California’s Central Valley is just hours from Silicon Valley, but it can feel worlds away. It’s farm country: The region grows most of the fruits, nuts and vegetables for the U.S. But it, too, is being transformed by technology.

In the face of climate change, labor challenges and shrinking margins, many farms are turning to automation, and there’s a push to make this area a hub for innovation sort of like its techie neighbor.

Building a resilient agriculture industry in the Central Valley is the goal of the F3 Innovate initiative — short for Farms Food Future.

“If we could transform our economy by creating the technology we need for the farms and the future here, and make it climate efficient, we could create value, bring jobs and rebuild our economy,” said Karen Aceves, a consultant and regional director for the program.

Kickstarted with a $65 million federal grant from the 2021 American Rescue Plan, F3 Innovate is seeding agricultural technology research at local universities and upskilling the workforce.

“One in three farm workers are at risk of automation,” said Aceves. “We sought to find a way to put those incumbent workers first in line for the opportunities that the new ag tech initiative would create.”

F3 Innovate helped launched a certificate program at seven Central Valley community colleges last year to provide farm workers with training in agricultural technologies. It’s funded by state and federal grants and free for students, like those at Reedley College outside Fresno.

On a Monday in late April, instructor Allen Vizcarra was teaching students how to operate agricultural equipment like tractors, out in a field they call the “Play Pen.”

“Honestly, jumping on the tractor, that's the best way I find to learn,” said Vizcarra.

Student Victor Morales easily passed his tractor exam — he already drives them for a living. He was hoping to learn about newer types of equipment, like a robot called, “Amiga.”

“It only has wheels,” said Morales in Spanish. “It’s kind of weird because it’s like a skeleton. It has four tires, but each tire has its own motor.”

Amiga is a customizable autonomous farm rover, kind of like a Mars rover, and this one is outfitted with AI-powered cameras.

“We're gonna run it through the orchards,” said Vizcarra. “The cameras on the sides they're actually counting — counting the blossoms, counting the fruit. So you can actually you know, estimate yield, right?”

Morales maneuvered the Amiga using a joystick remote. It can also be pre-programmed with GPS coordinates.

“I'm curious, mostly because I want to know what the tractor is really capable of,” he said.

Automation tech like this is becoming more central to operations at HMC Farms 20 miles away, where they grow peaches, plums and table grapes. They’re constantly experimenting with new innovations, like a fleet of autonomous carts called Burros.

“They have sensors all around for obstacle avoidance, and they've also got cameras, so you can train these things to follow a path,” said farm manager and vice president Drew Ketelson.

HMC uses the Burros for grape harvest to send boxes of just-picked fruit out of the vineyard to a worker packing pallets for cold storage — a task that used to be done with a wheelbarrow.

“It reduces the stress on the people and it keeps them actively working on what they're good at,” said Ketelson, “which is picking fruit, cleaning fruit, packing fruit.”

He believes automation can make farm work safer and less grueling but it’s also a business imperative. California has relatively high wages and the industry faces chronic labor shortages. Specialty crops like HMC grows aren’t federally subsidized like corn or wheat and take a lot more work.

“For our industry it's a little bit of a myth that technology is going to come in and steal these jobs,” he said. “We need technology to come in and help save our jobs. I feel like it's going to help us continue into the future and sustain our business.”

Reedley College student Victor Morales sees a lot of potential in new tools, like the Amiga.

“It's a big help. It really helps with the physical effort,” he said.

And he’s hoping these new skills he’s learning will be a big help getting a pay raise, too.