The Economic Landscape Driving Knowledge Investment in Fresh and Seasonal Produce Value Chains
Kimberly Morgan, C-FARE Board Member (Greever Chair of Agribusiness Development, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Tennessee)
As an extension economist, I collaborate with members of the Southeast specialty crop industry to address the unique economic risks of fresh and seasonal produce value chains. My goals are to improve access to market intelligence, wellbeing of the agricultural workforce, sustainable use of natural resources, and farm profitability. I have spent my career working in partnership with fellow agricultural scientists who engineer, breed, and chemistry solutions to the challenges that face our growers of seasonal and fresh produce and operate nursery/floricultural agribusinesses. My role is to understand the economic risk and benefits offered by these science-based solutions from the viewpoints of individuals who are the dedicated owners, managers, and employees in these fields. While it seems as simple as calculating costs-to-benefits ratios, the human element makes these choices much more complex. My research has identified the interwoven concerns of legacy, geographic location, leverage ratios, logistics, and land (access, quality, and quantity), which all carry weight to varying degrees when making decisions on how, when, and why to adapt in response to changing technology and consumer demands.
Globally, workforce concerns are the number-one driver of an agricultural producer’s interest in technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and mechanization. The ability of an agribusiness to adapt their decisions in real-time to pursue alternative markets hinges on the current and future information and human resources available in their community (including themselves). Long-term trends reveal aging farm owners of whom just 21% have family members willing to carry on the farm business, fewer small-to-midscale and beginning farmers, and rural communities that struggle to attract and retain the entrepreneurially minded, tech-savvy next generation. While new technologies are often proposed as a solution to workforce needs, agribusinesses face high upfront equipment costs, pricey software updates, and fast-paced changes in technical offerings that can render last year’s investment obsolete. Without a credible answer to “where are the technical minds needed to leverage technology to support a robust supply chain?” most companies will not spend limited resources exploring AI-driven solutions.
The suite of emerging labor-saving technologies provides opportunities to revolutionize farming practices and supply chain relationships, but they must be actionable. It is no longer a question of X machine solving Y problem for decades to come; rather, it is using what you have (a tech-trusting workforce) to get what you want most (competitive enterprises). Information and data are plentiful in today’s AI-driven world, yet the skills needed to analyze and make effective decisions using AI tools are limited. My extension program addresses a gap in the agriculture and rural workforce development space that I describe as “skill economies.” Economies of skills are built into human adaptive responses and drive our capacity to co-create technologies AND produce long-term competitive enterprise solutions. Individuals who find ways to achieve skill economies in entrepreneurial agribusiness activities are more likely to diversify through the adoption of emerging or existing technology. By placing skill economies at the forefront of decision-making, agribusinesses and their communities can collaboratively build environments that incorporate technologies and benefit the holistic food system and the people working and living in it. Adoption of automation, mechanization, and artificial intelligence tools is not simply cost trade-offs between humans and machines. It also involves re-thinking and investing in significant system redesigns, informed by farm geography and scale, individual and community wealth-building goals, and skill adaptations in response to as-of-yet-unknown technological shifts.
The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture works with industry partners, investors, and agribusinesses to solve problems and facilitate life-long educational pursuits of our learners.
