Posts By: Tim Linden
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Difficult Year for Food Donations But Need Continues to Rise
By Tim Linden It’s November and lots of harvesting equipment has transitioned from coastal California to the western desert growing regions for winter. And so has the search for fresh vegetable donations. Feeding America is a nationwide network of food banks that provides an untold number of meals every year to millions of U.S. residents ...
Biologicals Finding Mainstream Applications
While biological crop protection tools may be introduced to many specialty crop growers as an allowable product for organic production, companies in the biotech space believe their best application is as part of a cocktail for any crop, including conventional production. In fact, Pam Marrone, founder/CEO of Marrone Bio Innovations and a 25-year veteran in ...
Precision Ag Offers Efficiencies
Trimble Inc., best known in the farming community for its auto steer product used on tractors and other equipment, is, in fact, a world-wide company that provides technological solutions across a broad range of industries dealing with many different challenges. Its agricultural division has a host of products that the company believes can easily improve ...
ZAG Offers Managed IT to Ag
For 22 years, ZAG Technical Services, based in San Jose, CA, has been offering managed information technology (IT) services to the fresh produce industry throughout the Central Coast. With several offices in California, ZAG often acts as the IT department for many of its agricultural clients. It also interfaces with many in-house IT departments. For ...
FarmWise Completes First Commercial Season
By Tim Linden As 2020 moves toward the finish line, FarmWise has completed its first commercial season using automated machines to eliminate weeds on a variety of crops in the Santa Maria and Salinas regions. The company has now deployed its 12 machines for winter vegetable production in Yuma offering the same weeding service to ...
WGCIT Sponsor: Canada Becomes First International Sponsor of Innovation & Technology Center
By Tim Linden Recently, Western Growers and the Canadian government announced that the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) had become the first international sponsor of the trade association’s Center for Innovation & Technology (WGCIT). The Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco Rana Sarkar explained that trade and investment promotion is an important part of ...
Talley to Serve Second Year As Chairman of the Board
By Tim Linden Ryan Talley is very much looking forward to the unprecedented move of serving a second year as the Western Growers Chairman of the Board…but he certainly isn’t looking for a repeat. It is no understatement to note that 2020 was a year like no other. As a result, the Executive Committee of ...
13th Generation in New Mexico Continues to Prosper with Chilies
New Mexico Member Profile The Baca Family Bueno Foods Albuquerque, New Mexico Member Since 2014 The Baca Family of New Mexico has much to be proud of as they have very deep roots in their home state, continue to build a thriving business as their family firm approaches its 70th anniversary, and just may well ...
Past Chairmen Weigh in on Talley’s 2nd Year
By Tim Linden Several past chairmen of the Western Grower Board of Directors who are still serving the association as members of the board wholeheartedly support the decision to extend current Chairman Ryan Talley’s leadership for an extra year. In separate interviews, each of the chairmen noted that the Western Growers system of having their ...
WG Members Cope with COVID…With Innovation
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 ...
Giclas Thrived with Multiple Tasks
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 ...
WGCIT Startup Irish Company Revolutionizing Beekeeping
By Tim Linden ApisProtect, an Ireland-based startup that is a resident of the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology, recently announced the U.S. launch of its powerful commercial honey bee monitoring platform. Revolutionizing in-hive sensing, the company’s system gives beekeepers an easy way to monitor the condition of their colonies remotely in real time ...
UPDATE from the WGCIT
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 ...
Custom Organic and Conventional Vegetable Growing in the Desert Region
Director Profile: J.P. LaBrucherie, LaBrucherie Produce, El Centro, CA By Tim Linden It was in 1911 that Jean Pierre LaBrucherie emigrated from France and came to California’s Imperial Valley. He started a dairy farm and grew alfalfa and other forage crops. His son, Matthew, added a vegetable operation in the 1950s, raised cattle and started ...
Future Water Supply Elicits Some Optimism But Cuts Appear Inevitable
By Tim Linden Water has long been listed as one of the two most important elements when considering the future of California farming. Agricultural experts often put it at the top of the list or sometimes in second place with labor issues edging it out. There is some optimism about the labor situation moving forward ...
Ag Legal Issues in the Time of Covid
By Tim Linden While many of the trends regarding legal issues in the agricultural space do not appear to have changed significantly in the past year, the coronavirus, and the pandemic it has unleashed, is certainly top of mind and has greatly impacted the legal process. Civil cases are not going to trial, lawyers and ...
Meet Robert Medler: Arizona Advocate for Western Growers
By Tim Linden Robert Medler joined Western Growers in mid-January as the organization’s new manager of Arizona government affairs. He hit the ground running as the Legislature was in session, but the transition was seamless as he was previously the chief lobbyist for the Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce. Q: Briefly detail your path from ...
WGCIT Sponsor: Pacific Ag Rental Continues to Evolve
New technology in the ag equipment space is at the forefront of Pacific Ag Rental’s current thinking. The company is a farmer-owned co-op tractor rental business, headquartered in Salinas, CA, with branches in six other California cities, as well as Yuma, AZ. The company’s goal since it was founded by Bart Walker almost two decades ...
WGCIT START-UP: Bear Flag Robotics Automating Tillage
By Tim Linden True to technology startup folklore, Bear Flag Robotics began its life in co-founder Igino Cafiero’s garage. It was there that he began tinkering with the concept of an autonomous tractor by building a self-driving ATV (all-terrain vehicle). It was also there that he and co-founder Aubrey Donnellan developed the concept of using ...
Fred LoBue: A Career Well Spent
By Tim Linden Director Profile Fred LoBue, Jr. Chairman of the Board LoBue Farms, Inc. Lindsay, CA Member Since 2000 | Director Since 2000 When retiring Fred LoBue Jr. approached the subject of his life, he took to it in the same methodical way that largely defined the work he has done for ...