Western Growers’ Senior Vice President of Innovation, Walt Duflock, was a featured speaker in the California AgTech Alliance press conference at FIRA USA 2025 on Wednesday, October 22. The Alliance serves as a platform to coordinate regional innovation hubs, support commercialization and build a skilled workforce ready for the next generation of agtech.
Duflock, who is also co-chair of the Alliance’s Industry Advisory Board, addressed technology adoption challenges and the value of coordinated statewide leadership.
“Technology isn’t the bottleneck, adoption is,” said Duflock. “Growers need proof these tools work, training to use them and confidence they’ll deliver ROI. The Alliance removes those barriers by putting industry at the center of development, ensuring we build solutions farmers will actually use.”
This press conference marked the official launch of the Alliance and its first-year initiatives, including $2 million in innovation grants to advance on-farm technology pilots and regional collaboration.
As one of its key strategic partners, Western Growers also participated in a press conference from Reservoir Farms, a first-of-its-kind on-farm robotics incubator. CEO and Managing Partner of The Reservoir, Danny Bernstein, gave an extensive update on progress being made at the incubator just one year after announcing its launch at FIRA USA 2024. Bernstein said their field trials are the heart of Reservoir.
“They’re designed with UC Davis to ensure academic rigor, consistency and grower trust,” said Bernstein. “Every trial follows our validation framework: data integrity, grower validation, academic oversight and quarterly progress to our Innovation Committee.”
Some residents of the Reservoir include top leaders in the industry including Tanimura & Antle, Driscoll’s, Naturipe Berry Growers and John Deere.
Reservoir Farms will be hosting an Open Farm Day on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, at 11 a.m. at their incubator in Salinas, Calif. Attendees will be able to walk the fields, see early infrastructure and meet some of the startups shaping 2026. The event is open to FIRA attendees.