While most Americans drift further and further from their agricultural past, the business of farming in the Valley of Heart’s Delight is still booming. But it is changing—and technology is a big part of that. On Tuesday, May 22, the Silicon Valley Business Journal hosted “Disruption on the Farm,” a panel discussion that included California Secretary of Food and Agriculture Karen Ross, former state ag Secretary A.G. Kawamura and was moderated by former Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue.
While Silicon Valley serves as both the Mecca and Medina of global technology, its agricultural past is still a significant economic factor of its present. In 2016, the gross value of Santa Clara County’s agricultural products was $310.1 million, an increase of about 11 percent from the 2015 amount of $279.2 million.
“How we manage our land is critical to how we mitigate climate change, and how we can work the soil to keep it fertile for fruit, vegetables and grapes while keeping up a $2 billion industry,” Ross said of California’s agriculture industry.
There are significant challenges, though. Labor is in short supply, and the specter of another prolonged drought remains. The state is also under siege from the citrus psyllid, or jumping plant louse, which carries a devastating disease that has hammered the Florida citrus industry.
“We have a severe problem that is not being addressed by policy,” Ross said. “We are trying to catch up on what can be automated, and we need to do that soon.”
The shortage of labor has hit farmers hard who depend on hand harvesters, who often pick fragile crops year-round. Automation could serve as a solution, and it may not be as far away as it may seem.
“There has been a tremendous evolution in robotics,” Kawamura said. “Automated tractors are just around the corner, and recently I was just at an automated dairy.”
Ross raised another concern for the agriculture community—the Newcastle disease recently discovered in a flock of chickens in Los Angeles.
On Saturday the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a statement regarding Newcastle:
“Virulent Newcastle disease is a contagious and fatal viral disease affecting the respiratory, nervous and digestive systems of birds and poultry,” the news release said. “The disease is so virulent that many birds and poultry die without showing any clinical signs. A death rate of almost 100 percent can occur in unvaccinated poultry flocks. Virulent Newcastle disease can infect and cause death even in vaccinated poultry.”
The USDA stressed that Newcastle is not a food safety concern and that people who work with infected chickens get sick on rare occasions. The symptoms of Newcastle include pink eye and influenza-like symptoms.
