January 20, 2022

Western Growers Rolls Out HarvestWiki to Support Startups in Tailoring Ag Technologies

Western Growers (WG) has launched HarvestWiki to help specialty crop growers 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—which is focused on fruits, vegetables and nuts—can be found at https://harvest.wginnovation.com/

Like Wikipedia, the HarvestWiki is a community knowledge platform based on collaboration. The goal is to have a single page for each specialty crop that has all the key information startups need to know so they can innovate better — what are the farming practices, the economics and the edge cases that startups need to know about as they build solutions.

Information from the following three audiences will be crucial to populating HarvestWiki:

  1. Growers, Orchard Operators and Service Providers to Growers/Operators: the subject matter experts that can help provide the crop details that startups need for a full understanding of what they need to build and a rough range of what it needs to cost.
  2. Agtech Startups: start-up companies that are building or planning to build harvest mechanization or automation solutions should use HarvestWiki to understand their product requirements. This includes startups doing weeding or harvest assist, both of which help growers/operators manage their portfolio of labor more effectively.
  3. Investors, Mentors and Advisors: those working with harvest mechanization and automation startups should send those startups to the HarvestWiki page so they can review all of the information on that page and be prepared for their first or next grower conversation.

Click here for additional details about the HarvestWiki. WG encourages member growers to add content for the crop types they grow. WG also asks that startups review the right pages for crop(s) they are developing solutions for.

For guidance on developing the right information for each crop type, contact Walt Duflock at [email protected] or (949) 345-5997.