An expo at UC Merced next week will bring together farmers, ranchers, researchers and community organizers to highlight what's possible when agriculture technology is designed for small farms.
The Small Farm Tech Expo , scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 2, will include hands-on demonstrations, tours and panel discussions about the latest in ag tech innovations. There is no admission charge.
Now in its fifth year, the expo is hosted by Community Alliance with Family Farmers with support from F3 Local through the F3 Initiative .
Too often, ag technology is built for large-scale operations, making it inaccessible to most of California's family farms, organizers said. The Small Farm Tech Expo aims to change that narrative by highlighting innovations that respect scale, budget and sustainability.
"We have numerous small farms throughout the San Joaquin Valley, many of them underserved communities," said Joshua Viers , associate vice chancellor for interdisciplinary research and strategic initiatives at UC Merced. "The solutions we come up with not only benefit the small farmers locally, but they have the potential to be transformative on the global stage."
The expo is aimed at a variety of attendees, from people who manage an urban garden or a small organic vineyard to owners of a diversified family ranch. The event will introduce people tools and strategies that can help them work smarter, not harder.
Organizers promise a full day of workshops, live equipment demos, and farmer-driven conversations covering everything from irrigation and agrivoltaics to electric tools, harvest innovations, and digital marketing. Spanish interpretation is available throughout the event.
Exhibitors include Sutton Ag, BCS, Renewables Inc., Mobile Coolbot, Gather.ag, Agtom, Rotate8, Parabug, Andros Engineering, CENID's Scout Rover and UC Merced's own Experimental Smart Farm
Panel discussion topics include water management in small, diversified farms; an information session on the F3 Local Equipment Lending Library, low-tech solutions and DIY innovations; an introduction to agrivoltaics; digital marketing; solar energy; and harvest tools and technologies.
Researchers also are looking to learn from the very farmers they hope to serve.
"We have a lot of farmers who are culturally from other areas of the world," Viers said. "They have fascinating practices, particularly around sustainable food production, that we can learn from."
UC Merced, located in the heart of the Central Valley's rich heartland, is uniquely situated to provide innovation to some of the pressing problems farmers face, Viers said.
"The closer you are to the problem, the closer you are to the solution."
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