Ann Donahue serves as Director, Communications for Western Growers, where she is responsible for external communication efforts and publicizing the Association’s executives, initiatives, and members across all media platforms. Ann spent more than 20 years as an editor and reporter covering entertainment journalism, with bylines at publications including Variety, the L.A. Times, Billboard, IndieWire, and […]
Basil Mills, the founder of Mills Distributing, died Jan. 14, 2022, at the age of 91. Mills was the Chairman of the Western Growers Board of Directors in 1997; in 2002, he received WG’s most prestigious award, the Award of Honor. Mills Distributing was one of the Salinas Valley’s leading vegetable grower-shippers for decades; Mills ...
The USDA National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in California is encouraging producers to sign up for a special cover crop initiative offered through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The deadline is March 10, 2022, and more information about EQIP can be found here. $6.8 million in fiscal year 2022 is being provided for the utilization ...
On Wednesday the California Water Commission increased potential funding for the seven water storage projects in the Water Storage Investment Program. The Commission voted to increase the potential funding amount for the Sites Project by $25 million, correcting a shortage from 2018 due to limited funding. The Commission also voted to adjust the Maximum Conditional Eligibility ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s TechTalk Podcast this week featured an in-depth exploration of Western Growers’ Food Safety Data Sharing platform. Cronan McNamara, the Founder and CEO of Creme Global, speaks about how his company’s food safety data analytics and predictive modeling software and services are working in tandem with the WG Science team ...
The Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology has welcomed seven new start-ups to its roster. They are: aerialPLOT The company offers aerial imagery and analytics to provide real-time crop data. AgNote The farm management software company provides easy-to-use data tracking. Axis7 Based in New Zealand, the R&D service provider won a residence at the ...
IRVINE, CALIF. (March 10, 2022) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will not conduct broad sampling of leafy greens grown in the Salinas Valley region of California for the 2022 growing season. The decision was made based on data from Western Growers, the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture inspection ...
By Ann Donahue, WG Media Relations Manager A recent study revealed that an encompassing perspective that includes individual, familial and societal factors is needed to address the increasing number of deaths by suicide in farmers. The numbers are heartbreaking. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report revealing that farmers and ...
Real-time diagnostic soil sampling can result in higher yield and optimized fertilizer costs. By Ann Donahue There is the classic business school lesson about the legs of a stool, where each leg represents one element of getting a product out the door: speed, precision and cost. An organization needs to balance all three, or else ...
In response to the ongoing drought in California, the USDA Kings, Tulare and Kern County Farm Service Agency (FSA) and USDA Office of Partnerships & Public Engagement are partnering to conduct a short webinar on FSA programs that offer drought benefits to farmers and ranchers. The webinar will take place on March 30 from 10-11 ...
Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology Executive Director Dennis Donohue will speak at a March 29 webinar hosted by Microgrid Knowledge and entitled “Microgrids for the Food Industry: Simple and Practical Energy Solutions for Food Processors.” The panel will cover what the typical components of a microgrid are and related forms of on-site generation; ...
In an opinion piece that was published Monday in CalMatters, Assemblymember Adam Gray (D-Merced) called for the California State Auditor to investigate the Department of Water Resources’ operations and management. “In the 2021 water year, California water officials disastrously miscalculated the moisture content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack,” Gray wrote. “Because the Department of Water…
In this week’s episode of the Voices of the Valley podcast, Larry Taylor, Co-Founder of The Yield Lab Asia Pacific, and Mark DeSantis, CEO at Bloomfield Robotics, bust the myth that artificial intelligence isn’t as adaptable as human intelligence when it comes to managing the health of specialty crops. With the right kind of technology, ...
The deadline for completing the Western Growers’ annual Compensation and HR Practices Survey has been extended by two weeks to April 15, 2022. The Compensation and HR Practices Survey provides key insights, analytics and data that are vital to keeping pay programs, human resource practices and employee programs current and competitive. Your participation contributes to sound, ...
