Katie Rodriguez here, fresh off the grand opening of Reservoir Farms—a specialty crop ag tech innovation center now stationed in Salinas.
The sun was cooking as a few hundred people—including federal, state and local government officials, growers, tech startups, industry professionals, academics and media personnel—gathered to tour the new site.
The center, located near the intersection of Highway 68 and Hitchcock Road, is housed in a more than 100-year-old barn owned by the Tamagni family that will serve as prototyping studios and offices. It sits adjacent to 40 acres on Tanimura & Antle property, 24 of which will serve as dedicated fields for commercial testing.
The concept, created by CEO Danny Bernstein who previously spent decades in Silicon Valley’s tech scene, was born out of an effort to bridge the gap between ag tech companies and real-world agricultural needs.
“We have 12 companies arriving through March,” said Bernstein, standing alongside Walt Duflock of the Western Growers Association and representatives from John Deere. “The farm is active. We recently put onions in the ground, we’ll be planting lettuce soon. We have companies here working on various clean-tech approaches to weeding that will be active. Reservoir Farms is open.”
The recent wave of ag tech has brought both excitement and unease across farm groups. Its momentum is palpable, with many agriculture experts pointing to ag tech as one of the biggest forces reshaping today’s food systems.
Monterey County is becoming ground zero for ag tech incubation hubs in the state. Beyond the county, Reservoir has also announced plans to open similar hubs in the Central Valley in Merced and in Yuma, Arizona—where many local farms grow crops during the winter season.
The potential benefits are threefold: ag tech startups can prototype directly in real farming conditions—what Bernstein calls having “boots in the dirt” from day one—local testing can validate technologies in real-world conditions, and the hub could contribute to workforce development by creating pathways for local talent into engineering, agriculture and technology jobs.
Duflock says successful agricultural robotics companies often need $50 million to $100 million to reach commercialization. Reservoir aims to cut that cost roughly in half, potentially saving around two years of development time by allowing startups to begin testing immediately in real-world farm conditions.
Growers are already facing a wide range of cost pressures, Duflock says, with labor often top of mind because it is expensive, sometimes scarce, and tied to regulatory and immigration pressures.
“Across specialty crops, about two-thirds of labor hours are spent on harvest,” Duflock says. “And we have not automated almost any of it.”
Still, whatever solutions the technology produces (or promises)—whether addressing pests and soil diseases in strawberries or helping conserve water in an increasingly constrained environment—the biggest question remains cost.
“The biggest challenge will always be: How are growers going to be able to afford it?” says Norm Groot of the Monterey County Farm Bureau.
“Overall, it’s exciting,” he adds, “and we’re all invested in it.”