Editor’s Note: This story was produced by the Climate Solutions Studio, a project of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative and its partner newsrooms.
Inside Jason Ferreira’s honors agriculture science class at Hanford High School, students are dreaming up big goals for the year – showing animals at the county fair, volunteering on FFA judging teams, and working on their own projects.
But they started the year small. For the first week of school, Ferreira and his students restored their on-campus farm to build a monarch butterfly sanctuary. They planted native plants – such as milkweed and verbena – to attract the fluttering insects as they make their way to the Valley in the fall.
With those projects, students learned the importance of irrigation, data collection and analysis.
“It will help them to see if there’s trends that are happening with the butterfly populations,” Ferreira said. “Like the number of butterflies, the eggs, the caterpillars, the time of year it’s all happening.”
The exercise was a taste of what students could be doing later in the world of agricultural science with the help of artificial intelligence tools.
Such student projects are gaining in importance because the agriculture industry is rapidly adopting automation and new technologies. In the Central Valley, where a quarter of the country’s fresh fruit and vegetables are grown, farmers are grappling with the idea of using AI to replenish a diminishing workforce, combat climate change and increase food production for a growing world population.
Isaiah Escalera, senior at Hanford High, is using AI in his own poultry production project to raise chickens, ducks, peacocks and other types of birds. He uses AI tools like Gemini, Canva AI and Grammarly.
“I definitely see myself using [AI] more and more often…to mark inventory, keep track of the feeds I need, egg production, count profit and just to do things that make my time and my life a little bit easier,” Escalera said.
Escalera, who is also the vice president of the local Future Farmers of America chapter, said that the industry is no longer “cows, sows and plows.”
“There’s definitely a moment where everybody in agriculture has to think to themselves, ‘are we going to evolve with the times or are we going to stick to what we know?’” Escalera said.
Keeping up with an evolving industry
As the industry continues into an age of automation, teachers and students struggle to keep up with how quickly technology is evolving.
The National FFA organization encourages its teachers and students to use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Copilot. According to its standard operating procedures, AI could enhance productivity and efficiency in the industry.
Though AI is not currently built into the FFA curriculum, teachers like Ferreira are being proactive in exposing students to new technologies.
In his classroom, Ferreira invites farmers and agricultural engineers to demonstrate new tools being introduced into the industry. He also takes students on field trips to different farms, and shows students innovative research happening in the agricultural space.
“What I’ve done is shift their understanding of careers in agriculture,” Ferreira said. “[I want them to know] there’s more beyond just veterinarians and farmers in agriculture that are just as valuable.”
That’s also a goal of the AgTEC Innovation Center at Reedley College in eastern Fresno County.
Kaomine Vang, director of the program, said there should be a better bridge between high school and higher education for students to improve their technological skills.
“A lot of them, they have that field experience, but they don’t have the breadth of knowledge of what other jobs and skills they need in agriculture, and how [the industry] is changing.
The AgTEC program provides students entering the field, and students who have had years of experience in agricultural work, with hands-on learning in agricultural robotics, engineering and coding.
But more importantly, Vang said, the program allows for students to understand where and how the industry is moving into the future, and how to evolve with it. Vang has emphasized the need for a younger, more adaptable workforce – as the average age of a farmer is 58 years old, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
“I want students to know, this is a profitable way of life,” Vang said. “There are some farmers that I know that do everything from a tablet…they’re on a boat somewhere, but they’re watching their farm from a tablet.”
Supercomputer at Fresno State could propel industry into the future
This summer, ag-tech company F3 Innovate and Fresno State partnered together to launch an AI powered supercomputer with the goal of connecting farmers, students and researchers to this new technology.
“We’re talking about really equipping the people doing the work, making their jobs safer and less grueling, right? And really opening new and high-skilled roles right here in the valley rather than importing it from elsewhere,”said Priscilla Koepke, CEO of F3I.
Some farmers in the Valley are beginning to use the supercomputer in their daily operations, like Drew Ketelsen in Selma.
Ketelsen, vice president of HMC Farms, uses AI to manage his farm vehicle fleets and to predict when his next stone fruit crop might be ready to harvest.
“I think if you’re not jumping into this AI and utilizing these tools, you could be missing out on, you know, being able to maintain a margin and proceed into the future,” Ketelsen said.