Rhishi Pethe and Ben Palone went to Yuma two weeks ago and it was the start of a new path for Western Growers on harvest automation. Ben put together a great agenda for Rhishi that included meetings with growers, farm workers and agtech automation experts with the goal of starting to develop a Product Requirements Document for an iceberg lettuce harvest automation solution.

Solutions like this are badly needed for Western Growers members because labor is increasingly difficult to find (for a lot of domestic labor) and getting more costly. In California the current number is that 10% of farm workers are H-2A workers from international locations that cost $28-30/hour when housing, transportation and food are accounted for in the total cost. That kind of hourly rate continues putting pressure on acreage to relocate outside of California. In short, if we can’t automate it, the acreage will help itself to relocate. Nowhere is this more true than reading headlines in industry newsletters that announce weekly record-setting production and ag exports for specialty crops in countries like Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador for key crops like avocadoes, blueberries and table grapes.

The automation progress being made is in non-harvest activities like weeding, planting, thinning, spraying and harvest assist. Western Growers estimates that 2-3% of these activities are automated and that they represent 1/3 of the total farm worker hours in aggregate. Harvest represents the other 2/3, and we are seeing very limited progress on fresh harvest automation. Combine that with the 85% reduction in venture capital ($53B to ~$10B from 2021 to 2025) and you realize that we need new capital strategies to get harvest automation moving forward that do not require venture capital. Rhishi and Ben’s trip was the first step in this direction. We will be reporting on the progress as it gets made, and we plan on building in plain sight. Can we come up with a grower-funded option for the R&D work that does not require any VC funding and provides a completely open-sourced solution available to all growers when complete? We are going to find that out starting with the 3:10 to Yuma trip. In the meantime, check out Rhishi’s great article to see where the journey begins.

One final update (which I’ll have more details on in next week’s Newsletter): since the Yuma trip, Rhishi has put the first draft of a Product Requirements Document (PRD) for iceberg harvest lettuce automation together. It’s a great start and probably a signal as to where Western Growers is going next on harvest automation.