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—story and photograph by Ross Courtney
Bored with bruising his shoulders throughout harvest, Luis Alejandro Barrera purchased a used backpack at a flea market and stitched his personal padded bucket harness.
This yr, whereas the H-2A employee straps on his creation for Washington’s Columbia Basin cherry season, he fosters ambitions to make extra harnesses, save the shoulders of fellow laborers and make a couple of bucks off his ingenuity.
“I need it to work properly for my co-workers, as a result of if we’re in a position to get this out to everyone, they’re going to have the ability to work higher and be extra productive,” Barrera mentioned in Spanish. “And if you’re extra productive, then you’ll be able to be capable of earn more cash.”
He has assist.
Erik Nicholson, a former nationwide vp of the United Farm Staff union, needs to help Barrera and different laborers who’ve improvements in thoughts however lack the sources to develop them. Now a personal ag business marketing consultant, Nicholson established Semillero de Concepts, or Nursery of Concepts, to blaze a path for laborers to work up their innovations and — ultimately — revenue from them.
Within the fall, Barrera gained the group’s first Innovation Problem, scoring him a $1,000 prize and the assistance of a pro-bono lawyer. That lawyer has suggested him to not publicly share images of his design till he has a patent, which may differentiate his strategy from different padded harnesses in the marketplace.
Business response
Barrera works for McDougall and Sons, a vertically built-in producer with orchards in Wenatchee and the Columbia Basin.
“Looks like an incredible concept,” Matt Jeffery, a McDougall space supervisor, mentioned of the harness. So is the Semillero de Concepts trigger; employers ought to take heed to their staff’ concepts, he mentioned.
The accountability for commercializing would fall to the inventor, however employers may assist by connecting them to contacts they could have, he mentioned.
Nicholson shopped the idea of the innovation heart to business teams, such because the Washington State Tree Fruit Affiliation, which incorporates listening to staff as one in every of its core management curriculum factors.
The tree fruit business wants a workforce comfy with new concepts and instruments, mentioned Jon DeVaney, president of the affiliation. Semillero de Concepts looks as if a step in that path, he mentioned.
“There must be a concurrence of curiosity between employers and labor advocates” on office innovation, he mentioned.
Walt Duflock, vp for innovation at California-based Western Growers, likes the motivation behind Semillero de Concepts, however he confused the 2 teams have had solely introductory conversations to this point. Western Growers is thought for vetting ag tech startups and serving to them commercialize with specialty crop subject trials when the merchandise are prepared.
Duflock cautioned that Barrera’s harness and any of the middle’s future problem winners face a protracted, costly and dangerous highway. They may want plenty of help to type an organization, he mentioned. He recommends the brand new nonprofit create a grant-funded laboratory atmosphere, with company and college representatives to assist the would-be entrepreneurs discover scale and capital.
“None of that is going to occur in a single day,” Duflock mentioned.
Simply beginning
Barrera and Semillero de Concepts are each simply getting began, however he and the nonprofit have managed to generate some momentum.
This yr, the Washington State Legislature appropriated $500,000 to the middle for 2 years, which Nicholson envisions utilizing to arrange an innovation lab considerably like Duflock described. Additionally, Rachel Noah, chief working officer of Taggares Fruit Co. close to Washington’s Tri-Cities, has informed Barrera she may see her firm buying a few of his harnesses. She was a decide on the Innovation Problem that Barrera gained.
Nevertheless, the market already has padded harnesses that promote for round $25 every. Staff all through Central Washington generally carry their very own to the job.
Barrera discovered his technique to Semillero de Concepts when Nicholson and volunteers arrange a sales space on the Mattawa flea market to advertise the group’s first Innovation Problem.
The 37 different entries included padded ladder rungs to forestall shin bruising, a forked pole to make fruitlet thinning simpler, and retractable gloves that defend employee fingers whereas sustaining meals security.
The group created the competition in response to 60 employee interviews with Josefina Luciano, a Semillero de Concepts volunteer and orchard employee close to Sunnyside.
“We now have no place to go to actually workshop these concepts, after which who’s going to hear or take note of what we’re doing?” mentioned Luciano, additionally in Spanish.
Nicholson translated Good Fruit Grower’s interviews with Barrera and Luciano.
Barrera, one class shy of an agronomy diploma from the Autonomous College of Nayarit in Mexico, was hesitant to strategy Semillero de Concepts, questioning if somebody was going to steal his concept.
The daddy of 4 grew up in Nayarit, a state in west-central Mexico, the place his household nonetheless owns a sugar cane farm. Barrera has a home on the property and hopes to take over and increase sometime.
He and his father used to fertilize sugar cane by hand, carrying buckets on harnesses they made with ripped-up strips of fertilizer sacks. He realized to stitch whereas mending conveyor belts in a sugar cane refinery.
“We now have many concepts that we will carry to bear,” he mentioned. •
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