Opinion: AgTech Offers the Labor Upgrade Our Industry Needs

By Agri-Pulse

It’s easy to ignore system update notifications on our phones, writes Ian LeMay at Agri-Pulse. With all of the pressures on growers today—drought, regulations, port closures, supply chains to name a few—the issue of upgrading technology to improve agricultural labor and output is put off as easily as delaying updates to newer versions of iOS. However, current conditions have growers stressed to the point where a little mechanization or automation can make the difference between staying in business and fallowing the family farm.

AgTech has the potential to deliver those savings and increase flexibility. However, farmers throughout the Golden State need to take a more proactive approach to cultivate growth for our individual laborers and update the agricultural system to ensure California’s agricultural longevity and economic well-being.

The recent investment of $65.1 million by the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge to build the F3 – Fresno-Merced Future of Food initiative will put into practice the foundational transition principles to upskill our region’s agricultural workforce and build new agrifood technologies that will expand opportunities for ag-skilled laborers and farms of all sizes. Growers and employees will want to work with researchers and industry to elevate AgTech implementation and innovation.

AgTech offers our industry an opportunity to move beyond our outdated operating system and upgrade our human-computer interactions to provide safe, flexible, and environment-specific hardware (machinery to support) and software (systems to support) to a skilled workforce, our employees, that connects, decides, and uses their own unique skills and experiences to expedite production.