Posts By: Walt Duflock
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Damian Mason’s Top 10 Predictions Podcast!
Damian Mason’s Business of Agriculture podcast has 10 great predictions for agriculture in 2026. I highly encourage everyone to check out the full episode on YouTube (link below). Here are some of the best predictions: 1) Michael Di Sabato predicts Tyson will divest its beef business from the rest of its portfolio. Tyson's beef business has gone from a cash cow (sorry) to a $20 billion…
Our Next Move in Automation
Over the past five years, Western Growers has made some big moves in automation. Since launching the Global Harvest Automation Initiative (GHAI) in February 2021 in Tulare, Calif. with the goal of automating 50 percent of specialty crop farm labor in 10 years, Western Growers and our partners have made some meaningful progress on our automation efforts—but there is still lots of work to be…
Have Pity for Regenerative Agriculture for Inadvertently Fighting a Two-Front War
Regenerative agriculture is heralded by many as the savior of global agriculture. If farmers can adopt regenerative practices like cover cropping, no-till, diverse crop rotations and managed rotational grazing, their soil health would improve and farmers could improve their ag operation’s productivity while fighting climate change. Who could say no to that? And yet, with the promised…
Some Big-Picture Thoughts on Specialty Crop Automation Solutions
I wrote this on the eve of the Tulare World Ag Expo in early February and wanted to share some big-picture insights on the state of specialty crop automation solutions, driven by some major developments in recent weeks. 1) John Deere continues pushing out autonomous solutions at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, this time with new kits for the 9RX and scaled down autonomy in…
An Update on the Agtech Landscape
The Western Growers Global Harvest Automation Initiative turns four in February, coinciding with the Tulare World Expo, in fact. A lot has happened since the launch. Some of the automation startups the WG Innovation team works with have successfully raised additional funding, others have entered the U.S. market from abroad, and some have partnered with equipment manufacturers and equipment…
Innovation Funnels: How We Can Manage and Measure Progress From the R&D Front End to the Commercialization and Scale Back End
The Western Growers Innovation team remains focused on our three big initiatives: automation (to help address labor cost and availability challenges), biological solutions (to help address input regulatory and efficacy challenges) and increased availability of AgTech-enabled workers (to help operate all the new automation and biological solutions). As we continue working with education, industry…
AgTech Ecosystem: Everybody Owns Data Silos; Nobody Owns Integration
One topic that has come up a lot recently─including at the recent FIRA USA event─is how the amount of data being collected on grower operations is tremendous and only growing larger. From on-farm equipment including tractors and implements; to tools like weeding, thinning and planting; to scouting tools; to in-field sensors; to aerial collection via drones, planes, and satellites, growers…
Agriculture Should Lean Into the Food is Health Initiative
There is a lot of conversation currently around food is health. It is absolutely true that consumers who have a healthy diet with more specialty crops will improve their overall health. To push this initiative, there is a lot of activity around program funding that incentivizes the purchase and consumption of healthy foods. One recent example of a quality program was the USDA Farmers to…
Guidance for Agtech Startups
The slide below is from one of the decks I reviewed this week. I see this in various forms way too often, and this is a good example. In this case, the startup has done a five-year set of projections starting with actual numbers from 2022 and half of 2023 (remainder projected) and then forecast out 2024, 2025 and 2026. See if you can spot the red flag. It's the S&M line (Sales and…
FIRA USA 2023 is coming!
Last year’s FIRA USA event in Fresno was a great first effort. Next month, we are going to have three different demo areas in the Salinas Sports Complex, and the automation solutions will be available for demos all three days of the show. Take a look at the aerial layout that includes an orchard demonstration area along with a drone pavilion (yellow pentagon in the top left), a vineyard demo…
Listen In: Where the Realities of Produce Farming Meet AgTech Investments
On a recent episode of Business of Agriculture podcast, Damian Mason, Adam Bergman and I discussed Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). I remain bearish on CEA and Adam remains bullish. As always, a bit of disagreement makes for great podcast fodder. We covered a lot of ground. Here are the highlights: 1) CEA was one of the hyped sectors of AgTech (along with alternative proteins),…
Three Keys to Success in the Biologicals Space
There is a lot of discussion about biological solutions in agtech these days at trade shows and in ag media, and with good reason. The use of chemical inputs to help manage pests and disease is under massive regulatory pressure from both Sacramento and D.C.—in many cases following the playbook western Europe is already using. Restrictions that could result in reduced use or outright bans are…
FIRA USA: If World Ag Expo and World Agri-Tech had a Baby
Back to back weeks in Toulouse, France and Tulare, USA have convinced me that the format we are adopting for FIRA USA in Salinas in September 2023 is the best event format for the most important activity at a specialty crops automation event—starting and advancing conversations between growers and Agtech companies. It may sound obvious, but a lot of events focus on other things for various…
Agtech Forecast: Q1 2023
Labor remains a top challenge for specialty crops, and it’s getting harder to find. U.S. farmworkers decreased by 70 percent in 70 years, regulatory costs increased 795 percent in 12 years, and U.S. H-2A labor increased from 48,000 in 2005 to 300,000 in 2021—which add transportation and housing costs. Innovation remains the best solution to turn manual tasks like planting, weeding, thinning,…
Planning an AgTech Field Demo? #agtechfielddemos
AgTech startups – we encourage you to use the hashtag #agtechfielddemos when you post your field demos online. It allows growers to easily identify all the AgTech field demos in their area on any given week. You can use it globally since users who search can be located anywhere. Please share this post and the hashtag with folks in ag and AgTech so we can get the usage to continue to…
Western Growers Global Harvest Automation Initiative Image Library 1.0 Is Live!
The Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology is very excited to announce that version 1.0 of the Image Library is available for use by AgTech researchers and startups. Here is a short list of frequently asked questions (FAQs): 1) What is the image library? It is a tool to help reduce the time it takes you to do the R&D and initial prototyping work by providing a set of…
Consume Agtech News Like A Pro
Ever feel like you're struggling to keep with all the latest great ag and AgTech content available? Me too, and I've been trying to do something about it. After years of trial and error, I think I've learned a few things and what I've done might be useful to others who would like to be able to keep with more of what's going on in AgTech land, because things are changing at a rapid pace and…
Increase the Value of Data: A Call to AgTech Startups
AgTech Startups, we need an open data exchange format to increase the value of complementary data sets to the end customer─the grower. I had a great conversation today about the increased value that can be created in farming operations when data from multiple activities are combined to increase the value of each (in short - 1 + 1 = 3 ... sometimes). As an example, let's say that vendor A…
A Free Image Library, Now Expanded, for AgTech Startups
There are now three crops with image libraries available in that WG Image Library that AgTech startups can use for initial R&D work and prototyping for automation robots. If you're working with romaine, iceberg, or cabbage, there are high-resolution images tagged and annotated available on Github for you to download and begin using. Also of note, broccoli is in the final stages and will be…
Are You an AgTech Startup Looking for a Mentor?
The AgTech Startup Mentor List now has 29 people (and counting!) ready, willing, and able to help you scale your startup efforts in key areas like product, strategy, fundraising and go-to market. AgTech Startup Mentor List 1) If you are looking for someone in a specific area, you can review the listings, reach out to the mentors that could be a fit and make contact to get a conversation…