Voices of the Valley

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Remembering Hank Giclas, Part One Sep 06, 2022

Show notes

This is the first episode in a special two-part Voices of the Valley that is dedicated to the memory of produce industry stalwart Hank Giclas, the former Senior Vice President of Science, Technology & Strategic Planning at Western Growers, who passed away in August. Western Growers President & CEO Dave Puglia, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture Karen Ross, and Western Growers Assistant Vice President, Science, Sonia Salas share their memories of Hank and detail how his integrity and leadership impacted their professional development and personal growth. Join Voices of the Valley again next week as we continue to remember a friend and mentor to so many.

Sun World CEO David Marguleas Explains the Successful Strategies Behind a New Product Launch Aug 30, 2022

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From watermelon to stone fruit to table grapes, Sun World CEO David Marguleas has decades of experience in bringing vibrant new products to the consumer market. He visits the podcast this week to talk about how his company has made critical new hires and brought breeding in-house to stay at the forefront of molecular technologies. "In the middle of the pandemic we opened our new center for innovation in Wasco, Calif.," David says. "The new facility is a massive upgrade both technologically and functionally...and we've allowed for the expansion of that facility into a number of other crops we believe are begging for innovation that are underserved globally." (Hint: Think mangoes and cherries.) On the other end of the scale, does innovation ever reach a point of oversaturation? There are now more than 110 table grape varieties grown in California, David says, which means the marketplace is very competitive. The secret? Meet the customer where they are and focus on what they care about the most: "flavor, texture, shelf life, visual appeal" and two new traits, David says, "climate resistance and sustainability."

New Zealand Forecasts the Future of Agriculture Amid Climate Change Aug 23, 2022

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Peter Wren-Hilton, the Founder of Wharf42 Limited and the mastermind behind the upcoming 2035 Agri-Food-Tech Oceania Summit, joins the podcast to discuss how New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands are responding to the threat of climate change. "Climate change is real, it's happening, and it's happening much faster than we thought," he says. One real-world example: Growers of kiwifruit already anticipate production moving from New Zealand's North Island to the South Island, a complete upheaval of the current process. In addition, he gives a preview of the Oceania Summit in Auckland in October 2022, which will bring together growers, government officials and agtech leaders from around the globe - including California - to address the issue. "When you've got an environment where government, research and industry are working together, you can move much faster," he says.

En Solucion and Seeking the Food Safety Holy Grail Aug 15, 2022

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What do you do when you can't afford to make a mistake - but at the same time, you know you can't get risk to zero? In advance of the AgTechX Food Safety event on Aug. 18 at Reedley College, En Solucion CEO and Founder Alex Athey joins the podcast to discuss the potential of technology to mitigate the risks in food safety. A member of Western Growers' elite international Food Safety Cohort that will appear at the event, En Solucion is working to employ ozone nanotechnology to replace traditional post-harvest chlorine wash. "You can't get risk to zero," he says. "But we're trying to provide more tools in the the forms you can apply." A former astronomer who went on to implement technologies in the defense, oil and gas sectors, Alex learned a valuable lesson when he jumped to agtech. "For the first three years, sit in the back of the room and shut up," he says. "You just have to listen...then you can offer an outside perspective that maybe you don't see every day."

Grimmway Farms' Jeff Morrison on Using Business Acumen to Direct Agtech Investments Aug 09, 2022

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Jeff Morrison, the Director of Innovation and New Technology at Grimmway Farms, joins the podcast to discuss how he uses his interest in the business side of agriculture to dictate the choices his company makes on the technology side. For Morrison, solving the puzzle of how best to use agtech to make a return on a company's investment is a universal concern, and he's traveled extensively throughout Europe and Australia to learn how they have worked to solve the problems now faced by farmers in the Western U.S. "No one person ever has a monopoly on the best ideas," he says. Despite significant differences in market demands, weather and processing, Morrison says the common ground between global growers is valuable real estate to explore. "All of these organizations need technical people to help solve problems...you really want to combine insight that others have gained through the years."

Tom Nunes and Monitoring the Speed of Technology Adoption on the Farm Jul 19, 2022

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The Nunes Company President Tom "T5" Nunes joins the podcast to discuss how his company remains nimble and open to technology adoption in an industry beset with challenges.

The Nunes Company, known for the Foxy label, grows 40 conventional and 35 organic commodities. With that breadth of product, Tom is looking for common technologies that can scale across his production to create efficiencies. So far, the company has seen success with automation on the thinning and weeding side. "That's something that's not just emerging - it's becoming a common practice," he says. "Those are items that are being used regularly in our industry."

The Nunes Company has an operations committee that's dedicated to weighing the pros and cons of new technologies, he says. When an innovation hits the all marks, Tom is ready to pull the trigger.

"It doesn't take long - if we believe in it, we're going to go," he says. "At the end of the day you want to make sure you're doing the proper things on the day-to-day side to remain sustainable in your own business and move forward."

Albert Keck, Pt. 2: It's Time to Stop Just Preaching to the Choir About Ag Jul 12, 2022

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Hadley Date Gardens President and Western Growers Chair of the Board Albert Keck returns to the podcast to talk about what it will take for farmers and rural communities to change the narrative about the realities of earning a living in agriculture.

"We've been playing defense for so long...boy, I would love to be able to shift gears and play offense," Albert says, noting that real-world shortages may be what finally makes the issue come to the forefront. "I don't love going to the grocery stores and seeing empty shelves. What happens when there is no water?"

The ramifications of this, he says, could be a way to bridge the perpetual urban and rural divide. "Maybe that's where our opportunity is as Western growers," Albert says. "We can capitalize on the fact that consumers in our society realize the supply chain is hanging in the balance."

Hadley Date Gardens President and Western Growers Chair Albert Keck on the Future of Specialty Crops Jul 05, 2022

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Albert Keck, President of Hadley Date Gardens and current Western Growers Chair of the Board of Directors, joins the podcast to talk about his family's history in farming and how his decades of experience in the industry leads him to believe that the future could be bright for specialty crops.

“You want to talk about pessimism? When I was a kid all I could hear from the industry was: ‘Only old people eat dates’ and ‘All our customers are dying.’ It was like Eeyore in 'Winnie the Pooh.' Everything was negative,” Albert says. “What we've found recently, the Millennials - God bless them, for all the hassles they throw on us – they’re all healthy eaters. When I was going up we ate Cheetos and Doritos and hot dogs. And now the young adults want to have healthy food and real food. They are very conscious of what they eat and where it is grown.”

It's this change in consumer taste that Albert believes will define the coming years for fruit and vegetable growers - if the political landscape can work to empower domestic farmers. "We're out there banging on the drum to all of our political representatives, saying 'Hey, you keep throwing stuff at us - the ideals are not necessarily bad, we agree with a lot of the ideals - but we're in a global marketplace that doesn't care about those ideals,'" he says. "It seems like more and more a lot of our political system is definitely hamstringing domestic production. And so that's something we have to contend with as a culture. Are we going to want to grow these crops domestically, or do we just not care?"

Albert will rejoin the podcast next week for Part Two of his interview.

The Yield Lab and the Exponential Growth Potential of Latin America Jun 29, 2022

Show notes

This week's episode of Voices of the Valley explores the opportunities for agtech innovation and investment in Latin America. Accelerator The Yield Lab is dedicated to funding companies across the globe and then assisting with their growth and development for the long haul. "We're not in a rush," says Tomás Peña, Managing Director, The Yield Lab Latam, as he visits the podcast. "This is a business about talent. Eighty percent of the money we invest goes to talent." That talent base is particularly exciting in Latin America, he says, where trying to change the conventional conversation is the norm. "That's the beauty of Latin America," Peña says. "You have a lot of people thinking differently. You have a lot of people opening their minds, and saying 'Why not?'"

Food Safety and Using Automation to Mitigate Risk Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

Priority Sampling Founder and CEO Rafael Davila joins the podcast to talk about his company's efforts to improve the safety of the food supply chain. "I focus on the tissue sampling process, which is between the grower and the harvest," Rafael says of his company, which is currently focused on the leafy greens industry. In recent years testing has gone from a "Z-pattern" to a "serpentine pattern," he says, which goes row-by-row. "Sampling is a very labor-intensive process," he said. "We've had samplers walk hundreds of miles doing every single row...we wanted to focus on how to get the sampler through every single row, faster and easier." A veteran in food safety and a member of Western Growers' Food Safety Cohort, Rafael says the key for the future is to automate and add value by incorporating cameras and data analysis into the sampling: "I leapt into doing this full-time to perfect this process."

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