California Ag Technologies and Retail Food Prices Higher

**California has led the way in developing cutting edge agricultural technologies, enabling farms to do more with fewer, safer, and more efficient workers, but it’s also creating a challenge.

Johnnie White, of Piña Vineyard Management, says we need more skilled employees to be able to run this technology.

College systems and public and private agencies are collaborating to teach experienced farmworkers new skills and support farm interns working with new technologies.

**Retail food prices increased 4.8% in the first six months of 2023, down from last year’s midyear inflation rate of 8.2%.

USDA’s Economic Research Service reports the 20-year average for midyear inflation was 1.6%.

All food categories increased in price in the first six months of 2023 compared with last year, but the increases for meats, fresh fruits, fish and seafood, and fresh vegetables, were below their historical averages.

**Global events over the past few years have created an unprecedented “polycrisis” that’s disproportionately hurt small-scale farmers and people living in food-deficit countries.

In a new report from the Farm Journal Foundation, the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war, and climate change have created far-reaching impacts across global food systems, affecting food, fertilizer, feed, fuel, and financing available to producers.