Innovation Challenges
We know that farm workers are and always will be the experts in farm work.
To encourage their creativity, we design activities where farm workers can develop their ideas about their work in the fields and have a voice in improving working conditions using their innovations. In recent years, we have held an innovation contest called Your Ideas Count.
2024 Challenge
In 2023, we focused on the cherry harvest, and 37 people submitted 66 ideas on how to pick cherries faster and better.
That year, the prize was $1,000 in cash for the winner.
After reviewing the ideas, a panel of three expert judges selected Luis Alejandro Barrera, a worker in Mattawa, Washington, as the winner.
Luis presented a prototype harness designed to reduce shoulder pain caused by using cherry buckets during harvest.
2024 Challenge
In 2024, the contest focused on the apple process, from planting to packaging. As part of the lessons learned in the first year, we decided to hold the contest as a team competition, receiving 48 ideas and a total of 103 participants.
This year, we are proud to have Once Upon a Farm as a sponsor, and we will award prizes totaling $15,000.
Most of the participants are Mexican, some live permanently in the United States, while others work in Mexico or in both countries on a seasonal basis. We received proposals from workers in the following states of Mexico: Chiapas, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz. The award ceremony was held simultaneously in the states of Jalisco and Washington.
First place in the contest was won by a team of workers from the state of Oaxaca, Caleb González and Apolonio Barriga. Their idea is a mechanism for spreading tarps in apple orchards using a forklift. Their idea helps improve worker safety and increases the speed and efficiency of the process.
Some of the projects we have supported
As a field supervisor, Flor wanted to engage her team in a more efficient and supportive way. One key task she monitors is ensuring that the right number of blossoms are thinned. When she noticed blossoms being missed, she faced two choices: ask the worker to return with their ladder, costing them valuable time and possibly causing frustration, or ignore it altogether.
But drawing on her own experience of thinning, Flor empathized with the extra effort that would be required and imagined a third option: a simple tool she made using a fork and a stick, allowing her to reach missed blossoms or apples without disrupting the team’s workflow. With support from AgAID and Oregon State University, Flor collaborated with mechanical engineering students to co-create the next iteration of her idea. Flor shared that this partnership has motivated her to explore other innovations to better support her work in the field.
Other activities
