The 2nd annual Western Growers Specialty Crop Automation Report has revealed the growth of 25% in the annual average of agtech investments in the face of a labor shortage.

The growers are investing an average of $500,000 per year for automation to address the ongoing shortage of agricultural labor in the report Specialty Crop Automation Report, which was commissioned from Western Growers, and released on the 21st of July.

This is the 2nd year this report has been released. Specialty Crop Automation Report has been published by WG together with consultants from Roland Berger. This report, which monitors the progress of industry in the field of harvest automation for the fresh produce market it is part of the WG’s Global Harvest Automation Initiative, that aims to increase the automation of agriculture by 50% over the next 10 years.

“This year’s report provides the time to look into fresh areas, including the European market Controlled Environment Agriculture, as well as the innovator’s aspect of automation” explained Walt Duflock, VP of Innovation at WG. “We saw improvement from a fundraising perspective and Traction perspective in the crucial areas, such as weeding spraying, harvest assist but less on other important areas such as harvest.”

In the report’s findings are:

• About 70 percent of growers said that they invested in automation as of 2022. The average annual expenditure of $450,000-$500,000 for a grower. This is a significant rise from the previous year, when an average of investments in automation ranged from between $350,000 and $400,000 for each grower.
• Much progress was achieved in the harvest and weeding assist areas; solutions that are market-ready can meet grower goals for economic growth and ease problems, including the absence of labour availability. The growers have reported an ROI for solutions for weeding that ranged from two years, based upon the crop type and the type of technology utilized.
• The industry is in need of more skilled agtech employees, with 50% saying they have internal staff members who devoted all of their work in the process of integrating investment in automation. This indicates that the work of enhancing and improving the skills of agricultural workers is already underway.
• The amount of time needed to develop automation tools is becoming shorter and costs are becoming less due to the advancements in robotics as well as other fields outside of agriculture that are beneficial to agtech companies, and the growing number of people that startups in agtech have the ability to bring to their team.

The Specialty Crop Automation Report is accessible for download through this.

For further information, click here.

Ann Donahue

Western Growers

Tel. : +1 (949) 302-7600

adonahue@wga.com