Wasted asparagus Owyhee Produce invited the public to pick and take home free asparagus on Saturday at one of their fields in Oregon.
Shay Myers, a third-generation farmer, told us he didn t have enough workers to harvest his 350,000 pounds of asparagus and take it to market.
“It’s getting to a point where farmers across this valley and across this nation want to give up, said Myers. We are tired of the bureaucratic process we have to go through and all of the requirements that we have that they don’t have in Mexico.
Owyhee Produce normally gets most of its workers from Mexico through the H2A program that legally brings migrants who want to work, but because of problems at the southern border, those workers were delayed in getting to the Idaho and Oregon border.
But that may change. Myers hopes to transfer his weeding work to robots.
Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, is an early adopter of a Seattle robotics companyâs âautonomous weeder,â a self-driving, diesel-powered robot about as big as a medium-sized tractor that zaps weeds with powerful laser beams.
Carbon Robotics introduced the latest iteration of the technology in April.
âThe idea of weeding robots to me, when I first heard of it, was like science fiction. I mean, it just seemed so far-fetched,â Myers said.
Other farmers described the robots as âextremely futuristicâ and âlike âStar Wars.ââ
The company says its robots will save farmers money by reducing their reliance on labor crews. Because the units use a certified organic, no-till method of weed killing, Carbon Robotics says its robots also cut herbicide costs.
6,000 volunteers show up to help Oregon farmer in need rfdtv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rfdtv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“This is asparagus that will not get picked…it’s beautiful, a phenomenal crop, but we can’t get the labor,” he explained, “we can’t get people to show up to do the work at $16 an hour even with housing, transportation, all of those things.”
Myers let the TikTok world know that what the farm normally does is bring people in on an H-2A visa, but everything keeps getting pushed back and delayed. He said that the border is “screwed up and we can’t get people across,” and the farm probably won’t get any laborers through the program for 30 to 45 days.
Farmer On TikTok Shares Reality Of Labor Issues wxerfm.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wxerfm.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.