The Warriors: Men & Women Who are Changing the Face of Agriculture

July 15th, 2020

War, by definition, is a sustained effort to deal with or end a particularly unpleasant or undesirable situation. With war, inaction is not an option. This is especially true in agriculture, where inaction puts the nation’s food supply in jeopardy.

There is a myriad of passionate agri-warriors across the United States who are fighting for the right to feed our nation. Though these farmers and ranchers are growing the healthy food that provides sustenance and nutrition for millions of people, their noble efforts are still met with adversity. In addition to battling factors out of their control such as the growing scarcity of natural resources, they must also deal with regulatory pressures that only seem to intensify.

Take, for example, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s decision last year to ban the use of insecticide chlorpyrifos, making it even more difficult to protect the state’s food supply from invasive species. Or the dramatic increases in the Adverse Effect Wage Rate by the U.S. Department of Labor, which detrimentally affects the ability of American farmers to access and afford a legal, stable supply of labor.

Farmers, especially in the West, face the most stringent regulatory environment in the world, and more often than not, it’s an uphill battle. However, they understand the consequences of inaction, and leaders throughout the industry are rising to the occasion to fiercely fight for, as well as discover, solutions that will pave the way for a better tomorrow. These warriors are taking monumental steps that will forever transform the industry—whether it be through advocacy, innovation or community outreach.

Who are these leaders lobbying for more freedom on the farm? Who are the innovators thinking outside the box for solutions? Who are the pioneers turning to technology for an answer?

Here are five men and women who are changing the face of agriculture.

Robert Sakata: Mobilizing the Fight for Colorado Farming

Robert Sakata is a founding member, and current president, of the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (CFVGA)—an organization dedicated to advancing and protecting Colorado’s fresh fruit and vegetable farmers. As the owner of Sakata Farms, he has experienced, first hand, how policies and regulations created by lawmakers and administrators unfamiliar with agriculture can have adverse effects.

“A lot of times, you have to be at the table to make sure you are not losing ground,” said Sakata. “There are so few of us left in agriculture and when there is an opportunity, we need to make sure that our voice is heard.”

Prior to CFVGA, there was no unified front that supported fresh produce growers throughout Colorado. When a multistate Listeria outbreak in 2011 was linked to cantaloupes in Colorado, melon growers lacked the resources needed to properly deal with the incident. It was then that Sakata, Adrian Card of the Colorado State University Extension, and a host of local growers expedited the establishment of CFVGA. Today, CFVGA, which is a partner of Western Growers, serves as the go-to resource for Colorado produce growers in five core areas: food safety, labor, water, business development, and health/nutrition.

In addition to his involvement in CFVGA, Sakata also advocates for farmers through his involvement on local boards such as Colorado’s Water Quality Control Commission, Colorado Ag Water Alliance, Colorado Water Congress, Interbasin Compact Committee, Adams County Farm Bureau and Colorado Farm Bureau. He regularly travels to Washington, DC, with Western Growers and other ag organizations to share his experience as a farmer with legislators.

“When it comes to topics that directly affect farmers like water or immigration reform, if we aren’t involved and not voicing our needs, who knows what else we would be losing. We need to be at the table, not on the table.”

A.G. Kawamura: Eradicating Hunger Through Urban Farming

As a progressive urban farmer who has dedicated his life to ending hunger, A.G. Kawamura believes that domestic food security is more than a national movement; it is a common-sense philosophy. Kawamura, an owner/partner of Orange County Produce, has a lifetime of experience working within the shrinking rural and urban boundaries of Southern California and has made it a goal to discover and implement innovative methods to address food insecurity through urban agriculture. This includes working with edible landscapes to experiment with different ways of production, as well as farming on undeveloped land such as parking lots, rooftops, open space under power lines, and between runways on an abandoned military base.

“People talk about being an urban farmer as if it’s something completely different than being a rural farmer, but the truth is that both are dealing with taking the land and transforming it so it can produce product for you,” said Kawamura in a recent Western Growers Instagram Takeover. “The biggest difference between urban and rural is that you have to look for your pockets of land in an urban area because there’s not a lot of it left.”

In 2011, Kawamura founded Solutions for Urban Agriculture, a nonprofit that strategically repurposes urban properties for the sustainable production of farm products—all in an effort to recover food to help those in need and ensure food security. Solutions for Urban Agriculture offers educational programming for creative management of resources and implements innovative projects that bolster resiliency within the food system. Through his nonprofit and farm, he is engaged in building a Farm and Food Lab at the OC Great Park in Irvine, Calif., to promote food production in urban settings. Average citizens can visit the Farm and Food Lab to learn how to transform their backyard (or even front porch!) into a cornucopia of fruit and vegetable production.

“The opportunity to farm in an urban area exists all over the planet and not just here in Orange County,” said Kawamura. “We’ve been able to show that there are a lot of properties that are going to stay open and available if there is a willing landowner and, more importantly, a willing farmer that might want to put it into play.”

Vic Smith: Championing Technology to Create Advancement

JVSmith Companies President/CEO Vic Smith has a long track record as an advocate for innovation and technology within the specialty crop industry. As an early adopter of agtech, Smith has pushed agriculture to embrace technology as a solution to the industry’s most pressing issues, such as food safety and labor.

He played an integral role in the launch of Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology in 2015 and today continues to support the center as a sponsor. He was among the first to invest in technological solutions coming out of the center and is currently working with several startups to help bring their ideas to market. In fact, Smith now sits on the board of one of the inaugural startups to join the center, iFoodDecisionSciences, where he helps guide the advancement of technology to enhance food safety. Smith was also tapped to participate in the Produce Traceability Initiative to further advocate for supply chain-wide adoption of electronic traceability.

In addition to promoting the use of data to improve traceability and farming operations, Smith is a champion of robotics as a solution for the industry’s labor problems. He has worked with the University of Arizona to develop autonomous equipment to help with planting and thinning of vegetable crops and continues to promote automation in the desert growing regions.

Ellen Brokaw: Campaigning to Improve the Lives of Farm Workers

Ellen Brokaw, president of Brokaw Ranch Company and a prominent member of Ventura County’s agricultural community, has long been an inspirational leader in the campaign to improve the lives of farm workers and their families.

She was a founding member of the Ag Futures Alliance Ventura County which, in 2002, produced a report on the dire need for farm worker housing. Two years later, she helped organize the first Farm Worker Housing Summit, which called attention to the need for better and more affordable homes for farm workers. The summit attracted more than 150 volunteers to join the cause. From that was born an education and advocacy program called House Farm Workers!

Today, Brokaw serves as treasurer and founding chair for House Farm Workers!, where she is part of the team that advocates on behalf of farm workers, educating elected representatives and the public about the need for safe, decent and affordable farm worker housing.

Mario Pacheco: Rising Through a Crisis

When news about the COVID-19 outbreak started surfacing in 2019, West Pak Avocado CEO Mario Pacheco anticipated the impacts of the pandemic and identified areas where West Pak would be required to retool. He quickly implemented an aggressive plan to prioritize the health and safety of West Pak employees, which included elevating sanitization efforts, dividing production floor workstations with protective plexiglass to enforce social distancing, and actively screening all employees and vendors for coronavirus symptoms.

West Pak also made swift strides to expand its technological capabilities to guarantee that facilities remain safe and operational. This included adding automation and updating equipment to reduce unwarranted bottlenecks; installing newly designed HID-based door systems to reduce human-to-human contact points; and adding thermal detection camera systems and facial recognition software to alert internal staff of possible risk detection.

In addition to proactively making changes throughout West Pak operations, Pacheco prioritized helping those affected by COVID-19. The company donates pallets of avocados weekly to Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino (FARSB), the Inland Empire’s largest hunger-relief organization. West Pak’s donation aids FARSB’s efforts to serve individuals with fresh produce, snacks, and boxes of emergency shelf-stable items to ensure that families are not going hungry through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“West Pak is giving back to our communities to help feed those in need in a time of crisis,” said Pacheco, in a press release. “Now more than ever before, people need our help. We have the ability to provide and the desire to step up where we can be most effective.”

These five pioneers are prime examples of how farmers pivot and adapt when faced with challenges, while simultaneously fighting for those in need. They are a small sample of the types of leaders that exist within western agriculture who continue to advocate for change that not only benefits the industry but the nation and world. As we enter an even more challenging environment due to the significant political, social and economic impacts caused by a monumental pandemic, we can expect more men and women in agriculture to step up to the plate and ignite change that reverberates around the globe.

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International Trade Uncertainty Continues

July 15th, 2020

It is fair to say that 2020 has thus far proceeded in ways no one could have predicted. The issue that is top of mind for the industry is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout. While much of the attention and impact has been domestic-facing, COVID-19 has also thrown international supply chains into disarray. Given the significant global economic shock and expected lingering effects in markets around the world, U.S. agricultural export projections for the remaining year are falling. USDA’s own recent export forecast dropped by $3 billion from just five months prior.

It is worth noting that USDA has also forecasted that U.S. agricultural exports to China may top out around $13 billion for the year. This is far from the $80 billion-over-two-years purchasing commitment China made in the U.S.-China phase one agreement, which went into force in February. Of course, the main culprit has been COVID-19, which essentially ground China’s economy to a halt. However, as it has started to reopen, the agreement’s payoff for specialty crops has been mixed. Commodities like citrus have seen higher export sales compared to last year; this is not the same case for tree nuts. The deal opened China for the first time to U.S. nectarines, avocados and blueberries; given that steep retaliatory tariffs remain on these products, it remains to be seen how accessible the market will actually be.

Other external factors are also keeping phase one watchers on their toes. The current relationship between the United States and China is tenuous and strained, largely due to China’s apparent failures and secrecy at the onset of the outbreak, as well as for its recent unprecedented overreach into Hong Kong. The United States has taken several provocative actions against China, and China in turn has dug in and traded arrows. All the while, both American and Chinese trade officials have made public statements attesting that the deal is secure and moving forward. Although President Trump has made known his frustrations with China and this deal, given the precarious economic situation in both nations, adhering to the deal—not abandoning it—appears to be the safer route.

Looking at other recent trade deals, progress on both the U.S.-Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) and U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement has moved forward relatively unhampered. By July 1, USMCA is to be fully enacted. At the same time, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) office remains committed to restart negotiations with Japan on a phase two agreement, hopefully as soon as this year. For agriculture, a phase two deal represents the best, if not the only, chance to resolve remaining tariff issues and secure significant reforms to Japan’s notoriously complex pest-and-disease protection regime. Elsewhere, a deal with India is nonexistent, as is one with the European Union.

Outside of bilateral negotiations, the EU continues to be an extremely contentious player in the agricultural trade arena. In May, the EU released a “Farm to Fork” Strategy that calls for extreme cuts to domestic use of pesticides and other inputs. This strategy builds upon the EU’s long history of agricultural policies that give deference to public activism over sound science. The EU has also made no secret of its goal to influence, and even pressure, other countries to adopt its anti-crop protection model. Indeed, we have seen more countries move to rein in pesticide approvals and usage, including Mexico, India, Vietnam, and Thailand. For fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, unworkable sanitary-phytosanitary (SPS) standards are quickly becoming the biggest barrier to trade, and the prospect of more EU-like systems in potential markets is nothing short of alarming. Thankfully, the United States has not stayed quiet and continues to build an international coalition of nations that share our goal to push back against the EU mindset.

2020 has brought forth short-term and long-term challenges that have the potential to drastically alter international trade for our industry. Western Growers remains active, both to provide immediate assistance and advocacy for members as well as to work with our agricultural partners to plot out trade opportunities for the decades to come. As the pandemic continues to give rise to new unforeseen challenges, we strongly encourage all members to utilize our team and resources to support your business.

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Wearable Tech Reduces Risks of Workplace Injuries

July 15th, 2020

Meet Rosa. She is an H-2A worker from Mexico who was harvesting fresh produce for a Western Growers member company during the past winter vegetable season. Despite her age, she is over 55 years old, Rosa was relatively new to farm work, with less than five years of experience. Intuitively, Rosa fell into a higher risk of injury category. But did the data agree?

From a smart phone worn around her belt, the Connected Worker Program app monitored and tracked Rosa’s body mechanics, noting the frequency and duration of her deep bends and the rotational energy of her twists. Ultimately, the analysis demonstrated that Rosa was exerting significantly more strain on her body compared to her peers.

Without the Connected Worker Program designed by Western Growers Insurance Services (WGIS), Rosa may very well have become another statistic. Instead, she was able to proactively adjust her mechanics and prevent any injuries before they occurred.

Utilizing the latest advancements in wearable technology, the Connected Worker Program measures the types of motions that drive major workers’ compensation injuries—those related to the neck, spine and hips—and detects unsafe movements, including falls and impacts. The data is then shared with both the supervisor and employee, and used to identify risk trends, improve safety measures, and coach workers on injury prevention techniques.

“In developing the data-driven Connected Worker Program, we were equally focused on worker safety and workplace productivity,” stated WGIS President Jeff Gullickson. “With over several hundred thousand hours of worker data logged, this solution has been proven to lower the risk of injury from field to facility, simultaneously increasing the earnings potential of employees and lowering workers’ compensation costs and insurance premiums for employers.”

Based on her risk score, the Connected Worker Program utilized an integrated messaging platform to present Rosa and her supervisor with real-time, app-based safety alerts. These risk reducer messages notified Rosa of her specific high-risk movements and provided her with biomechanical changes she could implement to reduce her risk of injury.

After six weeks of participating in the Connected Worker Program, Rosa reduced her risk score by 43%. But the success story was not limited to Rosa. Her team reduced their overall risk score by 12%, as well.

“By engaging all levels of employees in the company safety culture, the Connected Worker Program allows for positive changes to be made on the spot,” noted Gullickson. “In applying trends in data, businesses can identify and evaluate necessary changes to equipment or processes, ultimately promoting a safer work environment, improving operational efficiencies and cutting costs.”

In addition to tracking body mechanics, the Connected Worker Program also provides COVID-19 functionality for agricultural operations. With its data collection and GPS capabilities, employers can log temperature readings, record answers to health screening questionnaires and monitor contact tracing, all while maintaining compliance with government regulations and in accordance with the latest guidelines on minimizing the spread of COVID-19.

Wearable technology is becoming more commonplace, and has been embraced by consumers who have popularized devices like smart watches, activity trackers and virtual reality. Professional sports franchises have universally incorporated wearable devices into player training programs, and the technology is being widely adopted in other industries, including healthcare, advanced textiles (yes, smart fabric is a thing), and even the military. It is time to add agriculture to that list.

To learn more about the benefits the Connected Worker Program could have for your business, contact Ken Cooper at [email protected].

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Legislator Profile: The Latest Happenings with Rep. Tim Dunn

July 15th, 2020

The last time Western Growers (WG) spoke with Rep. Tim Dunn, he was completing his first full year as a member of Arizona’s House of Representatives and just beginning to tackle some of his constituents’ most pressing issues. Recently, WG had the opportunity to reconnect with Dunn to speak about the outcome of his efforts from our last conversation, along with his current legislative priorities.

During our last conversation, Dunn was in the middle of working on the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan (DCP), a much-needed multi-state water agreement to help stabilize the Colorado River system until a new set of operating procedures are drafted. This legislation was a significant issue for the Colorado River Compact—an agreement among the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

“The Drought Contingency Plan was a bipartisan bill that was passed, and we worked extremely hard on getting that done,” Rep. Dunn stated.

In Yuma, AZ, where Dunn was born and is the main city in Arizona’s 13th district, there is extreme importance in protecting the “Law of the River.” The Law of the River is a compilation of compacts, federal laws, court decisions and decrees, contracts, and regulatory guidelines that manage the Colorado River.

“There is continuous pressure to transfer water and water rights off of the river to central Arizona. Once you start putting water up for bid, you create a major disruption in the economies of those river cities,” said Dunn.

Dunn also worked zealously on AZ HB2275, a House bill that clarifies an existing tax exemption, ensuring the fairness and consistency of ag taxes. Arizona was one of two states actively taxed on fertilizer and HB2275 was designed to alleviate this disadvantage. Rep. Dunn, in collaboration with several of his colleagues, introduced a bill to get a tax exemption on fertilizer and chemicals. Something not explicitly detailed in the statute was his efforts in modifying the bill from “Transaction Privilege Tax Exemption; Crop Production Tools” to “Transaction Privilege Tax Exemption; Propagative Materials,” ensuring essential agricultural inputs are exempt from sales tax. The provisions also include an extensive list of propagative materials that are exempt from TPT and use taxes. “This was a huge win for Arizona farmers, in keeping the cost of production in line with growers in neighboring states,” he exclaimed.

According to Rep. Dunn, before the spread of COVID-19, Arizona’s economy was robust and had a $1 billion surplus. Now, the focus is on dealing with the shrinking state budget, opening schools and businesses safely, and getting the economy moving. As an agriculture business owner, Dunn recognizes the importance of having foodservice in the marketplace.

He strives to be a champion for rural Arizona and the agriculture industry. As current chairman of the House Land and Agriculture committee, Dunn is steadily addressing the concerns of rural Arizona at the Capitol. One of his legislative highlights is collaborating with the Department of Agriculture (FDA) during an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. He communicated directly with the FDA and the WG Board of Directors to devise a plan to remedy the romaine issue in Yuma.

With over two years in the Arizona House of Representatives, one of Rep. Dunn’s main takeaways from being in the Legislature is constant communication with constituents is critical.

“If you don’t know the people you represent, if you’re not talking to them, then you don’t know the pulse of who you’re trying to represent,” he declared. “I think being a rural legislator and coming from a farm base, understanding what our constituents care about is important, and we make sure we talk to those folks and make sure we represent them well.”

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Federal Government Affairs: COVID Issues Rise to the Top

July 15th, 2020

The onset of the COVID crisis has thrown our country for a loop and our industry along with it, but Western Growers farmers are rising to meet the challenge and here in Washington, DC, we are working to help you.

In March we engaged the Trump Administration and dozens of Congressional offices to ensure that there would be no impact on the availability of guest workers. As you may recall, State Department consulates closed because of COVID which imperiled the ability to process guest worker applications. Working with Congressional offices and then the Administration, we were able to build more flexibility into the system to help ensure that there was no impact on the processing of H-2A applications. More recently, Western Growers worked to help ensure that guest worker crossings continue unabated and helped add extra opening hours to border crossings to improve the flow of workers so that harvest efficiency could be maintained at a high level for our desert growers.

We know that many of you are running short on masks, gloves, and sanitizers so we have been working to secure resources for personal protective equipment (PPE). The House of Representatives recently passed a COVID package that provides tax credits for employers to help pay for PPE. The bill also provides money to pay for childcare for essential workers because many farm and packing shed workers face difficult choices about caring for their children with schools and day care centers closed. The Centers for Disease Control and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently issued COVID related guidance from harvest through packing and processing for farm workers in the produce industry. As we have learned from large produce industry outbreaks that have already happened in Washington, Tennessee, and Florida, this guidance will become increasingly critical to ensure the safety of your workforce. While you work to implement this guidance, we will be working with the Senate to ensure that it too include funding for necessary supplies. As a special note, please go onto the Western Growers website often to see the most current worker safety material.

During late May, the Administration announced a direct payment program that is intended to provide farmers impacted by COVID direct financial support. Enrollment covers a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and is intended to cover losses incurred between January 15 and April 15. Payments are capped at $250,000 unless you have a business structure with partners in which case payments could be as high as $750,000. While this program is far from perfect, it could be a significant benefit to growers in need. Please reach out to your county Farm Service Agency office to get information and then file for support if your business experienced harm like lower prices, cancelled contracts, or you disked under product as a result of COVID. While we hope producers sign up, we are working now to improve this program. We are working to secure additional money for the program to potentially raise the payment cap to higher levels and we are looking to cover losses beyond April 15 into Q2. We are also working to add additional crops to the eligibility list. USDA didn’t have complete pricing data on dozens of fruit and vegetable crops so we are helping them secure that data in the expectation that additional crops can be added to the list.

Finally, we are also working with other business groups to try and secure business liability protection. That is a very contentious issue in Congress but we are hopeful that some type of liability shield can be provided to employers who are following CDC/OSHA guidelines for their employees. We are also trying to improve the Payment Protection Program by trying to increase the eligibility terms to businesses that have more than 500 employees as well as expand the list of eligible uses for the money beyond labor, mortgage costs, rent and utilities.

As this crisis continues, we will be responding to new issues as they arise related to it COVID.

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WG Members Cope with COVID…With Innovation

July 15th, 2020

By Tim Linden

Of the $1.4 billion in relief checks already provided to more than 80,000 farmers and ranchers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, less than 2%, about $25 million, has been allocated to specialty crop producers. As is typically the case when it comes to federal government support for agriculture, livestock and field crops are at the front of the line, with the fresh produce industry bringing up the rear.

Of course, the industry would love to get some of that $16 billion in direct payments under the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), but nobody is waiting around for the windfall. Instead, suppliers have enacted innovative efforts to cope with COVID-19 and keep their businesses relevant and compliant as they deal with a new existential threat to their livelihood.

In these pages, we look at how three Western Growers members have met the newest enemy head on and are emerging on the other end stronger for it.

D’Arrigo Bros. Co. of California, Salinas, CA

John D’Arrigo, president of the 90-plus-year-old company, has not had time yet to pencil out the cost of all the COVID-19 precautions that have been put in place by the organization; he has been too busy putting them in place. “We are going to have to do that soon,” he said in early June, after spending the previous three months on a daily quest to prepare the company in every possible area of concern. “I don’t know if it’s a quarter a box or a dollar a box, but it’s a lot. The cost has been horrendous.”

According to D’Arrigo, the company got ahead of the curve by jumping on the situation very quickly. “Very early on, I realized this was going to be the real deal,” he said. “If you studied it, that became clear. I started looking at our different environments and made a plan for each one.”

The office was closed to visitors with protocols established at the entrance, and tracing efforts enacted to track the movements of the company’s 2,000 employees and 60-plus labor-transporting buses. The goal was to minimize contacts between employees and establish new safer routines that could be monitored and improved upon. “We converted one building to a training facility and hired a trainer so we could teach everyone how to protect themselves and protect their families once they went home.”

For the workers traveling on buses, D’Arrigo adopted assigned seating on each bus. The worker would go to and from the field as the only occupant of a particular seat. “That’s your seat every time and every day,” John said.

Every process received the same scrutiny with a training squad working day and night to make sure protocols were followed. “We slowly developed a binder with all the protocols. That binder is updated almost every day.”

For example, for the cooler facility there are protocols for forklifts, the proximity on the loading dock for workers and for the semi-truck drivers who show up every day to pick up loads of fresh produce. “We don’t allow any non-employees into the cooler box anymore. And, of course we sanitize and re-sanitize everything.”

D’Arrigo said that his company, like most others in the leafy green industry, had a head start on safety protocols because of the 2006 spinach crisis that caused a deep examination of all processes and the development of mandated best practices. “We had a lot of safety precautions already in place, but the coronavirus caused us to take it to the next level.”

The company bought 4,000 bandanas issuing two to every employee. “One to wear and one to wash.”

For the most part, he said wearing face covers has been the easiest hurdle as many farmworkers already did that.

Social distancing in the field is another necessity that caused a reconfiguring of the harvesting mechanism and the installation of screens between packing stations on those winged harvesters. From one end of the business to the other, changes were made. D’Arrigo said no stone was left unturned.

Initially, product was lost as about 30 percent of D’Arrigo’s business goes to the foodsaervice sector, and that business was lost overnight. “We disked under hundreds of acres,” he said.

Previous to this pandemic, D’Arrigo was on a planting schedule that calculated its needs one to two years in advance. “Now we are reassessing sales every 30 days and adjusting acreage accordingly,” John said.

The pandemic has changed consumer buying habits and D’Arrigo is constantly analyzing those numbers to make sure its production matches the needs of its customers. “It took us a while to figure that out, but we were able to adjust quickly. We are lucky that we haven’t had to lay off anybody during this period.”

The change in consumer buying habits has also caused D’Arrigo to reexamine its products and how they are presented to consumers. During the pandemic, bulk sales dropped at retail while packaged produce saw a spike in sales. The company is adding packaging options where applicable. “Can we shrink wrap, sleeve or bag? We are looking at every commodity,” he said.

The planning did not stop within the confines of its property lines. John D’Arrigo and fellow industry leader Bruce Taylor of Taylor Farms California serve on a task force with the CEOs of the four area hospitals to plan for farmworkers who come down with the coronavirus. In the early days of the pandemic, federal authorities were projecting that there could be millions of cases nationwide. The Salinas ag community thought it was prudent to develop locations where workers could be quarantined to prevent their families and their communities from turning into hot spots. D’Arrigo also contracted with a local taxi company to be on call to pick up any sick workers and deliver them to the hospital or these shelter-in-place locations.

From a macro level, John D’Arrigo believes the coronavirus pandemic is a bellwether event that is changing the industry in ways that will be felt for years to come. He wonders how the foodservice industry will alter its operations and what changes in the supply chain will occur to safely deliver fresh produce to their customers. He believes this pandemic will accelerate automation at the production end as there are fewer farmworkers available to do the work and the need to social distance could be with us for a long time. He also agreed that smaller operations might find it difficult to absorb the extra costs associated with creating safe environments during a pandemic and there could well be more industry consolidation.

In fact, D’Arrigo says this pandemic has exposed the produce industry’s fluctuating supply and demand pricing system as outdated. He said these are real costs associated with keeping everyone safe and there has to be a way to pass them on to the consumer. “There are many long-term costs and we have to be able to recover them. How do we recoup them? We can no longer afford to sell our products below cost…ever.”

At the same time, he said the industry must be very adaptive and change with the times. “Our philosophy is to move fast and be first,” he said.

Ocean Mist Farms, Castroville, CA

Joe Pezzini, CEO of Ocean Mist, detailed many of the same precautions that this grower-shipper took to operate under pandemic conditions. “We are no different than the rest of the essential businesses that had to change operations to stay in business,” he said. “It wasn’t easy and there were new challenges at every turn.”

First and foremost, the company endeavored to keep its employees safe at its two operation in Monterey and Riverside counties. “The pandemic greatly impacted every phase of our operation. In the first place, as many as could are working remotely. We established physical distancing and the wearing of masks and mandated that there would be no gatherings of employees in the office or in the fields. We have been diligent in enforcing those policies.”

In the field, Ocean Mist modified its equipment, including the use of dividers on its harvesters and erected physical barriers in its packing and cooling sheds to keep people apart. “And we developed protocols to question every employee every day about their health.”

Along with other produce firms, and through the local grower-shipper association, Ocean Mist secured space at local hotels to house and quarantine ill workers.

From a business standpoint, Pezzini said the early panic buying by consumers altered the supply chain but that righted itself within several weeks. “We are now back to season norms,” he said in early June, but he added that the pandemic has had a material economic impact on Ocean Mist and all producers.

“We’ve had to make constant adjustments. Prior to this, there was a trend toward a more natural display at retail. And now it has swung back to packaging.”

In addition, he said some staple items received a shot in the arm while specialty items, including artichokes, took a hit initially. Pezzini spoke as the country was starting to open back up and he predicted that June would be an important gauge as to how quickly the world gets back to normal, if there is such a thing.

He also agreed that the pandemic has brought about some permanent changes. He believes some of the safety protocols will not go away as it is best to be prepared for the next wave of this coronavirus or the next virus. “We think working at home will also stick with us for a while. In fact, there will be a certain segment of our population—older workers and those at risk—who are going to be working at home permanently or at least until there is a vaccine. That’s what CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) are saying. I don’t think we will ever go back to exactly how things were.”

Pezzini said business travel will also take time to return but return it will. “Definitely business is going to change, but this is still a people business.”

Progressive Produce Corp., Los Angeles, CA

Like the other companies interviewed, Progressive Produce Corp.’s first reaction to the coronavirus was to protect its employees. It enacted many new protocols from working at home to safely working in the company’s facility. It enacted rules requiring masks and social distancing and worked with its own affiliated transportation company, Pathfinder Logistics, to safely supply its customers with product.

While there were many additional costs associated with these measures, Progressive was one of the more fortunate companies to have a product lineup that matched well with consumer demand.

“We got lucky,” said Scott Leimkuhler, senior vice president of sales. “Three of our main items—potatoes, onions and citrus—saw sales increases as panic buying set it. We worked closely with our customers and with Pathfinder to fill those orders.”

Leimkuhler said that for a 20-day period from mid-March, the company operated 24 hours a day, packing mostly potatoes and onions. “We ran the equipment as efficiently as we could. Everyone did a fantastic job.”

Two months later, the company is still running around the clock but the orders have started to stabilize. “The initial 20 to 30 days were crazy. For a couple of weeks, the IRI data (retail scan data) from Nielsen showed that potatoes were the number one produce item.”

Progressive does have a significant foodservice business with its “Hollywood Fries” bulk pack, but Leimkuhler said the jump in retail sales easily made up for the lack of foodservice business.

But it wasn’t as simple as just running the machinery and filling the orders. The Progressive executive said the first inclination by retailers was to reduce their SKUs and carry fewer potato options, but Progressive was more efficient by having all of its packing equipment running at the same time churning out the various pack sizes. A retailer might have only wanted 10-pound bags but Progressive could deliver more pounds of potatoes if that retailer would take five-pounders, three-pounders and value-added packs as well. The company also shifted to mesh bags as that is a more efficient operation and they could pack more pounds per hour, and consequently increase their sales. “We were constantly making adjustments to make sure we were running at maximum efficiency as much as we could. Units per hour was our most important measurement.”

Progressive also had to work closely with its bag suppliers as they weren’t initially ready for the influx in orders. “In fact, we did do some packing in some old bags because we had them on hand.”

And the company did direct store delivery for some customers as that was more efficient for the retailer than taking loads to the distribution center. “The coolest takeaway is that it brought us closer to our customers as we worked to solve these issues,” Leimkuhler said. “There was a lot of collaboration and teamwork to make it happen.”

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Trade Practices: Protecting Your PACA Trust Rights In a Pandemic

July 15th, 2020

Recently, a California grower-shipper sent me a copy of a March invoice for a properly executed transaction on which the wholesale buyer had written “P.O. canceled due to COVID-19.”

The amount of the invoice was less than $650 for 35 cartons of three specialty items, seemingly destined for foodservice consumption. The reaction by the buyer was indicative of the chaos that ensued immediately after restaurants all over the country were forced to close because of shelter-in-place regulations surrounding the novel coronavirus pandemic. The situation has settled down since then with restaurants and foodservice operations beginning to open, retailers returning to some semblance of normalcy and the world’s population learning to live a new normal.

Much has changed and will continue to change but the regulations governing produce transactions and the preservation of one’s rights under the Trust Provision of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) remain the same. There is no doubt that many restaurants and wholesale distributors serving that sector are facing hardships and some will continue to struggle moving forward. But shippers must continue to be diligent about who you sell to and how you protect your rights.

In the example above, the invoice was sent back to the shipper on the day it was received. The shipper could have expressed regret over the buyer’s unfortunate circumstances and promise to work with the company by offering to change the original sales contract or offering to extend payment terms. While tempting, that would have been the wrong thing to do!

The PACA Trust was enacted 35 years ago to give sellers of fresh produce priority status in the event of a buyer’s bankruptcy. But with that advantage came a specific set of guidelines that you must follow. In tough times such as these, some buyers will ask for extended terms or a “break” on a particular invoice.

Be sure you follow the PACA Trust guidelines as you field those requests.

First and foremost, your payment terms must be consistent across all your sales documentation (sales confirmation, passing, invoice). Inconsistency can put your company in harm’s way as you seek payment on a sales transaction. A best practice is to review each of those documents every time for consistency. If you use PACA PROMPT, which is defined in the statute as NET 10 payment terms, due within 10 days of receipt of the goods at contract destination, make sure there is no ambiguity or conflicting terms anywhere else. For example, you may have “PACA PROMPT” on the top right corner of your invoice but conflicting standard language on your sales confirmation stating “payment due within 30 days of receipt”. This can cause confusion with your buyer, payment delay, and, most importantly, invalidate your Trust status and therefore your ability to enforce your Trust rights. Be crystal clear, accurate and consistent on payment terms.

Also, it is important to note that payment terms do not need to be printed on your Bill of Lading (BOL) and shouldn’t be. If you are working with a third party, have them omit the payment terms on that document, which reduces your exposure, as some courts have interpreted bills of lading as a warranted billing document when disputes arise.

It is also necessary to make sure there is a mutual binding agreement between the seller and buyer when payment terms are extended beyond NET 10 terms. If you agree to NET 15, NET 21 or even NET 30 days, make sure you have a signed agreement, prior to the sales transaction, by both parties on which those specific terms are spelled out as the contractual obligation. And it can’t be emphasized enough that you should NEVER memorialize payment terms verbally or in writing beyond 30 days. Doing so typically waives your PACA Trust Rights and makes your company an unsecured creditor for that transaction. Remember, the sale is not complete until the money is in the bank.

Though granting payment extensions or working out payment plans can be accomplished while preserving your PACA Trust, it rarely works out well and should be avoided except in the rarest of circumstances. The key is that no extension of terms or even informal discussions about such a possibility can occur until AFTER the buyer is in default. And the original payment terms have to be 30 days or less, and so stated in such a manner to make that transaction eligible for PACA Trust protection.

For example, if the sales transaction is sold as PACA Prompt and the buyer has not paid within the prescribed time, the seller can accept a partial payment or agree to a payment schedule because the buyer has defaulted. So, after a buyer defaults on the original payment terms, the seller may agree to extend payment terms and still maintain their trust rights. Please refer to the “PACA Trust” section on PACA’s website for further guidance on preserving trust rights.

In the example above, it is prudent that the seller should not discuss altering any terms of the transaction until it is in default. While it might seem difficult to play hardball in these trying times, preserving one’s rights under the PACA requires the seller to follow the regulations to the letter.

If you’re a Western Growers Regular member and would like your sales documentation reviewed for consistency or if you would like guidance on any problem files or disputes, please contact me in the Western Growers Trade Practices Department’s at [email protected] or 949-885-2392

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Western Growers’ COVID Response

July 15th, 2020

Western Growers has stepped up as an effective advocate for our members in response to the immediate challenges presented by COVID-19, helping to shape the emergency response at the federal and state level.

H-2A Program: When the State Department suspended regular visa processing at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and all U.S. consulates in Mexico early in the pandemic, Western Growers pushed the Administration for an expansion of interview waiver eligibility to ensure that the majority of H-2A processing continued uninterrupted.

Federal Relief: When the foodservice industry collapsed as a result of the nationwide shutdown orders, Western Growers advocated for immediate federal relief in the form of direct payments and an expanded commodity purchase program, which resulted in the crucial elements of the USDA Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP).

Small Businesses: When agriculture was virtually shut out from the first round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and was excluded altogether from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, Western Growers stepped in and helped secure greater inclusion for the industry in the second round of small business relief.

Business Liability Protections: Recognizing that essential businesses face unique liability concerns while remaining open during COVID-19, Western Growers has advocated at both the federal and state level for targeted liability protections from coronavirus-related lawsuits for agriculture and other essential businesses.

State Advocacy: Western Growers has proactively addressed numerous coronavirus-related concerns with the Newsom administration, including dedicated resources for childcare for essential workers and state support in securing PPE for farmworkers, outreaches that have yielded positive results for our members and their employees.

Transportation: Western Growers has worked to keep the flow of goods moving uninterrupted during the pandemic, intervening with the Federal Maritime Commission to end unfair port detention and demurrage charges, and with the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration to secure greater driver flexibility and cost savings without compromising road safety.

Food Safety: Western Growers has developed an interactive website to facilitate changes to the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA)-approved Leafy Green Food Safety Guidelines, which now allows the public to participate in routine discussions and process amendments that will ensure continuous improvement of leafy green food safety preventive practices.

Innovation: Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology (WGCIT) has launched an Innovating in Challenging Times webinar series to demonstrate how technological development continues to advance during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Consumer Outreach: In an effort to highlight the extraordinary responses of our members to the COVID-19 crisis, Western Growers launched the #AgIsEssential social media campaign, which has reached more than 2 million consumers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In a series of selfie-style videos and compelling infographics, the campaign has shared positive messages about the role of agriculture in providing a safe, secure and healthy food supply in the midst of the pandemic.

Member Resources for Current and Reliable COVID-19 Information

To assist in the delivery of critical and timely information, Western Growers has developed a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate COVID-19 Resource website, which can be found at: https://www.wga.com/covid-19-resources-page.

All of our members and partners are encouraged to utilize this hub to help keep their businesses moving forward. Key resources include:

•   Western Growers-developed webinars and guidance documents, including best practices and prevention measures

•   How to access federal relief funding

•   New employer mandates; e.g. paid sick time and paid medical family leave

•   Federal and state employer guidance

•   Important documents; e.g. education posters, model notices of employee rights, template SOPs

•   Additional resources related to PPE, Child Care, Workers’ Comp, and more

Western Growers has a full team of experts on staff dedicated to gathering, reviewing and analyzing the latest COVID-19 information so our grower and handler members can be fully prepared with the knowledge they need to make informed business decisions.

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CA Government Affairs: The California 2020 – 2021 State Budget

July 15th, 2020

By Matthew Allen and Gail Delihant

The COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted all aspects of our daily lives, personal and economic. Stay at home orders have caused significant business closures, price disruptions, and an historic increase in the unemployment rate that, at the time of this writing, hovers over 16%. Not surprisingly, this has led to a drastic turnaround in the 2020-2021 state budget from a $5.6 billion projected surplus in January to a forecasted $54 billion deficit. Questions swirled throughout the spring about what difficult decisions the state would make to close the budget deficit and limit the economic fallout from the pandemic. As the economy worsened, anticipation grew that this budget would be a game-changer and would provide some needed balance on state policies that have continued to make businesses in California less competitive than their counterparts in other states and countries. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case.

The Legislature and Governor Newsom finalized the details of the budget after an extraordinarily truncated negotiation process that frankly lacked transparency and includes new policies that should have been vetted through the normal policy committees. This cumbersome process combined with technical difficulties that didn’t allow for adequate public input and restricted contact with legislative members and staff posed significant barriers during this budget cycle. While some difficult decisions were made, the biggest challenges are being kicked down the road for discussion in future budget years.

The 2020 – 2021 budget will have General Fund expenditures of $133.9 billion and state reserves of $11.4 billion. Some of the greatest cuts will be in funding to the University of California and California State University systems, which will lose almost half a billion in funding. K-12 education will dodge “cuts” by delaying some of their payments so that they can be included in the next budget. Many state employees will also be receiving a near 10% pay cut. Many of these cuts would be restored if the federal government approves the $14 billion assistance that California has asked for.

Western Growers and other stakeholders are extremely disappointed that the budget includes what amounts to a tax increase of $4.4 billion. This results from the suspension of the use of net operating loss deductions for businesses with incomes higher than $1 million. This suspension will remain in effect for the 2020, 2021, and 2022 taxable years. Many of the business tax credits that are used to help offset tax liability will also be capped. Additionally, we joined a large number of opponents in an effort to stop a politically motivated bill imposing a mandatory 12-week leave of absence on any employer with one or more employees from being passed as a budget trailer bill instead of moving this highly controversial bill through the committee process.

The budget also includes a significant policy change that expands the State Water Resources Control Board’s authority to curtail the recent federal regulations related to the Clean Water Act Section 401 certification. On June 1, 2020, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule that tightens the timeline and scope for states and tribes to certify that projects meet water-quality requirements under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. That decision helped meet the Trump administration’s goal of streamlining permitting processes and reducing the regulatory requirements that make energy infrastructure projects so expensive. However, this budget agreement to expand the State Water Resources Control Board’s authority represents another state-led assault on federal environmental rulings and could likely result in further litigation.

Western Growers and other stakeholders also opposed a proposal that would have re-opened the recently amended Cap and Trade Program at the California Resources Board. Re-opening that regulation would likely lead to further costs to companies that are required to purchase emissions allowances and higher costs for all Californians on fuel and other transportation expenses. Fortunately, that proposal was removed from the budget. It is almost guaranteed that this discussion will continue at the regulatory level within the California Environmental Protection Agency. However, there will not be a legislative mandate that changes to the program must be made.

As mentioned earlier, this budget has proceeded through a whirlwind approach as the state attempts to gauge the revenues that will be coming in through July. The greatest concerns for our industry are that really necessary structural changes to spending were not made, taxes were increased, and reductions in state spending are either being tied to a federal “bailout” or are being pushed into future budget years. This may very well meet the requirements of passing a balanced budget but it largely fails to recognize the enormity of the challenges that face our state and the resolve that is needed to stabilize and heal our economy.

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WGCIT SPONSOR: The Bosch Group – Building Technology with a Purpose

July 15th, 2020

The Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology (WGCIT) was established to identify industry concerns and accelerate the production of technology to address these concerns. The Bosch Group designs smart agriculture products to help growers lower their costs and increase productivity.

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 400,000 associates worldwide. In 2019, the company generated sales of 77.7 billion euros.

As a leading Internet of Things (IoT) company, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, smart cities, connected mobility, and connected industry. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to create solutions for a connected life and to improve the quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, the company builds technology that is “Invented for Life.”

The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiaries and regional companies in 60 countries. Including sales and service partners, Bosch’s global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network cover nearly every country in the world. The basis for the company’s future growth is its innovative strength. At 126 locations across the globe, Bosch employs 72,600 associates in research and development.

Having established a regional presence in 1906 in North America, the firm employs 34,600 associates in more than 100 locations, as of the end of 2019. In 2019, Bosch generated consolidated sales of $14.4 billion in the region.

Recently, Western Grower & Shipper spoke to the company about its innovative operations.

WG&S: Is there a story behind the creation of this company?

In 1886, Robert Bosch founded the “Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering” in Stuttgart, which marked the birth of today’s globally operating company. Right from the start, it was characterized by innovative strength and social commitment.

Also, the following words from Robert Bosch reveal his affinity with agriculture, which is hardly surprising considering his parents ran an inn with livestock farming and a brewery near Ulm: “Agriculture in itself is one of the most interesting lines of business there is. It is more varied than virtually any other field, for it has to do with zoology, botany, geology, chemistry, and meteorology in their widest sense.”

WG&S: Can you explain what your technologies are? What problems are they solving?

Bosch products are built with a purpose; to enhance the quality of life through innovative technological solutions. Operating across four business sectors—Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology—Bosch is uniquely positioned to offer customers a multitude of value-add, cross-sector solutions across a diversity of industry applications. In addition to providing outstanding products, Bosch utilizes expertise in sensor technology, systems integration, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer each customer connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The core of Bosch’s offering is innovative solutions that facilitate new mobility offerings. Whether for private or commercial vehicles, multimodal transportation services, fleet management, or smart transport infrastructure, Bosch brings together vehicle technology, the data cloud, and services to offer complete mobility solutions.

WG&S: While Bosch works with numerous industries, how does the technology you created benefit the agriculture industry?

Bosch has domain expertise in a wide range of industries and manufacturing processes. From this basis, several of our products and services are directly applicable to agriculture, such as supply chain solutions, tracking and tracing devices, and I4.0 automation and consulting.

As part of our mobility business, Bosch has a dedicated organization for commercial vehicle and off-road business with a product portfolio focused on the needs of our OEM (original equipment manufacturer) customers in the agricultural industry.

In this context, Bosch has launched the innovative Smart Agriculture initiative NEVONEX, an open and neutral ecosystem for smart, digital agriculture. NEVONEX has the objective of making agricultural equipment intelligent and simplifying operating processes. Bosch enables agriculture players to develop, deploy, and use integrated digital services fast, easy, and direct via the machine into the field (so-called FEATURES). In a nutshell, it is a manufacturer-independent, open digital ecosystem that enables the use of digital services directly on agricultural machinery. Bosch will provide the technical infrastructure and orchestrate the ecosystem.

Active partners that are already on board include leading agricultural chemical and seed companies such as Syngenta and Xarvio; technology providers such as Topcon and Pessl Instruments; agricultural (implement) OEMs such as Amazone, Lemken, and Rauch; and others. Our partners offer high-quality digital services (FEATURES), interfaces to their agricultural machinery, compatible sensors, the NEVONEX-enabled control unit and installation services. FEATURES allow partners to bring their agronomic expertise to the field via digital services to make real-time adjustments, get valuable insights, and make recommendations for growers. Thanks to the reliable, end-to-end implementation through all the work steps, growers benefit from higher yields, optimized operating processes and less use of seed, fertilizer and crop protection materials, while at the same time protecting the environment.

In recent years, Bosch has invested significantly into gaining an understanding of the use of its expertise in sensors and IoT for possible applications in crop disease prediction, irrigation solutions, and field monitoring applications.

WG&S: Can you provide insight on your time as a sponsor for the WGCIT? What has your experience been?

Being a Sponsor for the WGCIT has been a great experience so far. We have engaged with various residents, growers, sponsors, and other companies and were very impressed by the enthusiasm and openness of everyone to overcome the significant challenges around water and labor supply, crop protection, and food safety. The support we received from the WGCIT team has been great, and their help connecting us with the industry has been very valuable.

WG&S: What have been the benefits of being a WGCIT sponsor for Bosch?

For Bosch, a technology company rooted in the Mobility sector, it is paramount to gain a deep understanding of grower needs in order to help solving some of the key challenges of this industry by applying our technology. Receiving direct insights and feedback by building relationships and having countless conversations with growers and other industry leaders that are growing fresh produce in California, Arizona, and Colorado has been extremely helpful. We also benefit from industry events such as the AgTechX series, the Future Leader initiative, and deal flows such as the Grower Trial Network. Access to innovative startups and growers’ response to their technologies is of great benefit to Bosch.

 

WG&S: What do you believe to be the benefit of your sponsorship to the residents of the Center?

We participate in strategic initiatives where we can contribute our experience as a major tech player. Especially in efforts surrounding technology push, adaptions, and problem-solving, Bosch has been able to provide an understanding of tech companies’ business models. In essence, a better understanding of tech business models results in faster tech creation for Ag. Additionally, we provide direct access to Bosch and its relevant business units and can connect residents of the Center with pertinent tech companies, as Bosch is deeply embedded in the tech ecosystem. If we see something because of our relationship with WG, we can route it to the right place. And of course, the Bosch brand also benefits WG and its residents, which is one of the most reliable and trusted brand names in the world.

WG&S: Are there any residents in particular that you are working more closely with?

Bosch has had multiple conversations around partnerships and PoCs with several current and former WGCIT residents. Our organization collaborates with WGCIT residents in strategic initiatives such as the Automation Initiative.

WG&S: Any ideas on the future of Bosch’s relationship with Western Growers, the WGCIT, and the agriculture industry?

We are looking forward to bringing our expertise and technologies to the agriculture industry by providing solutions and innovations—for growers and OEMs.

With NEVONEX, in collaboration with our partners, we aim to provide an open, smart end-to-end infrastructure that makes growers’ equipment intelligent, simplifies their processes and ensures seamless use of a broad array of expert knowledge. The focus is always the grower.

Bosch believes in the value of partnerships and co-creation and is always eager to work with partners in the agricultural sector—not only through participating in strategic initiatives but also through hands-on in-field testing. Our relationship with Western Growers and the WGCIT has been fantastic, and we would love to continue working towards bringing innovations to the market and making agriculture sustainable.

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Naïo Delivers Autonomous Weeding Robots

July 15th, 2020

While driving down the road through the iconic Salinas fog, all looks normal in Monterey County at first glance. Endless rows of lettuce, strawberries, and broccoli line the fields; farmers survey the grounds, meticulously checking on the crops, soil and equipment; and farmworkers span the fields, rapidly preparing for planting and harvesting. But then a sleek, green and white robot with tractor-like wheels moves swimmingly up and down the rows.

The machine, affectionately called “Dino” by inventor Naïo Technologies, is on a search-and-destroy mission. Its target? Weeds. Dino’s range of mechanical weeding tools—including spiked harrows and rotary hoes—are GPS and camera guided, which allows the machine to kill weeds swiftly and precisely while eliminating the need for pesticides or plastic crop covers.

“Our weeding robots respect both the environment and man,” said Simon Belin, the U.S. technical referent for Naïo Technologies. “We provide a solution to assist farmers in their daily work, reduce the strenuous physical workload and limit the use of chemical weed killers.”

Dino is among three robots designed by Naïo that weed, hoe and monitor crops completely autonomously. Equipped with a standard navigation system that can be implemented on any off-road robot, these mechanical weeders can be used for a wide variety of crop types on any sized farm.

Meet the Robots

Naïo is based in France and was founded in 2011 by two robotic engineers, Aymeric Barthes and Gaëtan Séverac, who believed that “robotics is a perfect way to feed humanity in the coming years with sustainable agriculture.” Though the company has only been up and running for less than a decade, it has already deployed 150 robots to tackle weeding issues across Europe and North America. Today, the company is focusing on its international expansion into the United States and has set roots in Salinas, California, at the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology (WGCIT).

“Seeing an opportunity for growers in California and Arizona to benefit from our robots, Naïo sent me here in February 2019 to set up shop with a hot desk at the Western Growers’ Center,” said Belin. “It was just me and one robot. Now, we have a team of four and operate five robots.”

The five machines include three vegetable robots (called Dino) and two weeding robots (called Oz). Belin expects to have Naïo’s vineyard robot (called Ted) available in the United States in September 2020.

The differences between each robot are as follows:

OZ: ideal for small-scale vegetable farms such as nurseries and gardens

Oz has two operation modes which include effortlessly hoeing between rows and plants and towing a trailer or seat to save time on harvest, trellising and debudding. First, farmers select the characteristics for the plot to be weeded (number of rows, distance between rows, crop type, etc.). Next, Oz automatically hoes between rows and plants. Then, Oz conducts autonomous turning at the end of each row. Lastly, the robot sends a text message, alerting the farmer that the whole plot has been covered.

DINO: ideal for large-scale vegetable fields

The Dino robot allows farmers to manage crop weeding with a high level of precision, while helping them save time throughout the season. First, Dino memorizes the plot map, including the size of the beds and the number and length of rows. The second step is crop detection, where the robot’s camera vision detects the plants to position its tools as closely as possible to the crop. The final step is using GPS tracking to work autonomously up and down the rows, ensuring that its suite of retractable hoes and harrows eliminate all weeds.

TED: ideal for vineyards

Ted is a multifunctional straddling vineyard robot that efficiently and precisely maintains and weeds vine rows. First, Ted memorizes the plot map. Next, the robot uses GPS tracking to work autonomously. Then, Ted’s camera vision and sensors detect the vines to position the tools as closely as possible to the crop.

The three robots are silent, lightweight and work efficiently in both dry and wet soil conditions. Currently, Naïo is working on finalizing new software that will allow the robots to also collect data as they cultivate, providing farmers another added value.

Try Before You Buy

To provide growers with the most up-to-date precision technology, Naïo offers the robots as a service.

“Technology is rapidly evolving, and we don’t want growers to buy our machines and have its technology obsolete in five years,” said Belin, noting how the company is continuously updating the machines’ hardware and software, ensuring that all robots have the latest technology.

“Because we are only providing it as a service right now, rather than selling the machine outright, growers have time to truly understand the technology and learn how to integrate the robot into their operations to achieve the most ideal results. Plus, it’s much more affordable,” he said.

Dino, which is most applicable to the many large-scale vegetable growers within Western Growers’ membership, can cultivate up to 12 acres in nine hours. When tapping into Dino’s services, the Naïo team will travel to the farm, visit with the grower to ensure all needs are met, map each field and operate the machine. No fuss, no muss!

Using $50-$100 dollars per acre as a baseline, the Naïo team will work with each grower to determine an appropriate cost based on crop, difficulty of precision, and coverage area, among other field characteristics. Naïo currently serves regions throughout California and Arizona, including the Salinas Valley, Santa Maria, Napa and Yuma, and plans to expand its reach with assistance from the WGCIT.

“Being part of the innovation center and Western Growers as an association has allowed us to connect with key contacts in the U.S.,” said Belin. “Mr. [Dennis] Donohue knows all the right growers who would benefit most from our robots and has been able to help us get on the right track. This has been great for us and for our expansion into international markets.”

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Science & Technology: Virtual Audits Offer a Solution for a Novel Problem

July 15th, 2020

By Marlene Hanken

This year has been a wild six months full of obstacles and uncertainties. The emergence of COVID-19 has produced numerous unforeseen challenges and difficulties for the economy and agriculture has been no exception.

While it would be easy to dwell on the hardships and what seems like never-ending obstacles combating the spread of a novel virus, we find great pride and hope in the brilliant and adaptable minds of our members and industry partners. We are  confident that our industry will meet these challenges head on as have the many agricultural pioneers of generations past.

Western Growers is ready to meet those challenges with you.

One challenge identified early on in the rise of COVID-related issues has been continuing audits while still adhering to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance on slowing the virus. Guidance requires a reduction in human contact, which in turn meant the pre-COVID in-person audit process would present challenges when following guidelines to mitigate virus transmission. In light of the current situation and government suspension of domestic inspections, Western Growers and the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (CALGMA) worked together to launch a Virtual Desktop Audits Program to allow audits to continue while significantly reducing in-person contact.

The virtual audits program relies on an online software platform developed by iFoodDecisionSciences that allows leafy greens handlers to upload audit documents to their own online repository for the auditor to access the day of an audit. This system allows for a segmented process, promoting security and an order that mimics the in-person audit process.

Handlers gather information to answer the online audit questions and upload supporting documents at their convenience from the time they sign up for an online account up until the audit date. The repository is viewed in a questionnaire format that models the LGMA audit checklist utilized during an in-person audit. This makes document organization intuitive and enables easy fulfillment of all the required documents to satisfy the checklist of questions. Unlike other online platforms, as documents get uploaded the system allows them to stay organized and in-line with audit questions—reducing confusion for both handlers during upload and auditors during the review. The handler will work to complete the audit up until the audit date, at which time the auditor will then proceed to review supplied documentation and work with the handler to complete the audit.

While it is early in the program, the outlook is promising for successful integration into the audit process. Early adopters of the program have made note of the quick onboarding process (less than 24 hours), the streamlining of the documentation process, and the versatility in data sharing after entering. The most notable feature of this system is the handler’s ability to share information with multiple processors and shippers. Audit information is entered once and then can be shared multiple times with different companies. Auditors have also provided positive feedback on the ease of use, gauging audit fulfillment, and the intuitive navigation of the software. The option of virtual desktop audits is showing promising results for handlers and auditors alike.

Though the need for a virtual solution to substitute the in-person portion of the LGMA audit process was initiated by COVID-19, Western Growers can see the adoption of a virtual audit process, either in part or as a whole, as a great resource in the future. It can reduce time and costs associated with in-person audits while offering a variety of benefits such as efficiency, ease of use, and convenience. The Arizona Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement is also considering adopting the program and adapting it to the needs of its members.

Even after the need for social distancing measures has subsided, we will encourage members to explore hybrid models: combining in-person audits with virtual components to find the solution that best fits the needs of their operations. Western Growers will continue to work with members to produce effective and meaningful data solutions for agriculture’s toughest problems. It is only through ingenuity and innovation that we can make it through the toughest times together.

If you are interested finding out more about the Virtual Desktop Audits Program or are interested in signing up, email us at [email protected] to begin the on-boarding process.

 

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Giclas Thrived with Multiple Tasks

July 15th, 2020

By Tim Linden

Henry Lee Giclas III was born in Socorro, New Mexico and recently retired in nearby Albuquerque, but in between, he lived an adventurous life that took him around the world and through several professions.

He is well known in the produce industry where he worked for Western Growers for 30 years but he also worked on the family farm, spent his 20s in the oil, gas and mineral exploration world, and spent a couple of years teaching vocational agriculture before settling into his WG career.

Hank’s journey began in New Mexico in 1959.  During his youth, his mother was working on her PhD in molecular biology and his father was a mechanical engineer. Their careers had the family moving a bit with the young Giclas spending time in New Mexico and Arizona before moving to San Diego while a teenager and graduating from Clairemont High School.

During those formative years, Hank did develop a love of agriculture and the outdoors. When he was 16, he bargained with his parents to allow him to move to Buckeye, AZ, and work on the family farm, which is typically leased to local farmers. “My job was to burn weeds, set irrigation pipe and do other odd jobs,” he said. “I fell in love with desert agriculture.”

Upon graduation from high school, Hank went to the University of Arizona and pursued a degree in what was called soil, water and engineering. “I expected that I would graduate from college and work on a farm as a farm manager.”

But he admits that he might have been lacking some scholarly motivation at the time. “At the end of my second year, I decided to leave school and go out and work a little bit and figure out what I wanted to do.”

The short break turned into the better part of a decade. Giclas began working for an international company in oil, gas and mineral exploration. “I traveled extensively with all expenses paid, lived off my per diem and saved a lot of money.”

Every time he considered quitting and going back to school, the company gave him another hard-to-turn-down opportunity. “I was running crews all over the world in charge of people twice my age. I worked in Alaska on a project and then lived in Australia for a couple of years working on another project.”

But in the late ‘80s, in his late 20’s, Hank did come back to the University of Arizona. By then, the college had eliminated his major, so he switched to agricultural education. He did graduate, secure his teaching credential and begin teaching vocational agriculture in Mesa, AZ, splitting his time between the local high school and a junior high school. By then he had met and married Kathleen and they were expecting their first child. Budget cuts left Hank with only a part-time job in the school district, which would not suffice for their growing family.

“I started applying for jobs and saw a position at Western Growers that I applied for,” he said. “I was called in for an interview in the Phoenix office with Jasper Hempel. I remember I was sitting waiting to be interviewed and the person at the front desk saw her car being broken into in the parking lot. While she was on the phone with 911, the other line started ringing. She asked me to answer it. So, I picked up the phone and said ‘This is Western Growers, can I help you.’”

Hank did get the job and that pre-interview phone greeting has come to define his three-decade long career at the organization. He has served the association in many capacities with his ability to materially help the membership in one way or another his most important calling card. He has always been a loyal member of one team in the organization or another, with those teams creating great R.O.I. for the membership.

He was hired in 1990 in an advocacy position in the Arizona office of the association. In those years, WG also managed the local growers’ associations with Hank’s position serving as the top executive in those groups. He recalls that one of his early assignment dealt with finding relief from the whitefly, which was devastating the vegetable crops in the Southwest.

“We became aware of a numbered compound that didn’t have a name yet that had efficacy on the whitefly,” he said, referring to what would become Admire, a crop protection tool developed by the Bayer Corporation.

Hank immersed himself in the world of pesticide regulations and was able to help Bayer secure a Section 18 emergency registration for the whitefly. “It turned out to be the silver bullet,” he said.

Giclas spent the 1990s in WG’s Phoenix office and became the association’s “science expert,” as well as its Arizona legislative advocate. He became very familiar with the Section 18 process and secured many registrations for members in California and Arizona as they awaited full registration of various crop protection tools.

In 2000, Giclas moved to Sacramento in a similar position with responsibility over the California government affairs office. After a relatively short stint of about 18 months, Hank was transferred back to Arizona and then in 2003, he was moved to the headquarters office in Irvine as the vice president of strategic planning, science & technology. It is under that same title that he retired from the organization in May of this year, but the job itself has changed significantly over the years.

Hank admits that during those three years in the early 2000s that required three physical moves, he did consider his options as he and his wife had two young kids in elementary school and moving is always difficult. “But I love Western Growers and ultimately we decided it was good for the kids to experience different circumstances. And Western Growers took very good care of us with each move.”

In retrospect, Hank knows they made the right decision as he very much appreciates his Western Growers career and especially the 17 years working out of the Irvine office. “The beauty of my position is that all kinds of issues landed in science and technology. As humbly I can state this, people trusted me with a lot of significant issues. Maybe it is because of my cool and calm demeanor but the science and tech department was able to deal with a lot of very important issues over the years.”

Giclas said food safety became a focal point of the department after the spinach crisis of 2006. Cadmium and perchlorate have been two areas of concern within agriculture for many years. Both of which fell under the watchful eye of Hank’s department. And when Western Growers jumped into the technology world to help find solutions for some of the industry’s most vexing problems, again Hank’s department was given the lead role in this sector.

“These are important areas,” he said. “The LGMAs (Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements) are impactful. The Center (for Innovation and Technology) is impactful. The work we’ve done on cadium and perchlorate to move the industry our of harms way have been impactful.”

As he looks back on his career, Giclas is most proud of these opportunities where he believes he helped make a difference. And he admits, he is too young to retire. “I don’t think I reached the apex of my career, but my parents are not aging gracefully. I decided I had to spend more time with them before it was too late.”

Both Hank and his wife have family in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, so they moved back to New Mexico to be centrally located to those destinations. “We are midway between Tucson and Colorado, which is a great location for us. And we love New Mexico.”

Hank’s daughter, Hannah, who will soon finish with medical school and become a pediatrician, is in Tucson, as are his parents. Their family home is in Colorado as are many of Hank’s relatives. The majority of Kathleen’s family is in New Mexico. Rounding out the family unit is Henry Giclas IV, who is a financial analyst in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In New Mexico, the Giclases own a two-acre ranch in Albuquerque. “I have a ton of work to do on the ranch,” Hank says of his main retirement pursuit. “I am going to take out the stables and put in some fruit trees.”

Though, he has no intent to be anything but a hobby grower, one suspects he will find a way to grow the best fruit in New Mexico.

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De Ann Davis Named Senior Vice President, Science

July 15th, 2020

De Ann Davis, PhD, has been named senior vice president, science of Western Growers. Davis brings extensive expertise to the leadership team with more than 25 years of experience in the development and execution of technical global programs, including food safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance.

“Western Growers has long led our industry’s efforts to develop and embrace food safety best practices based on science,” stated Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia. “The retirement of Hank Giclas—a pioneering leader in food safety—created a serious challenge for us in finding the right person to continue and enhance our commitment. Fortunately, today we are welcoming De Ann Davis to our team. With her uncommon blend of technical know-how, cross-sector experience, and demonstrated management capacity, De Ann is poised to take this position and drive further value to our members and the broader fresh produce industry.”

“Joining Western Growers is an exciting opportunity for me to really leverage my diverse experiences and technical background to advance food safety and scientific programs across its membership and the produce industry as a whole,” said Davis.

Following an impressive run in consumer products safety, Davis transitioned to packaged and fresh produce safety nearly a decade ago. She most recently served as food safety director for Commercial Food Sanitation, a provider of strategic consulting services, expertise and training that addresses food safety and sanitation challenges for food processing plants. Previously, Davis was vice president of food safety and quality for both Church Brothers Farms and Earthbound Farm, and earlier as chief food safety officer for Kraft Foods Group, where she was engaged in the development of the regulatory framework for Food Safety Modernization Act.

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Ag & the Law: COVID-19 Presents Challenges for H-2A Employers

July 15th, 2020

During this global pandemic, it is often said “the virus doesn’t care…” The virus doesn’t care who you are. The virus doesn’t care where you’re from. The virus doesn’t care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. The virus doesn’t care if you are rich or poor.

If you rely on H-2A employees, the virus doesn’t care that it’s delaying your effort to secure visa interviews for your returning workers. The virus doesn’t care if you can’t completely manage social distancing in your employee housing.

With each passing month, we learn more about this virus. We now know the virus spreads most commonly through the air from person to person. People shed the virus by coughing and sneezing and talking and laughing. The virus lingers and spreads more in indoor spaces than outdoor spaces. Large groups are riskier than small groups. A person can be infected for several days before showing any symptoms of COVID-19. That makes this virus particularly crafty—it spreads among people who feel and appear healthy. And the virus can land on surfaces where it can live for days before being picked up and spread to others.

So when a group of apparently healthy workers are sitting, talking, and laughing for hours on a bus from their homes to their new H-2A employer, or socializing in group housing after a long day’s work, some workers will potentially be exposed to this virus.

Fortunately, farmworkers in Western Growers’ states are faring relatively well so far. That’s not the case everywhere. More than 50 percent of farmworkers in Florida’s largest agricultural communities are testing positive, according to Politico. I have spoken to members who have had dozens of their employees test positive for COVID-19. Most are asymptomatic or just have a cough. Most members have not yet had an employee required to be hospitalized. That’s good news; the majority of young and healthy people who are exposed experience no or only minor symptoms.

But that doesn’t mean we should let our guard down. Far from it. There have been more than two million confirmed cases and nearly 120,000 deaths in the U.S. at this writing, with credible models projecting the U.S. death toll will increase by 57,000 to 100,000 in the month of September.

Employers have a duty to understand the risks posed by—and to—newly introduced seasonal workers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), employers need to re-emphasize safety measures that can slow the spread of the virus, including washing hands, maintaining a physical distance of at least six feet from others, and wearing a facemask.

Employers should also monitor the health of all workers daily, and isolate workers who have symptoms consistent with COVID-19, such as a fever over 100.3˚F, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, among others. It’s also critical that all employees are trained on recognizing the symptoms and preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus, including regular and effective handwashing. Employers should be stepping up cleaning and disinfecting all surfaces in employer-provided housing, transportation, common areas and restrooms.

Finally, employees who test positive or show symptoms of COVID-19 should be quarantined or self-isolating, according to CDC. H-2A employers should consider locating alternative H-2A housing to quarantine exposed or recovering workers. The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California has assisted members in Monterey County by securing “wrap-around” housing for participating H-2A employers to quarantine or isolate their COVID-19 exposed workers.

Western Growers, United Fresh and the American Frozen Food Institute have teamed up to develop COVID-19 guidance for produce operations. This guidance document provides useful advice and recommendations to help farm owners and operators prepare for seasonal operations including onboarding of seasonal workers, field and facility procedures, and shared/communal housing and transportation to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In addition, the CDC, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Cal/OSHA have released guidance documents to protect agriculture workers from COVID-19. These guidance documents can be found on the WG COVID-19 Resources page of our website.

Visa Processing Delays and Partial Relief

To safeguard U.S. Consular workers in Mexico from potential exposure to the virus, interview waivers have been delayed all spring and into early summer. Interview waivers are typically granted to visa applicants who have no record of past immigration violations. Some workers who have had immigration issues in the past may have their “bar to admission” temporarily waived following a consular interview. This year those interviews aren’t happening or have been greatly reduced so many experienced, qualified H-2A workers are stranded in Mexico. H-2A workers from other countries including Guatemala and South Africa have also been marooned due to travel restrictions.

With the potential for workers being taken out of commission due to actual or potential exposure to the coronavirus, or not being able to bring workers into the U.S. due to visa or travel restrictions, the Trump Administration has temporarily added some much-needed flexibility for H-2A employers.

To help H-2A employers avoid employment-related disruptions, protect the nation’s food supply chain and lessen impacts from the coronavirus public health emergency, the Department of Homeland Security, with the support of the USDA, issued a rule to add temporary flexibility to H-2A requirements, without weakening  protections for U.S. workers.

For example, DOL is temporarily permitting H-2A workers and domestic workers performing under an H-2A contract to perform incidental duties that are not specifically listed in the job order if that becomes necessary due to COVID-19. And DOL is permitting H-2A workers to work at sites not specifically mentioned in the work order. H-2A workers can also move between H-2A employers if there is an agreement between employers and the employees to move between contracts.

The temporary rule also gives an H-2A employer with a valid temporary labor certification who has experienced a disruption in labor due to COVID the option to begin employing workers who are currently in the U.S. in H-2A status immediately after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives the H-2A petition, but no earlier than the start date of employment listed on the petition.

USCIS has also temporarily amended its regulations by allowing H-2A workers to stay beyond the three-year maximum allowable period of stay in the U.S. Agricultural employers can use this streamlined process if they are concerned with their ability to bring in the temporary workers who were previously authorized to work for the employer in H-2A classification.

No, the virus doesn’t care. But if we enact the necessary safety measures, we can show that we care about our workers and slow the spread of the virus in our workforce and communities. Western Growers has many resources to help keep employees safe. Western Growers H-2A Services is available to assist members access and navigate the H-2A program and overcome the labor challenges exacerbated by COVID-19. For information about Western Growers H-2A Services, contact WG Vice President and General Counsel, Jason Resnick ([email protected]) at 949-885-2253. We will get through this together.

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The Emergence of AI Technology During COVID-19

July 15th, 2020

Most of us can agree that when the clock struck midnight at the start of 2020, we were envisioning a year that looks completely different from the one we’ve dealt with so far. These last few months have no doubt been challenging for us all, and many employees are likely experiencing added levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Amid the constant observances of social distancing and disruption in existing health care services, many of us are looking for on-demand solutions that are convenient and free from additional restrictions.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic reared its head, one of the biggest mental health issues affecting America’s workforce was depression. In fact, untreated clinical depression has become one of the costliest illnesses in the United States. One in five adults in the U.S. suffer from mental health challenges each year, costing employers a staggering 200 million lost workdays and up to $44 billion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And, consider these other statistics from the CDC:

•   Depression interferes with a person’s ability to complete physical job tasks about 20% of the time and reduces cognitive performance about 35% of the time.

•   Short-term disability claims for mental illness have been growing by 10% each year.

•   Employees with depression who are not receiving treatment use two to four times more health care resources.

•   Employees at high risk of depression had the highest health care costs during the three years after an initial health risk assessment, even greater than other health risks, such as smoking and obesity.

Although COVID-19 has been completely devastating on a global scale, it has also presented a number of opportunities in the health care industry, one of which is the advancement of artificial intelligence technology. Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT), in partnership with Pinnacle Health Management (PHM), has taken full advantage of these emerging capabilities and has recently made a new resource available for its members.

HEIDI, short for Health Evaluation Interactive Discovery Intelligence, is a text-based, artificial intelligence chatbot that provides on-demand expertise to help employees and their dependents manage stress levels and maintain mental balance.

HEIDI is free and available on-demand 24/7 for all members with a WGAT health plan. HEIDI is also secure and confidential, just like conversations with a health care professional, and meets Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements to protect employee privacy. We’ve made this tool available in English as well as Spanish.

Artificial intelligence chatbots can play a vital role in helping people with their mental health, according to a new study from the University of Sheffield. We’re now living in a world where physical and social distancing have become the new norm, and face-to-face interactions with health care professionals have presented new barriers for patients seeking additional care. The university study highlights the fact that chatbots have been effective therapeutic options for those looking to talk through their issues.

Like other artificial intelligence chatbots, HEIDI is by no means a replacement for real psychiatrists or mental health counselors, but she is trained by expert psychologists to ensure interactions are high quality. The tool uses self-learning artificial intelligence, which means the more you chat with HEIDI, the more she learns how to provide better support. HEIDI is also trained to recognize certain words and phrases that indicate strong emotions that could lead to suicide or self-harm and will recommend a crisis line for individuals that need to call for help when they need it.

WGAT and Pinnacle Health Management

WGAT partners with Pinnacle Health Management to offer a care management program at no cost to employees diagnosed with a range of chronic care conditions. We recently added depression to our main core of care management programs, alongside other chronic conditions, which include hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, weight management, and asthma. This program is included with every WGAT health plan purchased. Additionally, employers can obtain our Wellness Program as an add-on, which includes quarterly wellness challenges, wellness toolkits and other educational resources, newsletters on popular health topics, and customized reports at the end of all wellness challenges.

Remember that if you have the WGAT plan, your Western Growers Insurance Services account manager can assist you as needed. If you don’t have the WGAT plan but want more information or are interested in purchasing the plan, contact a WGAT sales representative at (800) 333-4WGA.

(Dr. Jennifer Moore oversees all aspects of Pinnacle Health Management, which includes the care management program, corporate wellness program, utilization review, and provider contracting, and also oversees a team of caring and dedicated nurses and administrative staff.)

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UPDATE from the WGCIT

July 15th, 2020

About five years ago, Western Growers launched its Center for Innovation and Technology (WGCIT), housed in the Taylor Farms building in downtown Salinas. WGCIT brings together the ag industry and firms operating in the technology space to actively work on some of agriculture’s most vexing problems.

At any one time, there are about 50 firms operating in the Center. Following is a self-generated update on some of the firms in the Center designed to keep the produce industry abreast of the work being done by the resident companies. You can reach any of the residents for more information through WGCIT at wginnovation.com (This issue, we present the updates in reverse alphabetical order.)

In early June, WaterBit installed its pump control solution which enables growers to control irrigation from the water source to the drip line in a precise, targeted fashion. Features include the ability to remotely start and stop irrigation pumps, monitor soil moisture and irrigation line health, and open and close valves from a mobile phone or computer. This solution is currently being field tested and will be generally available later this summer. We also released a video the WaterBit MicroBlock Valve which enables irrigation at a site-specific, sub-block level—on youtube.com.

Tailwater Systems is in full production with its nitrate removal systems in 2020 (US patents pending). Its systems are the highest performance and lowest cost solution for removing nitrate from any kind of water. Unlike filtration, Tailwater’s solution uses biology to convert nitrate into nitrogen gas and carbon dioxide and produces no costly waste by-product. New systems are integrating on-site catchment basins and zero discharge strategies. The company is also prototyping two new proprietary product lines this year—one to up-cycle high strength organic waste into a salable product and another biological systems approach to desalting agricultural run off. Both systems are expected to go into production in 2021.

SWIIM is continuing to make advancements to its reporting and user dashboard features, including enhanced alerts which notify growers as soon as they appear to be under- or over-irrigating. Another exciting development, which has evolved from conversations with our growers, is a sustainable water certification program. SWIIM will provide qualifying clients with stickers and/or labels that can be applied to product, as well as allow them to use the certification logo in their marketing materials, designed to showcase their commitment to sustainable water and innovative irrigation management, which literally is what SWIIM stands for!

Sapphire Automation has led efficiency optimization in high tech and is now utilizing its sensing and predictive analytics platforms to focus on ag and food. Its software and hardware solutions collect real time production data, machine status, events, cycle time and send alarms. The system works as a stand-alone solution or can sit on-top of existing equipment in a manufacturing or processing facility. Using Sapphire’s Dashboards, users can onsite or remotely monitor the performance of the factory and availability of the assets. Using Machine Learning, IIoT, Cloud and Big Data technology help to improve production efficiencies that will increase volume, quality, profitability and competitive advantage while reducing downtime.

ripe.io: The company has announced a collaborative effort with FoodLogiQ, IBM Food Trust, and SAP to achieve blockchain network interoperability in food supply chains. The announcement: “GS1 US, in collaboration with four leading solution providers, has confirmed that multiple traceability systems can interoperate to transmit and exchange information about a product’s journey throughout the supply chain to support end-to-end food traceability. The first phase of a multi-phase proof-of-concept focused on supply chain visibility and included solutions that leveraged blockchain, cloud and other traceability technology from FoodLogiQ, IBM Food Trust, ripe.io and SAP.”

Novihum Technologies is making soils better with products that contain high-value organic matter like what is found in the best soils. This is possible because it developed an advanced production technology and rigorous scientific protocols that guarantee the consistency and quality of its products. Its soil enhancers counter the loss of organic matter in soils, achieving in hours what takes years under natural conditions, with immediate and long-term results. It has grown its U.S. team with the addition of Doug Walters, sales director, Southeast. Also, an additional warehouse has been added in Miami, FL, improving the supply chain to better service new and existing customers.

Naïo: The company has hired Marcus Dunning as its sales director for North America. He grew up in Northern California and moved to the Central Coast to attend Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, in 1995. He has lived on the central coast of California ever since and currently resides in Paso Robles. “Automation is the future of agriculture, and Naïo’s solution is a perfect fit for growers,” he said. “I see the tremendous opportunity for growth in North America and want to be a part of driving that growth. We need to grow our customer base as well as our brand recognition within the U.S. vegetable market. To accomplish these goals, Naïo is currently building its U.S. team as well as expanding its fleet of robots. It now has three Dinos in the U.S. and looks to expand this fleet even further by the end of the year.”

iFoodDecisionSciences has a few truly exciting updates. The company has wholly acquired HarvestMark, making iFood the first and only comprehensive solution for the entire supply chain, providing full traceability accompanied by relevant and associated Food Safety and Quality data. iFood offers an easy-to-use software service to capture FSQA data, implement real-time process controls, generate customized reporting and dashboards, and leverage cutting-edge predictive technology (which the FDA is clamoring for).

HeavyConnect continues to lead innovation in the produce industry with an easy to use in-field solution to compliance documentation. This July, HeavyConnect is launching a Training Module, which helps farm operations by lowering the risk of poor tracking and management of mandatory trainings in the field. This solution enables managers to identify issues and take corrective action in real-time to make sure their operations are always audit-ready. Find out why HeavyConnect is trusted by farms all over the country to manage recordkeeping for both labor and food safety compliance.

GeoVisual continues to deliver crop analytics requested by its contract customers, through collaborative work with customers and projects with national research agencies, including NASA and USDA, and the industry’s advocates, including Western Growers, the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Ag, and the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. Recent initiatives include GeoVisual’s spearheading a public-private partnership funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to help the specialty crop industry advance its use of irrigation and fertilizer scheduling tools, in collaboration with Cal State Monterey Bay, NASA Ames and the University of California’s Cooperative Extension.

Full Harvest: FarmLink, a nonprofit started by a group of Stanford students, who are helping connect growers with surplus produce to food banks to feed America’s most at-risk families, is using the Full Harvest marketplace to identify and purchase specific surplus commodities that their nonprofit partners are looking for. The marketplace is a very efficient way to connect with farmers. Previously, FarmLink was calling farmers/growers and asking if they had surplus. Now FarmLink and their food bank partners can go on to the Full Harvest Marketplace, and search by commodity and connect with growers immediately, make a purchase, and then have our platform handle all of the logistics for delivery. It’s now in one easy-to-use marketplace.

The Bee Corp: Already starting to think about 2021 pollination? So is The Bee Corp! The company started reaching out to growers, brokers and beekeepers to book Verifli hive grading for the upcoming season. Last month, it hired Fresno native Jeff Walker as its new sales representative. Spots are already starting to fill up, so get in touch soon to secure your preferred grading date. Plus, the company is offering free Verifli credits if you sign up before the end of July. The Bee Corp made a ton of improvements and new features in store for next year’s version of Verifli. There is one major change to be aware of: the company will be exclusively deploying Verifli as a service in 2021. Just like it did this season, it will be sending its team to grade your hives with the Verifli app next year. That means it won’t be shipping IR cameras and you won’t be tasked with waking up in the middle of the night to grade hives. The company take care of the hard work—all you need to do is sit back and wait for your results to come in. This also means that it will be scheduling hive grading on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sign up early to secure a priority date and receive your hive strength results well before bloom.

ApisProtect has joined the Microsoft for Startup program. This strategic partnership will allow ApisProtect to use Microsoft technologies to scale its business for the next two years. Dr. Edwards Murphy, CEO of ApisProtect, said, “Our bee monitoring technology will enable beekeepers to manage their apiaries more effectively and focus on cultivating larger and stronger colonies. We are delighted to be working with Microsoft as we scale our company globally over the next two years.”

Agtools has won the 2020 Flywheel Investment Conference competition and $125,000 investment award from Flywheel Angel Network. Founded in 2017 by Martha Montoya and her brothers Gustavo and Oscar Montoya, Agtools is a software as a service (SaaS) ag and food supply chain platform offering real-time data and intelligence to farmers and buyers using algorithms helping manage market volatility, increase profitability and reduce food waste. Agtools has locations in Wenatchee, WA and Salinas, CA with their technology teams based in Washington State.

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What’s Trending: 5 “Musts” for Managing a Crisis Using Social Media

July 15th, 2020

“Hoarders” quickly went from a popular television program to a stark reality earlier this year when states around the nation urged residents to “shelter-in-place” to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of COVID-19. When the quarantine orders started rolling into effect, citizens flocked to their local supermarkets buying food items in mass quantities. As food went flying off the shelves and grocery stores struggled to keep items stocked, America quickly began to pay attention to an unsung group of heroes: farmers and farmworkers.

Deemed “essential,” these warriors risk their health and safety to continue providing America with a safe, healthy, abundant and affordable food supply during the coronavirus pandemic. However, as the quarantine order has slowly rippled from one week to now nearing three months at the time of this writing, questions surrounding America’s food supply have surfaced.

What are farmers doing to keep farmworkers safe?

How are agricultural operations limiting the spread of COVID-19 within their fields and packing houses?

What additional food safety measures have been put in place?

How are farmers adapting their health and sanitation protocols in response to the coronavirus?

During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic where any sense of normalcy has been demolished, social media can serve as a powerful tool to educate the public. When questions regarding safe agricultural practices started bubbling, Western Growers (WG) immediately flooded social media sites with selfie-style videos of WG members and compelling infographics to inform consumers on how growers are ensuring the safety of their workforce, how the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting their operations and how proud farmers are to be on the front lines of feeding America during the coronavirus pandemic.

Using the #AgIsEssential hashtag, the videos and graphics are tied together across WG’s social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Since early April, the videos have been viewed more than 520,000 times, and more than 64,000 people have liked, commented, or shared #AgIsEssential posts. To date, the #AgIsEssential social media campaign has reached nearly 2 million people.

Because of its significant impact, WG wanted to share some best practices on how to manage a crisis using social media:

1.  Be Authentic. Be Honest. Be Real.

Being genuine is a vital part of connecting with consumers, and now more than ever, people want to hear about their food supply…from food suppliers. The selfie-style videos featured in the #AgIsEssential campaign allowed viewers to hear from farmers and farmworkers about the role of agriculture in providing a safe, secure and healthy food supply amid the coronavirus pandemic, while knee-deep in planting and harvest.

In a world where everyone is showing carefully curated, beautifully filtered moments, the selfie-style videos allows consumers to see the real faces behind an essential workforce. For example, one video featured Alexandra Allen of Main Street Produce with a mask on, in the middle of a strawberry harvest. She not only spoke about the countless measures being taken to protect essential farmworkers but showed specific examples being implemented at Main Street to enhance worker and food safety.

2.  Use Social Media as a Collaborative Tool.

As the #AgIsEssential campaign started to peak, WG noticed that other agricultural associations and brands, as well as a handful of farms, were replicating the effort with similar videos. Using social media monitoring platforms such as AgoraPulse and Hootsuite (which is free!), WG was able to easily see this content as it became live and immediately engaged (likes, commented and shared) with it.

A notable example is Innovative Produce and Faith Farming, which took to their fields and started filming interviews of their farmworkers on why they continue to go into the fields to harvest safe and healthy food during the COVID-19 health crisis. The videos, which were in both English and Spanish, were posted on the farm’s Instagram page, under the #AgIsEssential and #FarmOn hashtags

3.  Add Value.

Whether you are posting a simple photo with some text or a video made from your smartphone, the content should offer consumers a peek behind the curtain. One of the #AgIsEssential videos featured Tasteful Selections, where various employees spoke about the safety measures being taken. Viewers were able to journey through the operation with different employees—from the chief operating officer to food safety managers to IT technicians—and receive a detailed, inside look into how this bite-sized potato company was keeping their employees safe, as well as delivering premium potatoes to customers.

4.  Don’t Post and Forget.

During any crisis, reporting a steady stream of updates about your company is crucial. People want to know what’s going on with their food supply and how their beloved brands are faring during the crisis. Social media easily allows you to make these updates publicly available to your customers and can further solidify a relationship between your brand and consumers. However, you can only create meaningful relationships and brand ambassadors if you engage with them.

Regardless of what you share, once you post this content, you must regularly check to see who has commented or engaged with you. Taking the time to answer questions and reply to feedback (whether it be positive or negative) is just as important as posting that video or picture.

5.  Reach Different Audiences Through Paid Advertising.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, WG had a well-established following on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, many of the followers fell in the category of AGvocates—those who already supported the agriculture industry. For this campaign, WG wanted to reach audiences who were not yet familiar with the ag industry. To do this, WG placed ads on Twitter and paid a minimal fee to “boost” the videos on Facebook, which allowed these messages of hope from the field to reach consumers in urban areas. Through this “pay to play” effort, the #AgIsEssential campaign reached an additional 300,000 people; what’s even more impressive is that 90% of those 300,000 users engaged with the post by either liking the video, sharing it with their friends and family or commenting on the post.

Conclusion

Social media adds an element of speed to crisis communication that can make delivering real-time information more accessible than it has ever been previously. This communications vehicle, paired with the easy-to-use technology offered by smartphones, allows you to quickly respond, have more control over your message and maintain transparency during a crisis.

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Posted in WG&S Magazine, July / August 2020 Issue | No Comments »

Words Matter

July 17th, 2020

“Words matter,” begins Michael Mandelbaum, professor emeritus of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, and former faculty member at Harvard University, Columbia University and the U.S. Naval Academy.

He continues on, “especially words defining complicated political arrangements, because they shape perceptions of the events of the past, attitudes toward policies being carried out in the present, and expectations about desirable directions for the future.”

While he was doubtless referring to complicated political arrangements in the international arena, Mandelbaum’s words resonate as I observe an apparent terminology shift in water policy.

Western water policy is fraught with competing interests and complicated laws and arrangements. Nonetheless, the players in this arena have historically managed to speak the same language, with shared understanding of terms and ideas, even as they competed as policy advocates. This has helped legislators and other interests not so imbedded in the nuances of water policy to at least have confident understanding of the basics of water storage, conveyance, allocations, etc., as they wade into a matter before them.

From the day I came to Western Growers, one of those commonly understood and accepted terms has been “water supply reliability.” It was used ubiquitously, by advocates of all stripes, in the midst of debates over new surface storage (dams), new conveyance facilities (the Delta tunnel or tunnels, among others), groundwater recharge facilities and the operational criteria governing them all. An entire chapter of the 2009 water bond (the precursor to the watered-down Prop. 1 in 2014) is entitled, “Water Supply Reliability.” The term always made sense, because physical infrastructure is generally constructed for the primary purpose of providing reliable water supplies to cities and farms. No one can dispute, for example, that Oroville Dam and the California Aqueduct were created to help secure a reliable water supply for Los Angeles and greater Southern California, and that without those facilities, many millions of people would be in serious trouble.

In recent years, I began noticing a new term taking the place of “water supply reliability.” Today you would be hard-pressed to hear California officials utter that phrase, but you will find them aspiring to a new era of water management that is defined by “resilience,” or “resiliency.”

Indeed, the Newsom Administration has made the turn of phrase central to their water priorities, which they have labeled the Water Resilience Portfolio. Mandated in Governor Newsom’s April 2019 executive order, a final package of recommended actions to “ensure the state’s long-term water resilience and ecosystem health” is forthcoming.

This is all merely to say that words do in fact matter, because words can also be code for something else. In this case, I believe the word resilience is code for a policy agenda that, described accurately and openly, would reveal objectives intended to displace “water supply reliability” as the first priority of California water policy.

This is not to say that we should not have water systems and policies that are resilient. Of course we should, especially in the context of both climate change and protection of ecosystems. But water supply reliability for cities and farms is no less important a consideration of building resiliency into our water policies than any other imperative. So why retire the term without so much as a eulogy?

As I have observed all of this (with more than a few pointed comments along the way), I have also seen “resilience” gain traction elsewhere. California leaders frequently speak and write of “climate resiliency,” which, as with water policy, is a fine idea in the abstract but begs for candor in the all-important details, like what the state’s climate policies mean for the resilience of businesses, like farms, that are increasingly less resilient to the harsh economic realities imposed by California’s thick and thorny regulatory regimes.

This move is quite savvy, actually. Attaching the word resilience to a policy agenda presents a tough target to hit. It infers a science-based, data-informed plan that protects all from the unforeseen dangers of unpredictable or fast-changing circumstances beyond our control. For advocates of private sector interests, the highest priority is to forcefully define the harmful consequences to people and communities that will result from policy decisions baked into a “resiliency” agenda that is not truly balanced and protective of all.

As California and the rest of the country emerge from the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world undoubtedly will be different in many fundamental ways. But we have a choice about what we want this future to look like, so pay particular attention to the words our political leaders use to define their intended pathway forward. As Mandelbaum admonishes us, these words matter because within them lies a policy agenda that, visible or not, can shape our social, political and economic future.

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Financial Services: 401(k) Plans Can Now Invest in Private Equity Funds

July 15th, 2020

As part of the Trump administration’s trend toward deregulation, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued guidance allowing companies to include certain types of private equity funds in 401(k) plans, investments that have traditionally been reserved for the wealthy few.

In a statement announcing the decision, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia argued that private equity will “help Americans saving for retirement gain access to alternative investments that often provide strong returns.”

Not everyone shares Scalia’s enthusiasm. Opponents of the decision, including many Democrats and consumer groups, hold the view that private equity has no place in retirement plans, and contend that the average 401(k) participant will not understand the increased risk of this investment instrument.

While opinions are mixed, even among investment professionals, the reality is that previous barriers restricting regular investors from participating in private equity funds have been removed, effectively opening the industry up to the $6.2 trillion 401(k) market.

Before we look at the arguments for and against allowing 401(k) plans to invest in private equity funds, let’s first understand the term private equity.

What is Private Equity?

Simply put, private equity refers to investments in companies that are not publicly traded. Leveraged buyouts and venture capital are familiar types of private equity investments, which come primarily from institutional and high net worth investors.

Generally speaking, private equity requires investing substantial sums of money, which is then held for extended periods of time and used to fund growth through new technology, acquisitions or working capital. Usually, the end game for private equity is some type of a liquidity event, such as an initial public offering (IPO) or a sale to a public company.

Arguments in Favor of Private Equity in 401(k) Plans

Proponents of allowing 401(k) plans to invest in private equity point to access, diversification and higher returns for the average investor. Indeed, 98 percent of U.S. households currently cannot invest directly in private equity, according to the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent research organization.

In his announcement, Scalia claimed that opening up private equity to 401(k) access “helps level the playing field for ordinary investors,” and ensures that “ordinary people investing for retirement have the opportunities they need for a secure retirement,” placing them on par with wealthy and institutional investors.

As the argument goes, adding an additional asset class for the average investor is important now more than ever. According to a study conducted by Credit Suisse, the number of companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange has fallen by 50 percent over the past two decades. The number of IPOs annually have also dramatically fallen since the dotcom boom, down from a peak of nearly 700 in 1996 to just 100 in 2017.

Private capital markets have been picking up the slack, which means the average investor has been locked out of where the action is increasingly taking place, and where impressive returns are being made.

Bain & Company, a top management consulting firm, notes that over the past 30 years, private equities have generated average net returns of 13.1%, compared with 8.1% for public equities, based on the Long-Nickels public market equivalent.

“Exposure to small- and mid-sized companies—especially technology companies experiencing significant growth—is often only available through private investments,” noted Susan Long McAndrews, partner at Pantheon, a leading global private markets investor. “Retirees can’t really afford to leave 40 basis points annually on the table over a 35-year investment horizon.”

Arguments in Opposition to Private Equity in 401(k) Plans

However, not all that glitters is gold. Many of the long-standing arguments against 401(k) investments in private equity are based on concerns over fees, performance and liquidity.

Fees for 401(k) plans have come down significantly over the years, and today include low-cost options from the likes of Fidelity and Vanguard. There are even ultra-low or no fee exchange traded fund (ETF) options for investors.

In contrast, private equity managers typically charge 2% or more of the fund’s assets in annual fees, and can take up to 20% of the profits. Two percent of a $6.2 trillion 401(k) industry represents a potential of $180 billion in profits per year for the private equity industry.

While proponents cite statistics that prove private equity funds outperform the overall market, others are more skeptical. As the investment word to the wise goes, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

The same Bain & Company report referenced above, which demonstrates private equity has outperformed public equities over the past 30 years, also states that when the time frame is shortened, over the past decade, private and public equity returns have been virtually the same, around 15%.

This trend has continued into 2020. In fact, listed private equity funds from Goldman Sachs, Invesco and BlackRock are all trailing the S&P 500 by 13% as of early June. And while the year-over-year numbers for these private equity funds are more in line with the S&P 500, parity is not what private equity investors pay for.

Fees and performance notwithstanding, the biggest problem for private equity may be the lack of liquidity. Investors participating in private equity usually sign contracts that lock up their funds for years, based on the assumption that professional managers will generate extraordinary value by turning a struggling company around or preparing it for public offering. This model makes it difficult to physically sell an interest in private equity and makes it even more challenging to accomplish allocation targets many investors have in place for their 401(k) plan.

If you have any questions about investing in private equity funds, or are interested in starting up a 401(k) program for your agricultural operation, please contact Matt Lewis at [email protected].

Posted in July / August 2020 Issue | Comments Closed

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