What's at stake?
The project plans include employing 10,000 people, including 7,000 people of color, in the region, boost these workers’ wages by an average of 60%, and reduce historically above-average unemployment in the region by 1.2% over a four-year period.
Year one is in the books for the ambitious, federally funded four-year project to bolster and modernize the Fresno region’s farming economy – and there’s a lot of fancy technology, among other progress markers, to show for it.
Leaders from the Fresno-Merced Future of Food or F3 coalition, which joined forces to nab Fresno a $65 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant from the Biden administration in 2022, gathered Tuesday on Fresno State’s campus to showcase the first year’s accomplishments.
Robots and machines took center stage, or center lawn, in front of one of the university’s engineering buildings. Among those featured were an artificially-intelligent weed-detecting device that responds to commands in Spanish and a fully electric-powered tractor.
All this technology is still supposed to be in service of human beings, leaders emphasized – whether that’s a small farmer who’s struggled to compete with ag giants in the region or one of many Fresno families experiencing food insecurity.
“We’re tired of importing things from other parts of the world. We can invent here,” said Ashley Swearengin, former mayor of Fresno and president of one of F3’s key partners, the Central Valley Community Foundation. “We can manufacture here. Higher-paying jobs need to land here in the central San Joaquin Valley.”
This aligns with the project’s stated goals to employ 10,000 people, including 7,000 people of color, in the region, boost these workers’ wages by an average of 60%, and reduce historically above-average unemployment in the region by 1.2% over a four-year period.
But not everyone is confident the project’s parallel goals of introducing new, climate-ready technology into the agricultural industry in Fresno will do the community more good than harm, especially for farmworkers.
“A really naive outlook on the development of technology and its impact on the workforce would assume that the development of any technology advances the interests of workers,” said Edward Flores of UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center in an interview Thursday.
“We improve standards in the workforce” he added, “when workers have input into the design and the process of implementing the technology.”
F3 leaders insisted Tuesday that farmworkers have a seat at the table in this project and robots and AI could also help reduce injuries in the infamously hazardous industry.
Year one’s progress report
One of the biggest accomplishments Swearengin pointed to was a survey of 12,000 “frontline farmworkers” on the skills they’re hoping to build and what kinds of training they’re seeking.
“We’re logging it as probably the largest survey of its kind,” she said, “that we certainly can find in the U.S.”
Flores said it’s important that the coalition share their specific methodology behind this survey, stressing that “the story that you can tell can change” based on sampling procedures and other factors.
The Central Valley Community Foundation declined to share a copy of the survey results with Fresnoland in an email Wednesday afternoon, stating the F3’s community college partners are still compiling and analyzing the data.
These eight community colleges in the Fresno region are using the results to plan a new certificate program in ag-tech systems “like no other within the nation,” Merced College President Chris Vitelli said.
The goal is to enroll 8,400 students in the 12-unit program to ensure workers have the skills needed for 21st-century agriculture jobs. The first cohort of students will start the 12-unit program in nine weeks, he added.
Swearengin pointed out other highlights from year one Tuesday, including the project’s work to support small growers and build a more “resilient local food system.”
One of these farmers, Keng Vang who founded Fresno BIPOC Produce, has helped growers who identify as Black, indigenous and people of color sell over $430,000 in produce, Swearengin added.
Vang said his organization helps small BIPOC farmers market their produce and secure equitable prices in the face of the Valley’s massive agricultural companies.
“Fresno County is the No. 1 ag-producing county in the United States,” he said, “but all the produce here (is) going out of Fresno. Why can’t it stay in Fresno?
“The F3 project is going to help support me to support the farmers and to keep the produce here in Fresno, as much as we can.”
AI for farmers, big and small
F3 leaders also highlighted the results of several research projects into agricultural technology this past year.
One of the resulting products was a small four-wheeler with a robotic arm that can detect and spray weeds, which a team of students from Fresno State and other schools worked on, according to engineering professor Hovannes Kulhandjian.
The robotic device is equipped with software developed by Watsonville-based company Farm-ng. The technology has an interface in Spanish, according to Daniel Sabzehzar, managing partner at Tesserakt Ventures which has invested in Farm-ng.
Sabzehzar said he believes the product will enable small farmers to build capacity rather than relying strictly on manual labor.
“There’s a lot of farms, small farms especially, who grow the stuff that we all want to eat, but couldn’t afford an $80,000 tractor,” he said. “That’s why all these small farms still operate manually, and resultantly, they’re still exposed to all kinds of chemicals and workforce hazards.”
Farm-ng’s base unit, on the other hand, goes for roughly $12,000 dollars, he said.
Sabzehzar added that the industry shouldn’t necessarily expect to see labor “replacement” but rather “adjustment” in the wake of new technologies like Farm-ng’s product.
“There are types of technologies that can be labor assistance,” he said, “that … can eliminate dangerous, dirty work.”
Flores of UC Merced emphasized that decision-makers need to be specific about what jobs can and will be affected by new technology.
“I don’t think anyone is saying that we can live in a world that doesn’t change. No one is saying that,” he said. “Really, the issue at hand is transparency over what’s being discussed, so that there can be engagement with those stakeholders who are going to be affected by the development of the technology.”
At the end of the day, the goal of these technologies is not just to modernize the industry but to ensure the food supply remains affordable, said Adam Fine of Bluewhite, an ag-tech company.
His company sells a kit that retrofits tractors to become self-driving in response to what he described as a tractor-driver shortage in the state.
“When you have a deficit like that … the outcome of this is going to be higher food costs. And higher food costs really impact people in the lowest economic standings far more than anyone else,” he said. “We have an opportunity here to really open up this technology to California, see an increase in manufacturing jobs, see higher paying jobs in agriculture, and see stabilized food prices.”
Disclosure: The Central Valley Community Foundation is a Fresnoland funder.
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