California’s workplace regulator has raised frustrations among agtech companies for resisting calls to relax a dated regulation blocking the use of driverless tractors. An official defended the agency at the FIRA USA robotics conference in Salinas last week, but raised more questions in the process.
Christina Shupe took the stage a day before presiding over her last meeting as executive officer at the standards board governing the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA. Under Shupe’s tenure, the board rejected two petitions for updating a 1970s-era rule developed to protect workers from driverless furrow-guided tomato harvesters. It then shot down multiple agriculture industry requests to establish an advisory committee to work with stakeholders in more depth on the issue. In March, board members raised alarms over perceived job losses from autonomous technologies during an informational hearing on worker safety.
Walt Duflock, vice president of innovation at Western Growers, opened the inaugural FIRA conference in 2022 by describing how the pushback has led to California falling behind Arizona and other states that have welcomed tech companies.
“This automated agricultural equipment—there's so much opportunity here,” acknowledged Shupe in a panel discussion organized by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. “But it has to be done in a very responsible way.”
Her approach to drafting new regulations is to start with all parties at the table—labor interests, manufacturers, subject matter experts and employers—so that all have equal say throughout the process. Shupe and the agency “don't want to waste our resources,” she added, suggesting the board does not plan to revisit the tractor issue anytime soon, since “there really is a purpose to not reinventing the wheel.”
She argued that agriculture “is not the first industry to see a major ramp-up in technology” that requires stringent regulations. Just as agriculture is critical to feeding the world, elevators are critical to commercial spaces, she reasoned. The agency must approve every new device used in elevators, with the board regularly considering new workplace standards for each technology.
Michael Miiller, who directs government relations at the California Association of Winegrape Growers and joined Shupe on the panel, agreed with the need for regulations to keep up with technology. But he struggled with the elevator comparison.
“While an elevator goes up and down, [agtech] applies across a broad spectrum of public policies,” said Miiller, stressing the varying applications across specialty crops and even across fields within a farm. “So how can you apply one regulation to all of this?”
Bluewhite CEO Ben Alfi (left) with Michael Miiller, California Association of Winegrape GrowersHe pushed for Shupe to see the bigger picture beyond one section of labor and workplace safety standards. Autonomous technologies for pest control, which had a strong presence at the conference, can improve worker safety while reducing environmental impacts through precision applications, he explained. Sustainability certifications for winegrape growers rank pesticides by environmental risks, encouraging growers to avoid using those in the red category “unless you absolutely positively have to.”
Noting the range of autonomous tractors, drones, electric forklifts and other equipment on display at FIRA USA, Shupe said a one-size-fits-all regulation would be difficult and suggested a case-by-case approach is more appropriate for the new technologies.
Responding to Shupe, Ben Alfi, CEO and founder of Bluewhite, defended the safety record of his autonomous tractors. Agtech manufacturers incorporate a series of safety redundancies into their system engineering, with nearly triple redundancy for any type of area that Bluewhite equipment operates in, he explained.
“It's not just to get [safety] certification clearance,” he said. “You need a happy client. The machine needs to work and it needs to work safely. That is the bottom line.”
California is short on 15,000 tractor drivers, with Washington State “far worse,” he pointed out.
“That's why it's so vital to engage with labor representatives in this space,” responded Shupe, who described the shortage as a “labor change” issue. “While you still want to have a happy client, we also want a safe workplace.”
Alfi asserted agtech is changing the workforce, converting low-paid driver positions into tech jobs with six-figure salaries.
Miiller told Shupe farm groups are willing to have conversations with labor organizations about automation. Agtech is creating more jobs because people don't want to do such hard manual labor, he argued. Workers can then transfer those technology skills to other industries, creating more incentive for workers to get involved in agtech.
“But if the conversation is only about job protection—to the point that worker safety is a secondary issue—that is something we have a hard time with,” he said. “We fundamentally believe that this equipment creates a safer workplace.”
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Alfi agreed and described the challenge of sitting on a tractor in 120-degree heat or wearing personal protective equipment for 10 hours in the sun while applying herbicide. Bluewhite estimates its tractors have saved about 82,000 gallons of pesticide on 5,000 acres of work in just the last two months.
“Robotics can make ag sexy again—but also safe again,” he said.
Shupe countered that across sectors quality control tends to drop as competitive pressures increase in the marketplace, creating more hazards for workers and requiring regulators like Cal/OSHA to ensure the pressure does not result in injury.
“Ben, I wish everybody was committed to safety the way you are,” she told Alfi. “But we all know there are good actors and bad actors.”
Miiller, however, worried when “policymakers look at bad actors as the norm versus the exception,” which has pushed farm groups to educate more of them about agriculture. Legislators, for example, often cited bad actors when proposing reforms to water rights and groundwater laws this year.
Referring to a surge of frustration in San Francisco over driverless robotaxis and fears of autonomous heavy-duty trucks, Miiller stressed that driverless tractors moving two miles per hour in a vineyard empty of workers is a very different situation.
Shupe also pressed for more education from agricultural interests at the board, encouraging farmers and manufacturers to get involved with the agency through the Cal/OSHA consultation program and to come to the monthly board meetings.
“A lot of times government gets a bad rap for being folks in an ivory tower and are not educated about what's going on in the real-world boots on the ground,” she said. “When we pass regulations in California, these are laws. We in particular at the standards board know how critical it is to make sure they work and are feasible, that they're reasonable and that they're enforceable.”
Yet that purview is no longer within Shupe’s jurisdiction. Following a tear-filled sendoff last week at the standards board, Shupe is shifting to a new regulatory realm with a position at the Fresno office of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.
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