Creating Farmer Awareness:
Advancements in the Agriculture Industry are happening at an alarming rate. Farmers are sometimes unable to keep up with the times and often do not even hear of these new advancements that could be more efficient for them as well as help satisfy the public perception on agriculture.
A Sustainable Way for Farming:
Lodi Rules, is a program that farmers use in Lodi, California that help encourage them to use sustainable practices in exchange for getting your vineyard labeled sustainable and at times money bonuses. According to Lodi Wine Growers, "When you drink a glass made form Lodi Rules Certified Grapes, you are supporting a farmer, a winter, and an entire Agricultural Community that embraces their responsibility to care for the environment and their neighbors".
This program is what the public wants to see farmers and ranchers doing. They are able to keep track of how sustainable they are and are given options to become even more sustainable. Ways Lodi Rules is able to promote this, is farmers get a sign on all of their contracts that say "Lodi Rules: Certified Green", which in today's society is what the public and wineries want to see and want to promote. I think this is a great way of communicating to the public that there are farmers out there who care and who want to show the public that they are trying and they are going to be as sustainable as they can.
Out with the Old, in with the New:
Another aspect of the Winegrape industry is promoting to farmers through newsletters and in AgSource the advantages of ditching the old technology and using the new. Some farmers have a hard time straying from their old methods, but these are now outdated. Some things that need to be more promoted are mechanization which relieves the pressure for labor and the time to spend in the field.
The mechanical harvester is an invention that would forever change how farmers operate. Paul Harvey said it best in his speech when he states “God said, ‘I need somebody…who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back’, put in another seventy-two hours,’ So God made a farmer.” To finish a forty week by Tuesday requires some heavy new technology. According to Keith Striegle, University of Missouri, on October 22, 2012 his article titled “Introduction to Mechanical Harvesting of Wine Grapes”, stated that “Research into the effects of mechanization demonstrated that grape quality was unaffected and, in some cases, improved with the introduction of machine harvesting"
In some areas, mechanical harvesting is believed to reduce labor costs up to 75%.”. A trunk shaker harvester, in grapes, slides along the vines at the trunk and shakes the vine causing the grape clusters to be shaken off onto a conveyer belt and into a gondola bin, pulled by the tractor. When harvesting with a machine, only three people are needed to run the trunk shaker; a driver, leaf puller and gondola driver. A trunk shaker harvester grabs onto the vine with what is called a trunk shaker, hence the name, and then drives along the row at a slow pace while the machine does its job. Work in the fields can be strenuous and occur in undesirable weather conditions, creating a difficult job for both farmers and the laborers who help them. Overall, this amazing equipment succeeds in reducing the cost of labor, decreasing harvest time and allowing fewer people to cover more ground in one night.
With the new leaf puller machine, the only input costs are the initial purchase cost of around $35,000 and then fuel and one hired person to drive the machine. Now the amount of time per row is around 4 minutes and pays itself off in just a few years. It works by having sensors in the machine which is connected to the tool pressure which manages how full the canopy is and determines how many to leaves to pull. Again, this is another example of an advanced machine in the farming industry that increases efficiency, ultimately helping the farmer economically and decreasing the need for many labor employees.
The World is Constantly Changing and Farmers have to Change with it:
In 2020, the agriculture industry was changed for the worse. Already with farmers and ranchers struggling to find labor and produce enough food, the coronavirus brought a plethora of problems for the industry. One of the main problems was the new regulations set in place that called for laborers to remain safe at work. According to Amy Wolfe, the President and CEO of Ag Safe, a nonprofit organization that helps farmers across the United States with different tasks that affect their workforce, she states how the new regulations are truly affecting farmers. She states, “Laborers are now required to stand 6 ft apart, with access to sinks and soap as well as they need to wear masks in the field”.
The access to water and soap has been implemented for many years, but the masks and separation pose a problem. The workers do not want comply due to the fact that the masks make them hotter and many are friends and families working together and do not want to stay 6 ft apart. When the government provided people with unemployment pay due to the pandemic, many were making more by staying at home. The problem farms face now is getting people back to do some much needed work, but the pay is better from unemployment and so the fields are unattended.
The governor of California also issued a new law stating “The order streamlines workers’ compensation claims and establishes a rebuttable presumption that any essential workers infected with COVID-19 contracted the virus on the job”. This once again hurts farmers and ranchers because they may not have full time employees but more seasonal type of work. This means a farmer who typically would hire a worker for two days of work, if the virus is contracted, would then have to pay for 2 weeks compensation, which is a huge financial burden.
With the world continuing to grow and farming continuing to be a rare career choice, future generations are looking for ways to increase yields, with less land and fewer farmers and laborers while also pleasing the public. This extensive goal has to be acquired while maintaining good relationships with consumers. The way farmers can do this is though using social media themselves, or hiring a graduate of the Agricultural Communications major to be able to convey messages to the public about why they use the practices they employ. The further advancement in technology can be attained through research, and even more mechanization to ease the financial and time burden on farmers. The Agriculture Systems Management major and agricultural engineering education programs will be able to streamline food production.
The world has to rely on the future generations to become the leaders of tomorrow which will be a difficult task with all the new threats that now pose the industry. If agriculture continues to grow in the way it is, farmers will have the technology and advancements they need to extend the food supply and be able to produce enough food to feed the world. However, if restrictions and the public skepticism continue to shine a negative light on the industry, it will only slow the production of agriculture and the world will be left with an unstable food supply and hungry households.
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