This story originally aired on “Marketplace Tech” on May 22. This is the third installment in a three part series. Listen to Marketplace each weekday at 3pm on KVPR.
This week, we hit the road to check out California’s Central Valley, where the future of agricultural innovation is taking shape. We visited a farm that’s piloting next-gen tools and a university research center that’s helping develop that tech.
Today, we’re at a graduation.
“Good morning everyone, and I want to thank you all for being here today for this special occasion,” announces April Alexander, the regional innovation director for a unique certificate program that launched last year at seven community colleges in the Central Valley. It offers workforce training in agricultural technologies for free. It’s funded by federal and state grants through the F3 initiative, or Farms Food Future. And this is the program’s very first graduation at Coalinga College.
“This program was built to create opportunities, and these graduates represent exactly what's possible when we meet students where they're at, support them every step of the way and open doors for the future,” Alexander says.
The curriculum is aimed at helping farmworkers, like graduate Filiberto Hernandez Montantes, to learn the technical skills they’ll need as the industry evolves. “For me, the hardest course was learning how to program screen panels,” Hernandez Montantes says. He studied online over several months while working full time as a forklift operator for a garlic producer.
“I get up at 4 a.m., so from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., which was when I was supposed to be at work, I did my classes,” he explains, “so I was able to balance work and school at the same time.”
Across the valley in Merced, farmworker Nadia Olivos is still working through the program. And she’s stuck on a module about Microsoft Excel. “Mmm-mmm,” she says as she nods, “me and [Excel] are not getting along. And I take notes, okay, I take notes.”
She’s pushing through it, though, because she’s already seen technological change at the farm where she tends strawberry and raspberry plants.
“I noticed that some of my coworkers — and I'm talking about higher rank than me — carry laptops, carry iPads,” she says. “And they're looking at the plants, then it's actually going on a computer and putting all this information, all this data down.”
That’s a future she wants for herself. After decades in the fields, she says, she could use a break. Not to mention, a pay raise. “I want to be the one out there on the computer looking at the plants,” she adds. “Since I already worked in the fields, maybe they could be like, ‘Okay, you could bring something new to the table.’ It will mean a better me, a better knowledge. A better life for my kids, too.”
This is Olivos’ first time back in school in 27 years. “You could be as old as you can; does not mean that you are not able to go back to school and do something better,” she says. “Hey, like they say, the rainbow is there and you just got to reach out, you'll touch it.”
Back at Coalinga College, it’s time to award the graduates.
“As we close, I want to say once again how proud we are of each graduate here today,” Alexander says over the microphone. “You've completed something new, bold, challenging. And in doing so, you inspire the next group of students to follow your lead.”
Filiberto Hernandez Montantes beams as he receives his certificate. “I'm hoping that from what I learned, I'm able to be more valuable to my company,” he says. “But also, at the same time, be a better provider for my family. At the end of the day, that's what I'm here to do, is provide for my family, for my stepkids, for my wife and for our grandson.”
Just eight students were at this first graduation, but the program aims to provide training for more than 8,000 workers in the future.