has a team of young employees solely dedicated to researching new and emerging technologies for the farm and developing integration strategies for scaling proven solutions. In fact, the company has already implemented and deployed numerous innovations coming out of the Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology, including WaterBit’s automated irrigation solution and HarvestPort’s
at Western Growers’ AgTechx event in Delano this past September. “Being at the beginning stage of this industry is exciting. I’m looking forward to see what the future holds and to continue working with tech startups to try to come up with solutions to our challenges,” Kovacevich remarked.
Tom "T5" Nunes
equipment sharing marketplace. Sun World Innovations, a division of Sun World International, is also looking to the millennial generation to identify new agricultural technologies that can potentially be trialed and adopted on Sun World farms. Victoria Kovacevich joined the Sun World Innovations team after graduating from Cornell University in 2017. As an agriculture technology analyst, she is responsible for identifying, validating and assessing new ag technologies relevant to Sun World’s farming pursuits and those of its licensees. “Labor and automation, especially with specialty crops, are struggles that need to be addressed. Bringing technology companies together with growers to form relationships and collaborate on creative solutions is really the way that anything is going to advance and is the way that everyone will be successful in the end,” said Kovacevich during the V iew from the Farm: The Next Generation panel
engagement since early childhood. Domenick Buck—a fourth-generation farmer—currently serves as assistant ranch manager for Anthony Vineyards, managing his family farm’s table grape operations in the Bakersfield area. At 30, he is always on the lookout for new technologies that can be game-changers for table grape production. “Table grapes are an extremely labor intensive commodity,” said Buck. “Our company estimates, from the time that we start pruning until the end of harvest, it’s roughly 700 man hours per acre to farm. Due to increasing labor costs, we have to find ways to be proactive and focus on mechanization and automation that can supplement the human element of harvesting.” He notes that the way table grapes are harvested today is “archaic,” in that those picking the grapes walk half a row (could be up to 300 feet in difficult terrain), fill their picking bins on top of a wheel barrow and walk them to the end of the row. “I estimate 15 percent of their day is just walking up and down the rows. We need to find a technological solution that is both practical and affordable. This will allow the labor force to focus solely on harvesting, which would be extremely beneficial in productivity and cost savings,” he said. Understanding how technology can play a role in battling regulatory hurdles and crippling labor shortages, companies are now creating positions dedicated to sourcing promising inventions. Bowles Farming Company, one of the early adopters of agricultural technology,
Domenick (Dom) Buck (right)
Bowles Farming Co.'s tech team deploys WaterBit’s automated irrigation solution
Tom Nunes – T4 and T5
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MARCH | APRIL 2019
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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