Don’t say, “I’m going to double your yield”
And other things I learned from a panel of large California growers.
Another amazing THRIVE AG accelerator meeting: We met four large growers and listened to their unmet needs, how they find new technologies, and what not to say.
Western Growers ran a panel of four large growers in California. They covered every sector of agribusiness from growing a very large spectrum of crops to dairy, packing, shipping, and marketing. Even though their main farming operations were in California, some had operations in Arizona and Mexico. Since Pheronym is developing solutions for pest control for crops, we were most interested in unmet needs related to crops. The row crops included alfalfa, cotton, maize, and wheat. The specialty crops included berries (strawberry), fruits and nuts (almond, cherry, pistachio) and vegetables (cabbage, carrot, lettuce, spinach, tomato).
Each grower told us about their operations and then told us their unmet needs. They all agreed that their most pressing problem was the labor shortage. Particularly seasonal workers during harvest time. Harvesting specialty crops is very labor-intensive, as it is still primarily done by hand. Any innovation that would reduce the labor required to harvest strawberries would be welcome. The second was water shortage. Going into another year of drought in California, they want to make the best use…
