Wines & Vines

December 2017 Unified Symposium Preview Sessions Issue

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24 WINES&VINES December 2017 T his August, I was fortunate to attend the Future Farm Expo in Pendleton, Ore. Following the theme of "Agriculture Interconnected," there were speaker sessions focused on field robotics and automation, ground sensors, crop imag- ery, data use, precision irrigation and more. The expo addresses the fundamental issue that farms must significantly improve productivity if the Earth is going to be able to feed 2 billion more people by 2050. At the same time, physically demanding and/or dangerous jobs are being eliminated. Grape presses were once hand-cranked, which is fine if you don't mind hiring (and probably having to feed) a number of beefy employees and can live with leaving 25% of the juice behind. Coal mining is no longer done with a pick and shovel; instead, entire mountaintops are removed with explosives and massive pieces of equipment—a safer (though environmentally disastrous) and more efficient method that requires very few employees. Beyond the global picture, the grape industry faces these challenges: • The average age of a vineyard worker is increasing. • There are fewer young people coming to the United States to replace retirees due to both the availability of good jobs in Mexico and border restriction. An analysis from the Pew Research Center estimates that between 2009 and 2014, 1 million migrant workers and their families returned to Mexico, but only 870,000 came from Mexico to replace them, leaving a net loss of 130,000 workers. • Many experienced vineyard workers have learned enough English to allow them to get better jobs away from heat and cold, rain and dust. • California is increasing its minimum wage from $10 to $15 per hour over the next sev- eral years. Agricultural overtime rules are changing—moving from a 60-hour week to a 40-hour week threshold. If your vineyard workers are currently paid $10 per hour and averaging 40 hours per week, your labor costs will increase 50%. If they are working 60 hours per week during seasonal peaks, the wage increase will be 75%. The grape industry is not alone in having these issues. While the mod- ern apple orchard has switched from 25-foot-tall shady trees to " w a l l s " o f 1 2 - f o o t t r e e s trained on horizontal wires (imagine head-trained grape- vines going to cordons), all apple picking is still done by hand. One speaker showed side-by-side photos of straw- berry picking 50 years ago and how they are picked today, and the only difference between the two was that the 50-year-old photo was black and white, and the current one was in color. Autonomy from above: drones in the vineyard George Kellerman, chief operating officer and general partner of Silicon Valley-based Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory, spoke at the expo about the critical need for robotics and autonomy. (Yamaha created the first com- mercially operating helicopter drones for agriculture spray- ing and has a significant presence in the FutureFarm Tech Ag Accelerator in Pendleton.) Kellerman said that without advances, some crops may become so prohibitively expensive to farm that they price themselves out of consumer budgets. This has happened before: Wild salmon were once so plentiful in the Northwest that they were called "poverty steaks," as poor people could easily catch a few to have something nutritious to eat. Cur- rently wild salmon costs $25-$30 per pound, putting it out of reach for almost everyone. While the reason for the salmon price spike is different than for a high-labor cost crop, the result is the same: Few people can afford to buy it. Using drones in farming is not a futuristic concept, it is already a reality. Although Yamaha's drones are relatively new to U.S. viticulture, there are 2,500 unmanned aerial vehicles being used at a range of Japanese farms today. Drones are commonly used for aerial imaging, with the lower flying altitude providing greater detail than a manned aircraft. The next phase for drones is farming opera- tions. Yamaha's helicopter drone can spray fungicide from the air. While that may seem like a complicated way to do a simple task, consider these advantages: • No need to wait for soil to dry to run your tractor, so you can spray much earlier in the season. This allows you to attack mold and mildew early, and probably reduces the number of annual applications. • No soil compaction from driving a tractor through the vineyard in the spring. • Safer for employ- ees. The spray is no lon- ger being applied close to the operator. n ANDY STARR Winemaking Future Farm Expo: Agriculture Interconnected

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