More than a decade ago, Hartnell College had only a “very small, passive” agricultural technology program, admits Jackie Cruz, vice president of advancement and development at the Salinas community college. There was only one faculty member at Hartnell dedicated to the program, and officials at the college recognized that more needed to be done to build a curriculum befitting Hartnell’s location in the heart of one of the country’s most fertile agricultural regions.
So Hartnell officials began canvassing some of the giants of Salinas Valley agriculture—the likes of Bruce Taylor of Taylor Farms and David Gill of Rio Farms, among others—to see how they could help “make this program the best in the state,” according to Cruz. It was clear that advancements in technology would transform the sector in years to come, and ag firms would need a skilled and trained workforce with the know-how to implement that technology in the fields.
With the help of donors like Taylor, Gill, the James Irvine Foundation and Bank of America, Hartnell College now has an ag tech program worthy of its status in the Salinas community. Six full-time faculty members serve some 800 agriculture students at the college. Donations, as well as the $167 million Measure T local bond measure passed in November 2016, have helped build out new facilities at Hartnell’s Alisal Campus in East Salinas, right on the doorstep of the Valley’s bountiful ag fields.
What’s more, last year Hartnell launched its Ag Tech Workforce Initiative—a three-year pilot designed to train students, as well as local farmworkers, for the ag industry of tomorrow. Bolstered by a $260,000 grant from Bank of America, the program has provided paid internships with ag firms to some 220 farmworkers and other non-traditional students, in addition to courses featuring hands-on training meant to give them a pathway to skilled, higher-paying jobs.
On Wednesday morning, I visited the Alisal Campus for a media briefing and tour highlighting what Hartnell has accomplished in developing its ag tech program. We convened in a hanger-like room housing mechanical devices, conveyor belts and robots; Cruz was joined by Hartnell President Michael Gutierrez, as well as faculty and students like freshman Napoleon Navarro, who spoke of how the program was preparing him and his peers for real-world careers.
Also in attendance was Gill—who mentioned the widespread support among local ag industry leaders for such a program—as well as BoA officials and Christopher Valadez, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. “You’re looking at advanced manufacturing,” Valadez noted, adding that it is “very rare that you have an opportunity like what Hartnell provides” in training workers for the hi-tech ag industry of the future.
Hartnell agricultural engineering instructor Richard Chapman offered a demo of some of the machinery—including a miniature “smart factory,” equipped with a conveyor belt assembly line, that receives inputs and proceeds to automatically dispense the requisite products and goods into containers. As an example, Chapman suggested a packaged salad: The assembly line can detect whether the right greens and proteins have been dispensed into the proper compartments, and even whether any of the produce is rotting and not up to standard, he said. Developed by New Jersey-based Festo Didactic, the machinery is “one of a kind” in the world, Chapman added.
Hartnell ag tech students are being trained in how to work with such equipment, which is not as easy as it may sound. For all the talk of how automation will streamline manufacturing—and eliminate many manual jobs in the process—there will still be a need for skilled workers to operate the machinery, and earn a healthy living in the process. That’s the workforce that Hartnell has sought to develop in building out its ag tech program, and it promises to benefit the college’s students and the local ag industry alike. “Employers are at the door waiting for our students—we cannot produce enough,” Cruz said.