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Posts By: Walt Duflock

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Build a Network Around #agtechfielddemos

Are you looking for upcoming agriculture field demos (or wondering how to get more people to come to your field demos)? Check out how to find them or build awareness around yours... 1) For all AgTech startups doing field demos, please use the hashtag #agtechfielddemos in your social media posts and include the date, time and location (preferably with a map pin) of the demo (and a best…

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WG Automation Initiative: What it Means for Entrepreneurs and Startups

By Walt Duflock, Vice President, Innovation On February 11, 2021, Western Growers announced the launch of the Global Harvest Automation Initiative (GHAI). This initiative will provide several benefits for entrepreneurs and startups. First, Western Grower is clearly indicating an intent to help solve the food security problems caused by decreasing labor availability and increasing labor ...

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Innovation: Accelerating Harvest Automation – Platforms, Systems Integration and Roadmaps

By Walt Duflock, Vice President, Innovation Getting all the food planted by growers harvested remains a challenge, particularly in California as labor gets harder to find and more expensive due to increased regulation around minimum wage, overtime, break rules, and payment for non-productive time. Western Growers launched the Global Harvest Automation Initiative to help harvest ...

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Innovation: Cultivating the Next Gen Ag Worker

By Walt Duflock, Vice President, Innovation Agtech innovation has enabled agricultural production to grow over 300% in the last 70 years, while losing almost 70% of the ag workforce (both family members and hired farmworkers). Despite all the progress in ag productivity, every year acreage gets planted and does not get harvested, often because of ...

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Harvest Automation: In Search of New Capital

By Walt Duflock, Vice President, Innovation Recent events in agtech and agtech acquisition activity have brought to light a new focus area for Western Growers: the need to increase capital sources for harvest automation. Let’s take a deeper dive into three recent events: 1.  CNH Industrial’s acquisition of Raven Industries In June 2021, CNH Industrial ...

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TECH FOREWORD: 6 Major Learnings from Global Harvest Automation Initiative

By Walt Duflock, Vice President of Innovation The Western Growers Innovation team is making good progress on the Global Harvest Automation Initiative as we continue to target sustainable food security by getting all the crop acres that are planted harvested. Our target is to automate 50 percent of fresh specialty crop harvest in 10 years. ...

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Innovation Foreword: Silicon Valley Did Not Kill Agtech—and It’s All Agtech’s Fault

By Walt Duflock, Vice President of Innovation One of the ongoing questions in agtech is why agtech startups so often struggle to raise venture capital. Through multiple blog posts, podcasts and social media posts, Sarah Nolet, Matthew Pryor and I have produced content that provides two different answers for these struggles. Two of the most ...

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Innovation: Announcing the Western Growers HarvestWiki Built by Growers to Help Agtech Startups

By Walt Duflock, WG Vice President of Innovation Western Growers has rolled out the first-ever HarvestWiki—a Wikipedia-like platform to help farmers share information about growing operations, allowing agtech startups to have as much crop-specific information as possible when they design and develop agtech solutions for growers. HarvestWiki is focused on specialty crops—so if you’re a…

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Innovation: WG Launching Agtech Worker Program with CDFA Grant

Many rural California economies revolve around agriculture, which produces healthy fruits, nuts, and vegetables, as well as crop revenues and local jobs for both agriculture and service industries that support agriculture. To maintain these rural economies, three major problems need to be addressed—labor, water and food safety. California’s annual crop output  produces close to $50…

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Innovation: More Talk Between Startups and Growers Needed: Tech Should Do the Listening

By Walt Duflock, Vice President of Innovation The 2022 Automated Technology Field Day was held in June at the Hartnell East Campus in Salinas, Calif. There was a great crowd with over 150 attendees and a great mix of growers, startups, and equipment dealers were in the audience. It was probably the largest agtech field ...

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2023 Salinas Biological Summit

Join us June 20-21, 2023 for the Salinas Biologicals Summit. Co-presented by Western Growers and New Zealand-based agrifood tech consultancy Wharf42, the 2023 Salinas Biological Summit will provide an opportunity for growers to increase their awareness of available biological solutions to address their soil and plant needs, as well as a chance for agricultural businesses to learn about the…

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On-Site Registration Available for OGS

The Organic Growers Summit (OGS) will be held tomorrow and Thursday in Monterey, Calif., and all interested attendees can register on-site at the conference. As this year’s primary sponsor, Western Growers (WG) will play a key role in numerous event activities that focus on innovation and scaling growing operations: Wednesday, December 1 A two-part Educational ...

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The California Ag Robotics Forum Debuts in Fresno

The world’s most prestigious specialty crop agricultural robotics show is coming to Fresno, Calif., on October 18-22, 2022 – FIRA USA: The California Ag Robotics Forum. Last week, Western Growers along with FIRA, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, Fresno State University, GOFAR and Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation announced that they will together ...

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