise wages to attract enough domestic workers. As if farmers can simply pass along higher costs to the buyers of their products – retailers and restaurant chains whose sophisticated sourcing strategies increasingly tap into lower cost (and high-quality) produce from abroad. The central element of the H-2A program is the so- called Adverse Effect Wage Rate, or AEWR. (In practice most of us say, “Ay-were.”) The purported purpose of the AEWR is to ensure that employers can’t use foreign guest workers to displace willing and available domestic workers, and to do this the AEWR is set higher than the state minimum wage, using a convoluted and flawed formula favored by the U.S. Department of Labor. California growers using H-2A now pay the highest AEWR in the nation: $19.75 per hour, well above the state minimum wage of $16.00 per hour. Arizona growers pay $16.32 for H-2A workers, nearly two dollars per hour over that state’s minimum wage. Add in the legally- mandated costs for worker transportation to and from their home countries plus housing, and the effective wage expenditure lands in the mid twenty-dollar range for California employers. Under the Biden Administration, H-2A wages have spiraled. Since 2020, the AEWR for California employers has risen 33.7 percent; for Arizona and New Mexico, 26.4
percent; for Colorado, 16.6 percent. The AEWR has risen dramatically in other states, too, such as Georgia and South Carolina (25.4 percent) and Florida (26.1 percent). Taken together with higher costs for everything from fertilizer to energy (especially in California), the Administration risks numerous unwanted consequences, such as increased consolidation and offshoring of food production. Here’s the part that drives me crazy: This was largely avoidable. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA) was passed with bipartisan support in the House of Representatives in 2019 and again in 2021. Both times, the Senate sat on the bill, effectively killing it. The legislation was the product of intensive, negotiated compromise between agriculture industry segments with the greatest labor needs (and chronic shortages), labor organizations and congressional leaders. Among its three main components was a 10-year wage formula for H-2A workers that would have frozen the wage for the first year and capped the total possible increase in succeeding years at 3.5 percent for most states and 4.5 percent for high minimum wage states like California. Had the 2021 legislation been passed by the Senate and signed into law, instead of the precipitous H-2A wage increases imposed by the current administration, farmers using the program would have saved $2.8 billion in wage costs so far. The average H-2A wage rate nationally would be 12.7 percent less today. All of that begs the question: Why didn’t the Senate pass this legislation? There are several reasons, including some not easily influenced by the industry. But the biggest reason is that the industry was not unified in support of the bill, with some organizations preferring a version that would be even stronger for farmers at the expense of any chance for bipartisan support. As most people have come to realize, immigration, like many complicated issues with partisan dividing lines, cannot be addressed in a durable way without bipartisan solutions. In the case of the FWMA, Senate Republicans saw agriculture divided and turned away. Some day, and one that is hopefully sooner rather than later, another opportunity to address agriculture’s labor needs will emerge. When that window finally opens again, our industry better have learned from all of this hard experience of what might have been. In our current era of partisan division, bipartisan policy compromises are tough enough to advance. A divided agricultural industry only makes the fate of such delicate compromises more susceptible to the partisan inclinations of our elected legislators.
4 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
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CEMEX: IT’S A WHOLE NEW CARD CHECK BALLGAME By Teresa McQueen, Corporate Counsel While much has been written about the new card check provisions of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, a recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision–which extends to most private sector employers, including commercial packing and processing facilities–threatens to impose card check on those employers as well. The 2023 National Labor Relations Board (Board) ruling in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC (Cemex) deviated significantly from decades-long precedent regarding the voluntary nature of card check recognition.
In Cemex, the Board found that the employer’s anti-union activity so tainted the election that its only remedy was to set aside the election results. 1 The New Standard The new standard for challenging certification makes it an unfair labor practice to refuse to recognize, upon request, a union designated as a representative by the majority of employees in an appropriate unit unless the employer promptly files a Representation Management (RM) petition to test the union’s majority status or the appropriateness of the unit. 2 This standard shifts the traditional burden of filing of the RM petition 3 from the union to the employer. The reason being that an employer confronted with a demand for recognition may, instead of agreeing to recognize the union, and without committing a Section 8 violation 4 , file an RM petition to test the union’s majority support and/or challenge the appropriateness of the unit or await the processing of a previously filed petition. However, if the employer commits unfair labor practices sufficient to invalidate the election, the RM petition can be set aside, subjecting the employer to a remedial bargaining order. This allows the Board to rely on the prior designation by non-election means and issue an order requiring the employer to recognize/ bargain with the union. Cemex is applied retroactively. What It All Means Cemex creates a new path to union representation that bypasses the election process and effectively implements card check certification. "As with all union-related efforts, creating a workplace where employees feel valued and heard is the best course of action."
As with all union-related efforts, creating a workplace where employees feel valued and heard is the best course of action. Key points include: • In determining whether an employer’s allegedly unlawful conduct undermined election efforts, “all relevant factors” will be considered. This will likely include a review of the company’s Employee Handbook. All policies governing specific actions/ interactions should be reviewed and edited to make clear that while limiting certain types of conduct, they do not create a wholesale prohibition on the right to discuss public information (e.g., salary/wages, discipline, promotion criteria etc.) • The types of union-related behavior the Board found unlawful included: • Supervisors threatening employees that: • They could be fired/written up for having union stickers on hardhats or be discharged/receive reduced hours/ benefits if they unionized; • They were not to speak to “these union guys” and a refusal to remove union stickers from hardhats would result in discharge; • Unionization would negatively impact work opportunities/wage increases. • Misrepresenting striker reinstatement rights. • Repeated threating that unionization will cause the company to shut down/move to another state. • Questioning employees about wearing pro- union stickers/asking about union offerings. • Asking employees their position on union activities and why, if they support the employer, are they not wearing ‘Vote No’ stickers. • Creating an impression of surveillance (e.g., lingering at property entrances waving to drivers entering/exiting while union organizers in the same area display posters and answer questions). • Targeting pro-union employees for disciplinary action.
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Nothing prohibits taking lawful steps to oppose unionization efforts. However, caution must be taken to ensure such efforts are closely monitored so they do not morph into overly zealous actions that could be viewed as obstructing/interfering in the employee’s NLRA rights.
Footnotes: 1 The 2019 employee vote went against unionization 176 to 166. 2 Assuming the union has not already filed such a petition. 3 Representation Management (RM) petitions are the method that the Board endorses for resolving uncertainty about whether an incumbent union continues to be supported by a majority of a bargaining unit under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). 4 Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7” of the Act. Section 7 guarantees employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” as well as the right “to refrain from any or all such activities.”
Members seeking legal guidance can speak one-on-one with a Western Growers attorney about employment law-related questions by contacting the Western Growers Legal Hotline at 877-942-4529.
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FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING REALITY By Matthew Allen, VP, State Government Affairs
The 2024 legislative year is already shaping up to be one of the most challenging years for advocacy. We are only in April at the time of this writing, but the volume and breadth of bills that Western Growers is advocating for to help safeguard our members’ current and future operations is staggering. That process, coupled with the fact that the state is grappling with a projected $45 billion budget deficit, has made conversations with legislators and other state officials about short and long-term policy goals very interesting.
A $45 billion budget deficit in Sacramento has certainly grabbed attention, and rightfully so. It’s not like this situation just happened overnight. We had a record surplus last budget year and everyone knew we were going into deficit times. The ongoing push for new programs and regulations in California has not helped the situation at all. The inertia of government is much like a ship. You cannot stop on a dime, and it may take miles/years to reach your desired position. It takes planning and attention to detail, especially given that there are more than 127,000 statutes and over 60,000 regulations on the books in the state. Obviously not all of these laws affect business and agriculture. However, these large numbers, when combined with all of the anecdotal evidence, clearly demonstrate that California is a heavily overregulated state. "The Legislature can make California a more attractive place for business investment by ensuring that the system of taxation and regulation is not unduly burdensome." Creating and encouraging a fiscally conservative environment also means that the levers of government should be used to untie the hands of industry so that they can increase their revenue, hire new employees, promote existing employees and expand their businesses. Speaking to legislators about this is frustrating, to say the least. Many say that we often hear that argument from the business community and then dismiss it later on. Apparently, it’s okay to disregard facts when the business community says something. “Facts” is bolded because some things are just true. This issue was directly acknowledged by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in a report it published in February 2024 titled “Key Fiscal and Policy Issues Facing California.” The LAO is a state agency that
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provides policy and fiscal advice to the Legislature. I stumbled upon a key passage in the report that needs to be shouted from every rooftop: “The Legislature can make California a more attractive place for business investment by ensuring that the system of taxation and regulation is not unduly burdensome.” That sentiment is powerful because it’s both true and comes from a trusted advisory agency to the Legislature. Arguably the current system of regulations is already burdensome. But the LAO’s encouragement is to refocus on this and try to find policy actions that are beneficial to business and other state policy goals. I’m encouraged to see this worded so directly in a strategic report. It does not mean that anything super meaningful will necessarily happen overnight to shift the immediate regulatory trajectory in California as regulations often take many months, if not years, to develop. However, the report signals to state officials that something needs to be done to provide greater relief for California’s business sector in order for them to really prosper. Businesses do matter. You’ve always known that. We’ve always known that. Most of the general public knows that. We can also now add the LAO to that list.
WESTERN GROWERS OFFICERS – 2024 Stuart Woolf, Chair Rob Yraceburu, Vice Chair Neill Callis,Treasurer Don Cameron, Executive Secretary Dave Puglia, President & CEO DIRECTORS – 2024 GEORGE ADAM Innovative Produce, Santa Maria, California CRAIG ALAMEDA Topflavor Farms Inc, Salinas, California ALEXANDRA ALLEN Main Street Produce, Santa Maria, California CHAD AMARAL D’Arrigo Bros Co of Calif., Salinas, Calif. KEVIN ANDREW Illume Agriculture, Bakersfield, California ROBERT BARKLEY Barkley Ag Enterprises LLP, Yuma, Arizona STEPHEN BARNARD Mission Produce, Inc., Oxnard, California BARDIN BENGARD Bengard Ranch, Salinas, California BRIAN BERTELSEN Cove Ranch Management, Reedley, 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 CAMP D. M. Camp & Sons, Bakersfield, California CAROL CHANDLER Chandler Farms LP, Selma, California LARRY COX Lawrence Cox Ranches, Brawley, California STEPHEN DANNA Danna Farms, Inc., Yuba City, California THOMAS DEARDORFF II Deardorff Family Farms, Oxnard, California TIMOTHY ESCAMILLA Bolthouse Fresh Foods, Bakersfield, California CATHERINE FANUCCHI Tri-Fanucchi Farms Inc., Bakersfield, California DAVID GILL Rio Farms, King City, California
ROBERT GIRAGOSIAN Kern Ridge Growers, LLC, Arvin, California BRANDON GRIMM Grimmway Farms, Arvin, California JOHN JACKSON Beachside Produce, LLC, Nipomo, California TRACY JONES Booth Ranches, Orange Cove, 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 STEPHEN MARTORI III Martori Farms, Scottsdale, Arizona HAROLD MCCLARTY HMC Farms, Kingsburg, California DOMINIC MUZZI, JR. Muzzi Family Farms, LLC, Moss Landing, California THOMAS NUNES The Nunes Company, Inc., Salinas, California STEPHEN PATRICIO Westside Produce, Firebaugh, California JOHN POWELL, JR. Peter Rabbit Farms, Coachella, California RON RATTO Ratto Bros. Inc., Modesto, California CRAIG READE Bonipak Produce, Inc., Santa Maria, California ERIC REITER Reiter Affiliated Companies, Oxnard, California KYLE RICHARDSON Garry Richardson Farms, Bakersfield, California SONNY RODRIGUEZ The Growers Company, Inc., Somerton, Arizona BRUCE TALBOTT Talbott’s Mountain Gold, LLP, Palisade, Colorado RYAN TALLEY Talley Farms, Arroyo Grande, California BRUCE TAYLOR Taylor Farms Calif., Salinas, California JACK VESSEY Vessey and Company Inc, Holtville, California MIKE WAY Prime Time International, Coachella, California STUART WOOLF Woolf Farming & Processing, Fresno, California ROB YRACEBURU Wonderful Orchards, Shafter, California
11 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
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GROWING THE GLOBAL NETWORK: WESTERN GROWERS VISITS NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA By Jeana Cadby, Environment and Climate Director Our mission was simple: Foster international collaboration for biologicals and identify innovation opportunities to support specialty crop production back home. This past February, WGCIT Executive Director Dennis Donohue and I traveled to New Zealand and Australia to advance biological inputs for specialty crops at a global scale, enhance partnerships with our agricultural allies, and get a front-seat view at developing ag tech from innovators Down Under.
Dennis, Jeana and Peter meet with James Araci (L to R), Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, to discuss opportunities with the Global Trial Network Platform 10.
hardiness and early season. It was a great opportunity to share with their team about Platform10, WG’s international, multi-year collaboration to accelerate promising biological solutions for global specialty crop production. There and Back Again Like California, New Zealand is a big exporter, particularly for fruit and dairy products, and producer of local vegetables. Finding biological solutions to these pressing pest concerns is a shared key priority for Vegetables NZ, the largest vegetable grower association in New Zealand. We visited their research station in Pukekohe, the largest vegetable production region. The fertile volcanic soil supports 80 percent of the bulb onion production, 80 percent of the fresh market potato and is the largest area of glass house production to include tomato and cucumbers nationally. Driving past the fields of fruit vegetables, we felt right at home;
Elevating Local Ag Upon arrival in Auckland, we were greeted with a barrage of signage warning travelers to be wary of potential agricultural threats, particularly the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB). Although the BMSB has not made its way to New Zealand, its wide host range has the potential to devastate local agriculture. During our visit to the Plant and Food Research (PFR) campus in Auckland, we learned that PFR has been working on understanding the life cycle and egg laying habits of the Samurai Wasp, a tiny predatory wasp that has a preference for BMSB. They even let us take a look up close with their electron microscope! This kind of cutting-edge research is done to elevate and protect New Zealand agriculture to the highest degree. PFR also develops delicious specialty fruit varieties, including ‘EarlyBel’ raspberries, and ‘Jazz’, ‘Envy’ and mini-sized ‘Rockit’ apples. They continue to develop varieties that are heat tolerant, increased
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Panelists at evoke AG discussing the potential of biologics. Pam Marrone, PhD, Platform 10 Advisory board member discussed the progress of Platform 10 and work of Western Growers to address the challenges in widespread adoption and scalability.
even the major pest priorities are not dissimilar, including thrips, diamond back moth and army worm. Of course, a trip to New Zealand wouldn’t be complete without a stop in Te Puke, the kiwi fruit capital of the world. Improved kiwifruit variety development is a key priority for the Kiwifruit Breeding Centre (KBC), a joint venture between PFR and Zespri, the world’s largest marketer of kiwifruit. As we huddled under the dense kiwi orchard canopy, we learned that this past season was exceptionally challenging due to extreme weather events, a ‘new normal’ growers have been experiencing around the word. As the industry faces new diseases and impacts from climate change, leveraging new tools and technologies is critical to building resilience and producing sustainably.
Outlook from the Outback The Evoke ag conference in Perth, Australia, is the largest ag tech event south of the equator. We presented the work of WG in Biologicals to a group of UK, New Zealand and Australian state, federal and private agricultural interest and research groups. Our Platform 10 event was kicked off by Karen Ross, who emphasized the importance of ecosystem health, human health and economic viability for agriculture in California. This trip was an outcome of groundwork that was laid out at the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit; an opportunity to reciprocate the commitment to partnerships that our international collaborators demonstrated to accelerate global development of biologicals. We are so grateful for the generous hospitality of all of our hosts and for these opportunities to develop this platform to exchange ideas and build collaborative partnerships at a global scale.
An early morning flight on a prop airplane leaving Tauranga. Kiwifruit orchards are identifiable even from up above, due to the ubiquitous windbreaks (called ‘shelterbelts’ locally) enclosing each field, with neat rows of kiwifruit vines nestled between the mountains. The majority of kiwi production in New Zealand occurs between the Kai Mais mountain range and the Bay of Plenty.
Dennis, Jeana and the staff at Plant and Food Research in front of the Ultra High Resolution Scanning Electron Microscope, aka CLARA, used to research the Samurai Wasp, a tiny predatory wasp that has a preference for Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB).
14 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
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WG Director Profile: Tracy Jones CEO, Booth Ranches CHARTING HER OWN COURSE By Michelle Rivera, Communications Manager
In a scene all too familiar in agriculture, young adults in rural communities are often lured to the big city in search of jobs and professional opportunities. But for those who remain, the ambitious and industrious can almost always chart a course of their own choosing. Such is the story of Tracy Jones. Tracy grew up in Reedley, California, a small agricultural town with a limited variety of jobs for younger adults, she explained. “In Reedley, when you’re old enough to get a job, you’re either going to work in a packing house or work at a fast-food restaurant,” Tracy said. Although she had no family ties to the agricultural industry, Tracy decided that her first job would be in a packing house. So, at 16 years old, she found herself packing tree fruit and onions. Tracy did not realize it
at the time, but this job would serve as an important stepping stone on her path to a thriving career in agriculture. Following her time at the packing house, Tracy took on a new role working in a shipping office for a cold storage company. She then transitioned to become a sales assistant for a marketing team that sold tree fruit and grapes, all while putting herself through college at Fresno State. Tracy later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in International Business, and landed herself a full-time sales position. It was full steam ahead for Tracy in her new role. As someone who likes to be “overly prepared,” it is not in her nature to wait for success to land in her lap. “I was a junior salesperson and brand new, so I’d go into the office at 4 in the morning so I could start selling by 7 a.m.,” Tracy said. “I did that for awhile until I got my feet on the ground.” In 2009, Tracy turned her attention to Booth Ranches, knowing that a sales manager position would soon be opening up. Not only did she land the job, Tracy was quickly promoted to Vice President of Marketing and Sales. It has been almost 30 years since Tracy’s beginnings working on the packing house floor, and today she proudly serves as the CEO of Booth Ranches. Founded in 1957 by the late Otis Booth Jr., Booth Ranches is a fully integrated citrus company that packs and sells oranges grown on its farm and comprises 7,500 acres of citrus throughout California’s Central Valley. Today, Otis’ daughter Loren upholds her father’s legacy
"When you think about everything that goes
into planting, harvesting, packaging and the journey it takes to get product to the store, what strikes me most is the hard work everyone puts into the process."
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as the president of the company and also serves as an inspirational figure for Tracy. “Loren’s an incredible person who gives back to the community and treats people with respect. She has been a great example for me to follow,” Tracy said. Over the years, Tracy has found a deep sense of purpose in inspiring others through her own experiences and serving as a source of motivation for those around her. “When you think about everything that goes into planting, harvesting, packaging and the journey it takes to get product to the store, what strikes me most is the hard work everyone puts into the process,“ she said. “It’s fun to create ownership for our employees and make them realize that they’re part of this big, amazing system. Helping to inspire everyone to take accountability for their own scope of work within that system is extremely rewarding.” Tracy brings that same sense of purpose to the Western Growers Board of Directors and is optimistic that her unique background can provide a valuable advantage to future discussions. “Western Growers is a wonderful organization and puts in a tremendous amount of work that farmers normally wouldn’t have the time to do,” she said. “It’s an honor to be a part of a brotherhood and sisterhood of farmers, where we can come together and share our experiences and guidance for a greater cause.”
17 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com May | June 2024
INSV Defense: Breakthrough against INSV with first resistant lettuce varieties
A solution to the Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) is finally within reach for lettuce growers. After years of intensive research and breeding, the Dutch vegetable seed company Rijk Zwaan launched two Romaine lettuce varieties for the U.S. market with a resistance to INSV. The varieties are the first in the company’s INSV Defense line and more lettuce varieties coming in the near future.
Read more: www.rijkzwaanusa.com/page/insv-defense
For more information, contact Lettuce Crop Specialist Nathan Peretz at n.peretz@rijkzwaan.com
COVER STORY
GROWERS EVOLVE: EMBRACING BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS By Kara Timmins, Communications Manager
Farming is all about biology. It always has been. It always will be. With an expanding industry portfolio of biological products going to market, each with the hope that there’s a place for its utility and an industry looking for viable solutions to growing environmental, regulatory and consumer pressures, the movement in biologically cohesive systems is advancing. Growers are navigating biological complexities with dexterity and modesty, recognizing that these systems play by their own rules and still hold mysteries to be solved. Exploring the art and science of farming is a journey every grower has to take, but they have each other and industry support from organizations like Western Growers to help move them forward. “A farm is part of the environment it sits in,” said Joe Pezzini, Senior Director of Ag Operations at Taylor Farming, LLC. “So there’s always this interaction of the surrounding environment. That goes both ways. We are trying to integrate biological systems to grow plants, to grow a crop, to its maximum potential, to feed
us, to feed the world. We are dealing with biological systems to begin with, so it is all about biology. What’s emerging now is more of a focus on how to enhance that biology. Not just with nutrients, but really understanding the science, bacteria and fungi and the inner relationship and interaction of how to stimulate a really healthy crop.”
In 2023, Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology co-hosted the Salinas Biological Summit with Wharf42. The inaugural event sold out. The collective conversation that included growers, business leaders, government representatives, investors, universities and startups explored the needs and goals of the many to synchronize the goal. Knowing that staying focused and effective would take more than an annual two-day event, Western Growers and Wharf42 launched Platform 10. Jeana Cadby, Director of Climate and Sustainability for Western Growers, is one of the experts participating in guiding the program. “There has been a lot of momentum since the previous Biological Summit,” Cadby said, “and we are so excited to share the progress that has been made in this space. Last year, Western Growers launched Platform 10, an international, multi-year collaboration to accelerate promising biologicals, rigorously assess products, enhance grower confidence and facilitate market development and adoption. The objective is to establish a global trial network to connect the Science to the Farmers.” At the 2023 Summit, many attendees shared their perspective on the need for implementing more biological products in growing fresh produce. For the growers who took the stage, they made it clear that not only are they open to the opportunities, they’re also looking for them. But the products have to work, and they have to be integrated into the growing process in a way that makes sense.
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Joe Pezzini, Senior Director of Ag Operations at Taylor Farming
Agricultural operations are familiar with adapting to environmental and regulatory pressures, but every hurdle vaulted often reveals another. “Growers are up against mounting challenges due to climate change, cost of production and diminishing availability of traditional tools,” Cadby said. “We see biologicals as an opportunity to address existing and anticipated gaps in pest management, crop resilience and yield efficiency, nutrient availability, and sustainability to ensure that our growers are properly equipped with the tools to address these challenges.” Overcoming these challenges with creativity and diligence is a daily priority for growers, especially if the grower operation is producing on 25,000 acres of farmland, 19,000 acres of which is organic. Taylor Farming is embracing biological and sustainability practices throughout its operations, melding the science and the art of farming: “Meshing the technology, the biologicals, with the ability to produce this competitively can be a challenge, for sure, but we feel like we’re up for that,” Pezzini said. As an example of some of the ways Taylor Farming is doing that, Pezzini shared that they’re “using biological products to enhance root development, mycorrhiza fungi. We use a number
of seaweed products to help control plant development, and there are products that will help stimulate uniform flowering. For example, for green beans, we’ll use that product to try to set all the beans all at the same time so we can mechanically harvest them.” In another way, they’re working with products and processes to enhance the microbiome of the soil. As a driver of the biological resources that have been added to the agricultural toolset, understanding the complexity of the microbiome in the soil is unveiling itself more and more every day with data analysis and scientific research. “There’s an entire emerging science around the biology of the soil and soil health,” Pezzini said. “That’s critically important in all farming, but especially in organics. We’re trying to study the soil, and there are a lot of companies [working on] understanding what the microbiome of the soil is – What are all the bacteria in the soil? What are the good ones...How do you stimulate that?” Along with riding out the process of research and development of these products, understanding how and when to use them also takes the same kind of attentiveness and patience. While the inputs may seem similar to traditional treatments on the surface,
biositechnology.com
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they’re different. “You may use a biological in one instance and for some reason it doesn’t have the performance that you expected but in another setting it might work really well. It takes time to figure all that out,” Pezzini shared. “I think that’s one of the challenges with biologicals is that you do have to be somewhat patient with them and you have to become kind of a student of them as well to really understand how to use them effectively.” Identifying the details of what works, how, and in what way and circumstance is a gained knowledge that Taylor Farming and others within agriculture have a strong commitment to learning and sharing within the industry. Collective communication and alignment is what can lead to a healthier industry and population. Practices and beliefs about what’s best for different operations may vary, and opinions may differ on the details, but events like the Salinas Biological Summit provide space for those conversations and conveyance of information to stay free flowing.
The 2024 Western Growers Biological Summit is set for June 25-26 in Salinas, Calif. “We received very positive feedback from our grower members that the event was well worth attending,” said Dennis Donohue, CIT Director. “We placed a premium on useful information and sufficient time to network.” Confirmed speakers for the upcoming event include Dave Puglia, President & CEO of Western Growers; Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture; Don Cameron, Vice President and General Manager of Terranova Ranch; Stuart Woolf, President & CEO of Woolf Farming & Processing; Guy Kawasaki, marketing specialist, author and Silicon Valley venture capitalist; and many more. Tickets can be purchased at www.salinas-summit.com.
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FEATURE STORY
EXPLORING THE WORLD OF SOIL HEALTH WITH MEGAN KAVANAUGH FROM BIO S.I. This interview is adapted from an episode of Western Growers' Voices of the Valley podcast. The content has been edited and formatted for print. What does it take to grow nutritious food for the world? It starts with healthy soil, which provides nutrients to crops, supports a diverse ecosystem of beneficial microorganisms, and helps suppress harmful pest and pathogen, all of which leads to healthier crops and higher yields.
In a recent episode of the Voices of the Valley podcast, available on all major podcast platforms, Megan Kavanagh, VP of Science and Agronomy at Bio S.I., joined Western Growers Jeana Cadby, Environment and Climate Director, and Kara Timmins, Communications Manager, to discuss the science of soil health and why it’s important for growers and consumers alike. Megan Kavanaugh: Thank you so much for having me, Kara and Jeana. I’m really excited to be here. Kara Timmins: We’re excited to have you here. So, we’re going to talk a lot about soil and bioscience and all kinds of things that are going on at Bio S.I. For starters, can we get a little bit of a history about Bio S.I.? MK: It’s a very small family-owned company. They manufacture biological inputs. They are located in Texas, but they have worked in all kinds of specialty crops in California and all throughout the Midwest in potato production. They have been around since the mid-nineties. The founder was a veteran, and he also grew up on a farm. He realized over time that the soil was becoming over applied with a lot of pesticides and fertilizers. His idea was to rebuild, restore and renew the soil using soil biology, which, you know, back in the mid-nineties was niche, right? He started to collect soils from challenged environments, hydro-carbon contaminated environments, agricultural fields that had been heavily managed and from areas of different fields that had high productivity. He grew these microbes together and scaled out the facility over time. One of our primary tanks contains microbial communities that have been coexisting together for 25 years. So when I came on, I thought that was really cool. It’s a family company, it’s small, and there for the grower. And I really liked that mindset. He passed in 2018 from cancer, and his wife had taken over the company. They had been in sort of limbo, and they needed somebody who wanted to take this fermentation–I call it liquid gold–and put it out in the field and generate relevant data to look at the molecular impact of these microbial communities in large scale agriculture. Jeana Cadby: Can you talk a little bit about the nexus of soil health and why we should be thinking about soil health in our production systems? MK: I think it’s really important to think about the pillars of soil health and what that entails. If we just look at soil health from a biological perspective, we’re missing the chemical, we’re missing the physical. Because it really is a three-pronged approach. Biology is one extremely important metric for soil
health. However, it’s the metric you can’t see. You can do basic soil chemistry analysis and target how this chemical application impacted soil health in this way. Same thing with physical. If you’re looking at aggregate stability over time, well, aggregate stability is also modulated heavily by microbes, fungi in particular. We’ll provide glue for the structure for the aggregate so you have better water infiltration, water holding capacity, and all of a sudden the aeration is better, the crops are happier, the roots are happier, so you have the physical component. That’s also really easy to track. If you’re doing deep tillage, you’ll see an impact to the structure. But biology from a soil health perspective is something we can now afford to sequence. Real time, quickly.
"It’s really easy to list all of the things that are wrong, but it’s really cool to look at issues and provide solutions and then see when things are starting to go right."
If you look at farming as a whole, it’s very expensive. It’s really high risk. So it’s all about working with the growers, working with the agronomist, and instead of going out and telling them, “Hey, you should only be using biologicals. What are you doing?” I don’t take that approach. I think it’s counterproductive to collaboration. What we’re finding is, when you go out and you talk to these growers, you talk to the PCAs and CCAs managing these acres, they’re really innovative, and they actually want to find different ways, and they want to try to trial it and generate the data. I come behind those trials, and I start sampling the soil microbiome. I’m able to actually show them with data, and then it starts to make shifts. It’s a paradigm shift right now that’s really occurring, but it’s really interesting to see the interest and willingness to collaborate. KT: A lot of growers have scientific minds and a desire to be stewards of the land. And they take that title very seriously. One of the tools in their toolbox is science. Can you talk a little bit about what you’ve seen in terms of the agricultural community
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and how they utilize that and how they share that information with one another and how this is one system? MK: That was spot on. This is what’s been such an exciting journey for me in the last 12 years is I’m all about fundamental change. It’s really easy to list all of the things that are wrong, but it’s really cool to look at issues and provide solutions and then see when things are starting to go right. And I think you’re completely right about agriculture and research and also preserving and supporting our agricultural lands. We are not creating new soil. I cannot say this enough. We are not creating new soil. So if our producers, if our growers who are stewards of the land, if they cannot support their family, their operations, their livelihood, if
they lose that and we don’t support them, they will have to sell that land. And that land may potentially go out of production. We’re losing a fairly substantial amount of agricultural lands every year. So I think if we look to producers and we thank them, right, thank you for preserving this soil that can feed an entire world, it’s really powerful. So I think that’s why a lot of the growers are so willing to be early adopters of technology and innovations. To learn more about Bio S.I. and their range of products, visit www.biositechnology.com. For more information about the advancements in agtech and ag science, visit the Western Growers Center of Innovation and Technology website at www.wginnovation.
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