Agriculture has always been about adaptation: tweaking practices, nurturing ideal conditions against the year’s odds, and honing in on cultivars that can be coaxed into thriving for a predictable harvest. It’s practicing equal parts ‘planning with foresight’ and ‘embracing what comes’ – and 2021’s cherry season certainly required the stamina and resilience that draws from both elements.

Will the apple harvest in North America require much of the same?

As the world population continues to grow, so does the demand for food. For centuries, agriculture has been a labor-intensive industry, and many farming practices still require a considerable amount of manual labor. But as the global agricultural workforce is aging and the number of people entering the sector is decreasing, labor shortages are becoming the norm in agriculture each year. To overcome this challenge, the agricultural industry is investing in automation to reduce labor costs and increase productivity.

Piecemeal pay is a powerful motivator, but it's not without its barriers to implementation.  Is it worth it, and how can you make it work without wasting time on complex calculations?

In a rapidly evolving situation, it’s safe to say the world is watching the news. Amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are increasing border security and restricting access to non-citizens.

It's July. Your crews are scaling up. Your spreadsheet has 47 tabs — one for each crew, one for piece rates, one for overtime, one for leave tracking, and one for every variety with a different pay structure.

You've been tracking labor on spreadsheets for years. They got you through. But as your crew grows, so do the mistakes. So does the compliance risk. So do the hours you spend reconciling numbers instead of managing your farm.

We take a look at the pros and cons of paying piecemeal, and how Croptracker can make your payroll decisions faster and easier.

Technological innovations have offered great efficiencies within agriculture – but that has by no means removed the critical need for skilled manual labour in each season’s successful crop and harvest. The current growing season is being met with unprecedented labour challenges that compound the already existing industry strain that reoccurs annually.

California is one of the major agricultural states in the United States, with about 69,400 farms in operation across 24.3 million acres of land.

High value, labour-intensive crops require special conditions and careful management for a successful season. Often the success of high-value crops comes down to small decisions about production and treatments. Proper documentation and farm record keeping are necessary to know what worked, and what didn’t. The margins are slim and every small increase in yield goes a long way.

"Would you rather import your food or your labor?"

Justin Ferguson, Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation

Croptracker offers easy to use labor tracking reports that are included with the Work Crew Activity and Labour Tracking module.

New Zealand fruit & vegetable growers are preparing to be hit hard by an upcoming minimum wage increase.

The Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Growers' Association (OFVGA) have expressed relief at the announcement made last week that the provincial minimum wage will be capped at $14/hour until 2020.  

The agricultural sector continues to grapple with persistent labor shortages, a challenge expected to intensify further in 2025. This issue, driven by an aging workforce, declining interest from younger generations in farming, and complex immigration policies, necessitates a multi-faceted approach involving advanced technology, comprehensive policy reform, and innovative workforce strategies to ensure a sustainable future for food production.

Did you know? You can save hundreds of hours of work a week with Croptracker’s Work Crew Activity and Farm Labor Tracking module is packed with industry beating features at an industry beating price.

Canada has a reputation for being a technologically advanced nation when it comes to producing crops, with 160.2 million acres of  farmland recorded in 2011 . Despite the ever-growing demand for agricultural production and smart farming technology to produce more food as efficiently as possible, growers in Canada are facing an unprecedented labor shortage.

According to the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) in 2019, only 38% of homes in rural areas had access to the internet. Growers and distributors’ operations are more often located in areas that can be considered rural or remote – frequently meaning that there’s less reliable (if not non-existent) internet connectivity access for workers and local residents.

Labor tracking and employee management on any sized farm operation is always a challenge, but it is particularly difficult as the size of the operation increases. Labor is generally the largest expense for fruit and vegetable growers and as the scale of an operation grows, finding ways to save money and boost efficiency is essential. Managing many farms at once, across large regions or even across different countries creates many unique challenges. Finding the right tools to help make timekeeping, productivity tracking, payroll calculations, and employee management possible on this scale is vital or the task quickly becomes unmanageable. This article will explore some of the unique challenges facing commercial agriculture companies and how centralized, digitized farm management software can help.

One of Croptracker's chief goals is improving safety in the produce industry, not only for consumers but for the growers and farm workers who feed them.  The global agriculture industry's injury and illness rates are some of the highest in the world, so improving the way our software facilitates worker safety is a priority we're dedicated to pursuing.

It's back-to-school season in the Northern hemisphere, and also a popular time for growers to start taking on student interns.