Millions in funding coming to Merced to train workers and businesses in Ag technology
More than $9 million is coming to Merced for the development of more jobs in agriculture technology. The grant was awarded by California Governor Gavin Newsom on Aug. 28 as part of the Jobs First initiative. The latest step awarded a total of $80 million to different regions across the state, with the mission to offer half a million job apprenticeships by 2029.
The Merced funding was given to the Community Foundation of Merced County, a nonprofit organization that funnels philanthropic donations into community projects. The foundation will receive roughly $9.2 million to distribute to Merced College and UC Merced for infrastructure in the agricultural technology industry. Merced College officials say the money is the state’s largest AgTEC (Agrifood Technology and Engineering Collaborative) award to date.
According to Cody Jacobsen, the dean of agriculture and industrial technology at Merced College, the money will be used to build several projects. One is the AgTEC innovation center, which is already under construction. Officials broke ground on the $21 million center in April, and it’s expected to house meat, tree nut, fruit and vegetable processing plants, a nutrition center for research, and a retail farm market to sell products. Reservoir Farms will also run an incubator facility for startup companies to test their products on campus.
Jacobsen told KVPR the projects are expected to lead to 3,000 jobs that pay above minimum wage.
“You have all these different pieces of equipment that tie into AgTEC, but you don’t have operators, you don’t have engineers, you don’t have the folks that are repairing all of these pieces of equipment,” Jacobsen said. “So that’s really where we come into play.”
UC Merced will also funnel around $3 million to build an AgTEC barn. The barn will house equipment and create a space to service robots and sensors.
Jobs for a new era of farming
The No. 1 goal for Merced College is to bring more businesses and train up workers for the future of agriculture. Jacobsen said seven students have graduated from the AgTEC Workforce Initiative program since it began a year ago, and 137 are currently enrolled. The program is competency-based, which means students complete the certification based on mastery of skills, rather than learning the content over a certain period of time.
The framework is meant to accelerate learning for those who already work on farms in the Central Valley.
“Some students, they can breeze through the [program] in six months. Others, it may take them two, three years, but it was made for that specific purpose,” Jacobsen said. “… Today is probably the busiest day in agriculture in California. There are hundreds of commodities that are being harvested today.”
Along with jobs, Jacobsen said program coordinators hope to attract start-up businesses. Reservoir Farms’ incubator on campus is expected to support more than 100 AgTEC-related companies looking to test their products. The nonprofit also plans to offer 250 internships to students to work within those companies and potentially find employment through them.
“One of the hardest and difficult things for companies in the Valley is finding talent and finding employees,” Jacobsen said. “If we have an internship pipeline for a lot of these start-up companies, it’ll allow for those startups to check one of those things off the checklist of things that are hard to find – and that’s finding a quality workforce.”
Protecting farmworkers, state answers region’s needs
As farming takes on a new stage of growth, Stephanie Dietz, the executive director of the Community Foundation, is keeping the families of farmworkers top of mind. Dietz told KVPR the grant fulfills the goal of avoiding displacement for those already on Merced’s farms.
“We want to make sure our farmer population isn’t without employment roads and has the opportunities necessary to retain employment and gain those skills,” Dietz said. “We want to make sure that we’re centering these trainings and these opportunities around the people who are already doing the work and not just seeing displacement.”
The Trump administration’s recent immigration raids on agricultural land in California and across the country have caused some farmworkers to stop working out of fear of deportation. But, Dietz thinks that won’t deter them from achieving higher education.
“Educational institutions are trusted institutions amongst our farmworker population, and they can be seen as places of refuge and places for opportunity,” Dietz said. “I don’t see that changing with this investment… We at the Community Foundation are here to support both farmworker families and educational institutions in the work that they’re doing.”
Dietz told KVPR the grant funding is a result of groups such as North Valley Thrive, a coalition of community organizations, institutions, and government agencies advocating for regional needs. Because of this, Dietz said she believes Merced is now the Central Valley’s epicenter of the next wave of technology for agriculture.
“This now creates an opportunity for us to be resilient in the face of climate change, to be resilient in the face of new technologies coming online, to be able to farm and maintain an economic engine in our community,” Dietz said. “…That creates a workforce ready for the future so that we can stay one of the largest [agriculture] economies in the country and in the world.”