Vegetable growers have great interest in technology

A new generation of machines incorporating computer technology may be the way for growers to continue producing labor-intensive crops like cool-season vegetables in California, a panel of agricultural pioneers said during a Monterey County roundtable.

Vegetable growers and packers will have to draw on a tradition of innovation as they adjust to a world with trucks and tractors that do not have drivers, and sensors that report when it is time to irrigate, fertilize and harvest.

"This is a business that has been built on technology and innovation," said Bob Whitaker, chief science and technology officer at the Produce Marketing Association. "I get aggravated when I hear people say we are going to have smart farms, as if we've had stupid farms before."

Whitaker made his remarks during the PMA Tech Knowledge Symposium in Monterey as he introduced some of the Salinas Valley pioneers of fresh-cut vegetables and mechanized harvest for a roundtable tilted Technology Tidal Wave: Is it New?

Employee shortages figure to force the vegetable business toward ever-greater levels of mechanization and automation.

"I think there is a sense of urgency now because of the labor situation," said Steve Church, CEO of Church Brothers. "We have high speed lines, but we still have 500 people working in our facility. We see a need for more robotics in our facility."

His company already has experience adopting machine technology to improve efficiency in tasks that once took substantial hand labor.

"The food-service customers want iceless products," Church said. "We put 64 cartons of broccoli per pallet in our bags, while iced broccoli is just 48. We were also able to develop mechanical harvest for the iceless broccoli."

Mechanical harvest, which is already the standard for the salad mixes and other cut vegetable products that have become prominent in the Salinas Valley, is being expanded to a longer list of crops.

"We developed a romaine lettuce harvester a few years ago and now it takes 12 people who are comfortable riding on the machine doing what 36 people working in the field could," said Alec Leach, president of Taylor Farms. "Labor is a real problem and it is not gradual, it is immediate."

While mechanical harvesters, new tractors guided by GPS, and camera-based automated lettuce weeder-thinners seem to be arriving regularly, the pace of invention will have to pick up, panelists said.

"What I'm concerned about is we're not moving fast enough," Vic Smith, CEO of JV Smith Companies. "There are people moving out of our labor force. We're not going to get to cost efficiency until we integrate the growing, harvesting and processing so we can give them what they need."

Smith, a grower-shipper of many vegetable crops, said he believes companies at every step from the seeds to the retail produce departments will have to work together to develop new technologies.

"We're going to have to build cooperative relationships," Smith said. "We cannot just say, 'I'm a farmer, or a harvester, or a processor.' If I don't deliver a crop that is conducive to an automated harvester, then the machine won't be of much use."

While employee shortages figure to force invention and adoption of machines and robots, food safety will lead to greater use of computer technology.

"We have to figure out something as an industry to quickly figure out where a food safety problem is coming from, without waiting on the regulators," Leach said.

Standard practices have been developed for food safety in growing and handling cool-season vegetables, but the recent episode of E. coli contamination in romaine lettuce called attention to the need to be able to pinpoint the source of these problems more quickly.

"We reacted in 2006 with the spinach and I think we raised the bar significantly," Smith said. "It's just insane that it still takes us three or four weeks to figure out where a problem is coming from."

The challenges of both food safety traceability and employee shortages are daunting, but the cool-season vegetable sector can draw on an impressive tradition of innovation.

"Thirty years ago, a small group of people started the salad business in a big way," Leach said. "We went to Nissan for robotics, Tyson for Ziploc bags, and Frito Lay for a bagger."

The road toward more productive technology, however, is not a straight line, and some new ideas just don't work.

"Everyone should have a boneyard for things that don't work out," Leach said. "Nobody is going to come to you with something that is going to work out of the box. You have to work with them to adapt it."

Church recalled experience with promising vegetable varieties that, when put to the test in the field, were of no use.

"We got some seeds for red spinach from Europe and it looked great," he said. "But in the winter, it was woody. Not all innovation is without its disasters."

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Davis. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@aol.com.)