By Samantha Clark, Santa Cruz Sentinel, Calif.
Silicon Valley and Salinas Valley are about an hour away, but they need not be different worlds.
Another new program aims to part the so-called “lettuce curtain” dividing the two industry hubs. The first local Apps for Ag hackathon took place this weekend at Cabrillo College’s Watsonville campus, uniting coders and commercial farmers.
“It’s cool to see the agricultural industry plant seeds, so to speak, of ideas and say this is what we need,” said Michael Matera, a computer and information systems instructor at Cabrillo who helped organize the event.
Representatives from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Driscolls and Lakeside Organics spoke to students and professionals about what kinds of technology they would like to see to ease the pressures farmers face, including food demand, sustainability, regulations, and water and labor shortages.
“We need an outside look into agriculture,” said Juan Gonzalez, operations manager at Lakeside Organics.
He told the participants he’d like a program that can help with planting plans.
“It’s easy to divide up the percentage of crops when the plot is a square,” he explained. “But what if the land is shaped like Virginia?”
Lesley Amezcua of King City and Emily Garcia of Salinas are freshman students in the CSin3 program at Hartnell College and CSU Monterey Bay. They’re hoping to graduate with computer science degrees in three years.
“We’re thinking about making a food traceability app,” Garcia said. “It tells consumers where their food came from, and if food is contaminated, it helps farmers know where it came from.”
Jessica Gonzalez and Patrick Zelaya of Salinas were brainstorming a scheduling platform for neighboring farmers who have to communicate and negotiate with one another about tasks such as who gets to spray or water when.
“If the field next to me is spraying, I can’t have my crew in, so I’ll have to take them out,” Juan Gonzalez said. “If this farmer wants to water when I want to, we have to talk about it since we share the same well.”
More than a dozen hackers at the event went to work, sowing such solutions for the field. At the end of the event Sunday evening, the different teams will have to finish their product and pitch it to investors in a mock marketing exercise.
Cabrillo College, California Community Colleges, Digital Nest, the Farm Bureau and the Small Business Development Center of the Central Coast organized the hackathon.
©2016 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
