Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology – In the News!
Posted on June 29, 2016 14:19 PM by WGCIT
The Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology [WGCIT] has only been open a few months now (opened December 2015), but is already shaping the “AgTech” arena. The WGCIT currently houses 16 startups who represent a wide variety of business sectors.
The WGCIT is a technology incubator aimed at bringing innovative entrepreneurs together with farmers to facilitate creative solutions to the biggest challenges facing agriculture. While marketplace and regulatory demands intensify, the future of agriculture will depend on new technologies for efficiency and food safety. Globally, the population will exceed 9 billion people by the year 2050; the domestic agricultural industry has been trying to best determine how we will feed a growing population with our current resources. Agricultural players are also watching the evolving regulatory landscape, and market trends, with an understanding that technology will have to be the “game changer.”
Western Growers deliberately selected the WGCIT’s location to be in downtown Salinas because of the variety of farmers and farming operations in the heart of the “Salad Bowl Capital of the World,” and because of its proximity to the Silicon Valley. In a CBS interview regarding the panel, Hank Giclas, Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning, Science & Technology for Western Growers, spoke about the WGCIT and how its physical location in Salinas allows for “startups and entrepreneurs to come in and have desk space, and conference space, and to be able to connect with the [agricultural] industry.