knabe
Well-known member
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=490947449&play=1
this is a big deal and getting a lot of press in the salinas valley as well as southern ca which is the other area for lettuce, and for the grape industry. 92% of ag workers in CA are supposedly illegal.
to me, this is an example of how ag is becoming more like regular business, rather than constantly worrying that ag is different than regular business.
years ago, in hollister Ca, there was a farmer named bertuccio who used a lot of hand picking when caesar chavez was around and when the workers struck, he took out an ad in the paper and told everyone to come get was in the field for free. he then converted to crops which were more amneable to automation.
interesting the tracking technology. with in the field pcr machines and other detection devices that can get results in 30 minutes, one can easily track dangerous forms of E. coli and other organisms that may result in claims of discrimination for workers carrying diseases since this is a food supply issue.
i haven't seen any data on what populations of E coli are in the field at what concentrations where. only activity is forcing growers to put up fences which don't seem able to stop runoff from adjacent fields and irrigation.
haven't seen a robot for dehorning, castration, pregchecking, drawing blood etc. though i think there is a blood test for pregnancy with better false positive rates than poor manual checkers.
this is a big deal and getting a lot of press in the salinas valley as well as southern ca which is the other area for lettuce, and for the grape industry. 92% of ag workers in CA are supposedly illegal.
to me, this is an example of how ag is becoming more like regular business, rather than constantly worrying that ag is different than regular business.
years ago, in hollister Ca, there was a farmer named bertuccio who used a lot of hand picking when caesar chavez was around and when the workers struck, he took out an ad in the paper and told everyone to come get was in the field for free. he then converted to crops which were more amneable to automation.
interesting the tracking technology. with in the field pcr machines and other detection devices that can get results in 30 minutes, one can easily track dangerous forms of E. coli and other organisms that may result in claims of discrimination for workers carrying diseases since this is a food supply issue.
i haven't seen any data on what populations of E coli are in the field at what concentrations where. only activity is forcing growers to put up fences which don't seem able to stop runoff from adjacent fields and irrigation.
haven't seen a robot for dehorning, castration, pregchecking, drawing blood etc. though i think there is a blood test for pregnancy with better false positive rates than poor manual checkers.
