A new agreement between California and Queensland, Australia, is creating opportunities to accelerate agricultural innovation by connecting growers, researchers, technology companies and government partners across two of the world’s most important agricultural regions.

I recently traveled to Sacramento for the signing of a landmark five-year agreement between the State of California and Queensland focused on agricultural innovation, research and development, and disaster resilience. The agreement represents an important step toward strengthening collaboration between two regions that share many of the same agricultural challenges—and many of the same opportunities.

I was proud to attend alongside friends and partners from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR), the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), F3 Innovate and Beagle Technology.

I also had the opportunity to participate in a brief closed session with Queensland Premier David Crisafulli and members of his team. During our conversation, I shared the mission of Western Growers and discussed how important our Australian partnerships have become to our work supporting specialty crop growers.

Western Growers’ collaboration with Australia is not starting from scratch. Through Hort Innovation levy-funded programs and strong relationships with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI), we have already established agreements and collaborative programs focused on two significant challenges facing specialty crop agriculture: automated harvesting and non-chemical weed control.

Those projects, however, are part of a much larger opportunity.

Together, Hort Innovation, QDPI and Western Growers are building a trusted international network connecting growers, technology founders, researchers, original equipment manufacturers and agricultural organizations. By sharing information and coordinating efforts across California and Australia, we can reduce duplication and help promising technologies move from development to commercial adoption more efficiently.

The objective is straightforward: make innovation happen faster for growers.

Agricultural technology companies face a difficult commercialization path. A technology must not only work technically; it must solve a meaningful grower problem, operate reliably in commercial conditions and ultimately provide a measurable economic return. By aligning validation requirements, defining clear grower value propositions, sharing lessons and conducting commercial field testing across both countries, we can help technology companies better understand those requirements while giving growers greater confidence in the solutions reaching the market.

The result should be technology that creates quantifiable impact and helps agricultural operations become more resilient, sustainable and profitable.

Near the end of our conversation, Premier Crisafulli asked me a simple but important question: “What do you need from us?”

My response was equally simple. The partnerships are already established, and they are working. Continued support for Hort Innovation, QDPI and the people leading these efforts will allow us to expand their impact and create additional opportunities for growers in both countries.

During the signing ceremony, Premier Crisafulli also spoke about growing up on a farm and how his family continues to farm that same ground today. His personal connection to agriculture and commitment to the industry were evident throughout his visit.

For Western Growers, this agreement reinforces the value of building relationships beyond our own borders. California and Australia may be separated by thousands of miles, but our growers face many of the same pressures around labor, input costs, sustainability, productivity and operational risk.

When we share what we learn, coordinate resources and work together on common challenges, we can get the world’s best agricultural technologies into growers’ hands faster.

That is a partnership worth continuing to build.

We are excited to share that Matt Hoffman is joining the WG Innovation team as Senior Director of Innovation. We welcome Matt to the team, and I wanted to share some of his background and why we think he is the perfect fit for this role. The role sits at the intersection of agriculture chemistry inputs and innovations to help growers use less chemistry while still getting comparable results in terms of pest and pathogen management and overall economics. It is a critical role for Western Growers because the pressure to reduce chemical applications is coming from multiple directions at the same time – DC, Sacramento, and retail buyers are all asking growers to do more with less, and in some cases no, chemistry. Startups and investors have recognized this reality and have put billions of dollars into play trying to build solutions.

Matt will sit between the 2,000+ WG grower members and the 2,000+ startups who are building solutions across multiple segments and build programs and partnerships that help validate the technology, put a lot of math into the grower side of the analysis once the solutions are integrated into growers operations, and help growers understand which innovations are ready for trial or purchase now, which ones are making progress, and which ones are getting started but likely need some more time before growers need to spend much time with them.

Matt is taking over the chair previously held by our friend and former colleague Dennis Donohue, who now has his hands full as the Mayor of Salinas. Dennis did a fantastic job of creating the biological space and raising its profile with great partners like Wharf 42 and Pam Marrone and many others. Matt will take a wider lens on as he attacks the same challenge. So yes, Matt will be working with bio-controls (the pesticide alternative portion of the biologicals space). But he will also be working with genetics that can come with resistance built in, regenerative ag practices that can help support soil health as a way to inoculate against the same types of challenges, UV light as a new and emerging pest control alternative, and yes improvements like precision sprayers that help growers use less chemistry and get similar results.

All of these solutions can help. All of them are legitimate innovations in an area that needs them desperately. And all of them need to go through more testing than you think with a deeper dive around grower economics than you think. In short, everything that Ben has built around automation can and needs to be leveraged if chemistry is to be reduced. It’s also worth noting that automation tests are easier than this segment. Run the robot across the field – see what happened – measure result is the normal set of steps for automation trials. That becomes a massive series of tests across different growing conditions in different soil types with different water qualities and make sure you can prove not just correlation or causation or else you better not try and take credit for that result because growers will know or they will find out and they will tell their friends.

This is where Matt’s experience should be mentioned – growing up on a farm, serving as the Grower Programs Director for the Lodi Winegrape Commission, spending 10 years building programs at Driscoll’s to help startups work with growers more effectively, and spending a year at Reservoir Farms helping startups maximize the Reservoir resources all combine to put Matt in a place where he knows what to do better than most because he’s already been doing it for much of the past 15+ years. He has already worked with genetics at Driscoll’s, with startups like TRIC Robotics (a UV light leader – and their CEO is a big fan of Matt’s work already), on sustainability initiatives including regenerative ag practices, and with biological innovations on key pest and pathogen challenges. In short, everything Matt built over 10 years at Driscoll’s is now in play for all of the Western Growers members and we have Ben’s playbook to borrow from. That in a nutshell is why we are so excited to welcome Matt to the team and are confident he will hit the ground running on behalf of all the growers and all the startups in these segments.

The past several weeks have provided an encouraging look at the progress being made in specialty crop automation, particularly automated harvesting.

Across multiple field days, grower trials, and technology events, Western Growers has had the opportunity to work alongside growers, technology companies, researchers, and international partners to evaluate emerging technologies under real agricultural conditions.

The activity has included SAMI AgTech demonstrating automated harvesting in broccoli and romaine lettuce; Beagle Technologies demonstrating automated celery harvesting; international collaboration with Australian growers and industry partners; technology development at Reservoir Farms; and conversations with growers about what these technologies must accomplish before widespread commercial adoption becomes realistic.

One theme has been consistent throughout these activities: demonstrating that a machine can perform a task is only the beginning.

For growers, the more important questions involve reliability, productivity, crop quality, labor requirements, serviceability, and economics.

Can the technology perform consistently throughout a commercial day?

Can it operate under changing field and crop conditions?

Does it integrate with existing farming and harvesting operations?

And ultimately, does it provide enough economic value to justify adoption?

Those questions become particularly important in harvesting.

Harvest represents one of the largest concentrations of labor in specialty crop production and remains one of agriculture’s most difficult automation challenges. Crops are variable, growing conditions constantly change, and harvesting systems must identify, cut, handle and transport highly perishable products without compromising quality.

At the same time, progress is clearly occurring.

Over the coming weeks, this newsletter series will highlight several recent examples, including automated broccoli, celery, romaine and iceberg lettuce harvesting; lessons learned from Australian growers visiting California; technology development at Reservoir Farms; and a new approach Western Growers is taking toward field demonstrations.

The objective is not simply to showcase new technology.

Western Growers’ goal is to help create an environment where growers and technology developers can work together to determine what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to improve before these technologies can deliver measurable value on commercial farms.

The road to commercially viable automated harvesting remains challenging.

But increasingly, that road is running directly through commercial fields.