Why Technology is the Answer for Farming to Progress
January 28, 2020 It used to be almost a joke, seeing some variation on the expression, “labor pains,” used by a new editor here at Meister Media Worldwide. We cover the gamut of specialty crops, among other things, and the newbie would invariably come back from their first interview with a fruit or vegetable grower with a story — and a bad pun for a headline — about how desperate growers are for labor.
It’s been the same story for decades, but today it’s getting worse. I couldn’t help but think about that in reviewing the results of American Fruit Grower’s fifth annual State of the Industry survey. Each year we ask growers about the top issues they are facing, and labor is always right there at or near the top of the list.
Through the years, fruit growers have tried all sorts of means to secure enough laborers. It would have seemed extreme a couple of decades ago to fly in virtual platoons of workers, pay them above the prevailing wage, give them free housing, and then fly them home at the end of the season. But the H-2A program may well have kept some growers in business.
Unfortunately, H-2A or no H-2A, the laborers are just not going to be there in the future. I have detailed the situation at length, but suffice it to say that what with tumbling birth rates in countries such as Mexico, the laborers won’t exist, they aren’t being born.
Growers are going to have to reduce their reliance on labor, and it appears technology may be the only answer. I’ve seen such technology first-hand at some of this winter’s trade shows, including our own Growing Innovations, held again this past November in Las Vegas. I was fortunate enough to host a panel discussion there featuring two manufacturers of autonomous agricultural vehicles.
Both Gary Thompson of GUSS Automation and Connor Kingman of Kingman Ag Services provide high-tech solutions — a sprayer and a tractor, respectively, that are operated via remote control. In each system, one single operator can operate six units at once. Talk about labor savings.
But those units don’t come cheap. Kingman offers services, but GUSS has begun selling units. The sticker price for a single sprayer is $285,000. High costs are understandably a common complaint among growers.
Our Executive Editor, Richard Jones, was telling me just that the other day, saying he gave a speech in upstate New York about the exciting things he had seen at Growing Innovations. Afterward, growers asked how they were supposed to buy in to precision agriculture when the cost barrier to entry is so high.
“One of the most powerful pieces of technology you own is right in your pocket,” Jones told the growers.
How true. From checking a weather station for highly specific results, to monitoring soil moisture throughout your operation, you can do a lot with a smartphone. And to think just a couple of decades ago that would have been available to only those with big bucks. Now just about everyone has one. Thinking about what might be available a couple of decades from now is mind-boggling. So just focus on today.
You have the opportunity this year, 2020, to begin to arm yourself with the technology that will be increasingly necessary to avoid — you guessed it — labor pains. You can start with that precision agriculture tech tool that’s right in your pocket.
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