Data-driven lighting for autonomous growing

Better quality products. A larger harvest. Improved planning to predict crop yields. Better control of costs, including energy and labor. Today, a new age is dawning to help greenhouse farmers achieve these goals. It's the age of autonomous growing, in which artificial intelligence and data-driven…

Türkiye starts 2023 with a large minimum wage hike

Türkiye entered 2023 with a significant rise in its national minimum wage. As announced by president Erdoğan in the second half of December 2022, the Turkish minimum wage has…

New solar panels show growers the light

Arable land is at an all-time premium. Since the last ice age, humans have cleared one-third of the earth’s forests and two-thirds of its wild grasslands, much of it for…

© Ivan Nakonechnyy | Dreamstime.com

Saudi: Al-Fadhli approves plan to increase agricultural production in greenhouses

Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Eng. Abdulrahman Bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Fadhli, who is also the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Agricultural Development Fund, has approved the expansion plan in the plant resources sector and greenhouses with a new investment worth SR4 billion until…

UK government provides boost to horticulture industry regarding seasonal workers

The British government has announced 45,000 new visas for seasonal workers for horticultural businesses next year. According to Defra officials, the Seasonal Agricultural…

UK: "Energy and labor must not hinder the hort sector in 2023"

In his New Year message, NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board chair Martin Emmett praises the determination of the sector and looks to the government to deliver its ambition to grow horticulture production.To say these are turbulent times is a gross understatement. It seems since the Brexit vote in 2016,…

How does CombiVliet experience working with international employees?

On Friday, 2 December, CombiVliet was invited to give a presentation on how they, as a company, deal, experience, and live with international employees. The other speakers, Thomas Zwiers, Martin Grisel, and Caspar Sluiter, also told their stories at the request of Rosa Groen, Research Lecturer at The…

Disappointment about Congress leaving agricultural immigration reform out of omnibus

The International Fresh Produce Association expressed extreme disappointment that Congress failed to include bipartisan agriculture immigration reform in the omnibus appropriations bill. The Affordable and Secure Food Act to reform the nation’s agricultural immigration system would have provided…

Eurostat

EU’s agricultural labor productivity up by 13% in 2022

According to the first preliminary data for 2022 from the economic accounts for agriculture (EAA), the index of agricultural labor productivity in the EU is estimated to have increased year-on-year by 13% after slight growth in 2021. This overall rise in the index reflected an 11.1% increase in the real…

Australia: Agricultural science graduates in high demand

With six jobs for every agricultural science graduate in Australia, this year’s graduating class from the University of Tasmania’s Bachelor of Agricultural Science are spoilt for choice and taking their pick of exciting jobs around Australia. Lilia Jenkins, of Launceston, graduated on Friday (16…

From forces of nature to inflation, stressors have an outsized impact on growers and their families

Farmers are tough. They work long days at physically demanding, often dangerous work and rarely get a break, much less a vacation. Months of hard work can be wiped out with a few days of bad weather, and they battle nature at every turn, from drought and floods to weeds and insects. It is no wonder that…

farminguk.com

UK: Increase in seasonal workers' visas a step forward, NFU says

The increase in seasonal workers' visas is a step forward and will be a relief for growers struggling to find a skilled workforce, the NFU says. Earlier this week, the government unveiled 45,000 new visas for seasonal workers for 2023 as the sector continues to struggle with labor shortages. Defra said…

© Branex | Dreamstime.com

Greenhouse growers, Leamington mayor welcome news migrant workers may be able to bring families

The greenhouse industry and the mayor of Leamington are applauding the federal government's plan to extend work permits to family members of temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector. "We're still not really aware of how the intricacies of it would pan out, but on the surface, it seems to be a…

© Welcomia | Dreamstime.com

Australia: Coles joins call to lift housing and pay standards for seasonal workers

Supermarket giant Coles is calling for enforceable, uniform housing standards for seasonal farm workers and rules against unfairly docking their pay to prevent overseas laborers from living in poverty and squalor and to shore up supply chains in an industry wracked by reputational damage. In a lift for…

Australia: Hands-free horticulture sees higher production

Labour use has decreased on Australian horticulture and dairy farms and increased on broadacre farms over the last few years, according to the latest ABARES survey results. ABARES Executive Director Dr. Jared Greenville said despite the decline in labor use, and agricultural production has increased over…