U.S. Fruit Market: Why Technology Is the Answer for Farming to Progress
It used to be almost a joke, seeing some variation on the expression, “labor pains,” used by a new editor here at Meister Media Worldwide, writes David Eddy at Growing Produce. We cover the gamut of specialty crops, among other things, and the newbie would invariably come back from their first interview with a fruit or vegetable grower with a story — and a bad pun for a headline — about how desperate growers are for labor.
It’s been the same story for decades, but today it’s getting worse. I couldn’t help but think about that in reviewing the results of American Fruit Grower’s fifth annual State of the Industry survey. Each year we ask growers about the top issues they are facing, and labor is always right there at or near the top of the list.
Through the years, fruit growers have tried all sorts of means to secure enough laborers. It would have seemed extreme a couple of decades ago to fly in virtual platoons of workers, pay them above the prevailing wage, give them free housing, and then fly them home at the end of the season. But the H-2A program may well have kept some growers in business.
Continue reading at Growing Produce.
MORE BY GROWING PRODUCE
Agricultural Robotics Market Poised To Kick Growth Into High Gear
Subscribe Today For
