In 2022, California saw $65.1 million in federal funding for the F3 (Farms Food Future) Initiative through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Roughly halfway through the four-year funding timeline, the initiative is now rolling out key programs across the Central Valley, combining the power of nonprofits, higher education institutions, and support from California’s Office of Business and Economic Development and the Department of Food and Agriculture.
The Central Valley Community Foundation (CVCF) serves as the coalition lead, having outlined significant targets for the initiative, including an increase in regional GDP from 2.1% to 3%, achieving $250 million in private investment and the creation or fulfillment of 10,000 higher-paying jobs.
Ashley Swearengin, CVCF president and CEO, said during the initial community engagement she was particularly happy that the conversation spanned actors across the ag supply chain. She watched as one idea got introduced, quickly followed by another from a different perspective.
“That started this huge push to engage residents and rural communities, low-wage workers — farmworkers in particular — and get their input on, like, what their career aspirations are, what they are most looking for in training programs.”
They ultimately surveyed almost 12,000 workers to determine how to design a program that could meet the real needs of the valley’s lowest-paid employees.
“Well before the grant application was dropped, we were working on these big questions and issues,” Swearengin said. “So when the grant application was dropped, we had a way to kind of hold in all this input and ensure that dollars went to each aspect of it.”
Swearengin gave a shout-out to Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, for her support in lobbying for the federal dollars in Washington, D.C.
“[She] was just a key supporter in making sure we had additional funding from the state to match those federal dollars," Swearengin said.
Given the one-time funding, a key goal for CVCF was to establish programs that would continue beyond the life of the grant. F3 Innovate was established as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit to raise private investments and build partnerships between businesses to support research and development. The organization recently hired a CEO and formed a board of directors, which will eventually allow CVCF to step back as the day-to-day organizer.
“I don't know how else to say it, but this is a really dramatic time, and if we are not careful, we are going to lose our nation's independent food supply and … look back and be like, oh gosh, we shouldn't have done that,” said Swearengin.
F3 AgTEC: Industry-informed education
According to Karen Aceves, the AgTEC regional director, the workforce development prong of the F3 program was originally intended to result in an associate degree, which is the grant was first written. But when asking industry, Aceves found they highly desire foundational skill sets over specialized training.
Some of the missing skills mentioned include multiplication, writing and reading pesticide reports, and troubleshooting machinery.
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“Community colleges typically focus on labor market data that looks back 10 years and identifies which job someone will be ready for and builds specialized training for those jobs,” Aceves said. “So what we were being asked by industry to do is flip that on its head, completely build a certificate program that acknowledged the knowledge that farmworkers already have and fill the gaps for them, thereby making them more resilient.”
(Photo: UC Merced/Veronica Adrover)F3 partnered with farmworker organizations, including Binational of Central California and Unidad Popular Benito Juarez, to help gather the 12,000 surveys that would inform the curriculum and establish a North Star.
Aceves said the primary feedback was that flexibility is the biggest barrier for people interested in obtaining the certificate. The majority of respondents had a sixth-grade level of formal education, so the new idea was to make the certificate act similar to a General Equivalency Diploma.
The result is a certificate containing 14 competencies, including crop production systems, digital literacy, tool operation and workplace effectiveness. The curriculum — offered in English and Spanish — allows participants to move at their own speed through online modules before demonstrating mastery. Each of the seven participating community colleges has a designated AgTEC student coordinator to support students through the curriculum.
“The program was designed and built online with simulations and videos that were built across the Central Valley at employer sites,” Aceves said. “So what you see in the videos and simulations are actually at different employer sites where you would be doing the work.”
As of Aug. 13, the curriculum had launched at four of the seven colleges; the rest will likely start in the spring. Each initial cohort has roughly 20 to 25 students, but Merced College just began a second cohort due to demand.
Aceves noted that many of the students are 30 to 45 years old, meaning they have to work around harvest schedules and often bring their kids to school.
After presenting the certificate to a few farm employers at the end of September, four said they want to bring full cohorts of their employees into the program.
“We listened, we built it for what the industry wanted,” Aceves said. “And we're delivering in a way and being extremely flexible and creative in how we deliver this to a population that needs that flexibility, that wants to learn, that is dedicated to learning, and we're telling them that their inherent knowledge, their effort and their toil matters, and it's worthwhile.”
F3 AgTEC will launch its website later this month. Swearengin said that since “every square inch” of the region has a partner college, she recommends people reach out to one closest to them and ask how to get involved.
F3 Innovate: Interdisciplinary agtech innovation
UC Merced, Fresno State University and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources are leading the way on F3 Innovate, dedicated to making industry-driven research and development a reality.
F3 funding allowed UC Merced to support agriculture and natural resources tech development, in addition to an on-campus experimental smart farm.
VISTA F3 Executive Director Leigh Bernacchi noted how F3 uniquely invested in collaborative research across the three universities, funding 11 challenge grants to support faculty who are required to have an industry partner to jumpstart “practical agricultural solutions” in connection to the R&D.
“Those grants, although they're completed, really yielded some positive commercialization results,” Bernacchi said.
With the help of the nonprofit, additional projects can be initiated. F3 at UC Merced now involves 16 graduate students, 20-plus faculty and several undergraduates through agtech workshops.
The agtech innovation projects are wide ranging; Bernacchi mentioned a shaking device for off-ground almond harvest to reduce tree damage; reviewing the optimal uses for incorporating electrical tractors onto farm operations; and checking the viability of co-locating solar panels, farm workers and plants and how that can benefit water conservation and work conditions.
(Photo: UC Merced/Veronica Adrover)“That's my big goal for this year: I want people to bring me their problems. Like I always say, I'm not a psychologist, but like, tell me your problems. We have thousands of students that can work on this.”
At the end of the day, a major motivation is maintaining an agtech workforce in the valley.
“When we graduate an engineer, they think their future’s at Facebook, and we're trying to show them their future in farming and their future’s in food,” Bernacchi said. “Rather than making ads for the world, let's make food for the world. So trying to build that connection to real world problems for our students is really important.”
F3 Local: Resources for small farmers and businesses
Local Farm and Food Innovation (F3 Local) is aiming to support 3,000 small agrifood business owners, create 1,000 new agrifood jobs, establish 300 small businesses and create $2.5 million in new annual small farmer sales — all by 2026.
The list of initiatives under F3 local is long, but UCANR Regional Director of Small Food and Farm Innovation Helle Petersen said there are essentially two areas of focus: food and farms.
On food, F3 is dedicated to localizing everything across the supply chain and incentivizing demand for locally sourced products in the five-county region encompassing F3. They’re in the process of starting a community kitchen in south Fresno to support small food vendors to prep in a safe, regulated space.
F3 Local is subcontracting with California Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) to reach minority groups that want to start their own food businesses. Compared with F3 Innovate, Petersen sees F3 Local as the more “in the trenches” support for small farmers and businesses.
For direct outreach on the farm side, UCANR is planning an equipment lending library based at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. There, small farmers would be able to borrow equipment that they wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.
“The main focus is really focusing on equipment that we know they need, because we've done that needs assessment and really had those conversations about what would be helpful,” Petersen said.
F3 Local is also starting to bolster the presence of ag-related startups that have an interest in locating to the valley.
“[We’re] looking to how can we be part of these companies' path to commercialization and being ready with a product that the market is actually interested in and that is tested,” Petersen said.
