Agricultural technology – from seed to table – is rapidly changing the way we develop, plant, grow, harvest, pack, transport, buy and prepare our food.
The California Dept. of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) recently posted an illustrative article on a vast array of ag tech applications – you can read it at the link below.
The societal manifestations of food production are much more than you see on the grocery store shelves or web-shopping screens. Ag tech brings next gen careers to rural disadvantaged Californians. Ag tech can better manage natural resources like soil and water; it can detect invasive species; it protect public health through safe food handling.
West Hills Community College District (WHCCD, one of our clients, with a student population that is 80% disadvantaged) worked with Western Growers to survey farmer adoption of ag tech in the San Joaquin Valley – America’s food production marvel.
Their research discovered is the urgent need by farmers to adopt ag tech over the next 24 months.
Regulatory compliance is kicking in. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act brings water use reporting, for one example. Labor shortages are creating demand for mechanized planting, weeding and harvesting.
There is a catch. None of this miraculous ag tech works without wireless broadband…and few farmers reported reliable, sufficient wireless broadband access.
The Gualco Group, Inc. co-founded and hosts the pro bono AgTech Roundtable, a group of ag trades, regulators, academic researchers and tech providers. The Roundtable focuses on deploying ag tech in rural California.
Roundtable participants – like CDFA, USDA, UC Ag & Natural Resources, Western Growers and others – are working with WHCCD as it rolls out a broadband initiative for its region. We have enlisted the California Public Utilities Commission, broadband infrastructure providers, legislators, and ag groups to assist.
We’re determined to light up wireless broadband to power ag tech and the careers it creates.
“The information highway in rural California,” David Bunn, director of the Dept. of Conservation and AgTech Roundtable stalwart once said, “is a rutted dirt road.”
Time to make it an express lane. The CDFA post is here: http://plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov