—story and photograph by Ross Courtney
Washington H-2A employee Luis Alejandro Barrera, proper, is making use of for a patent for his padded choosing harness with the assistance of Erik Nicholson, a former union government who has began a nonprofit to encourage farmworker innovation. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)
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 dollars off his ingenuity.
“I need it to work effectively 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 possibly can have the ability to earn extra money.”
He has assist.
Erik Nicholson, a former nationwide vp of the United Farm Staff union, desires to assist Barrera and different laborers who’ve improvements in thoughts however lack the sources to develop them. Now a non-public 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 — in the long run — 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 legal professional. That legal professional has suggested him to not publicly share images of his design till he has a patent, which might differentiate his strategy from different padded harnesses in the marketplace.
Trade response
Barrera works for McDougall and Sons, a vertically built-in producer with orchards in Wenatchee and the Columbia Basin.
“Looks like an awesome 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 employees’ concepts, he mentioned.
The duty for commercializing would fall to the inventor, however employers might assist by connecting them to contacts they might have, he mentioned.
Nicholson shopped the idea of the innovation middle to business teams, such because the Washington State Tree Fruit Affiliation, which incorporates listening to employees 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 needs to 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 harassed the 2 teams have had solely introductory conversations up to now. Western Growers is thought for vetting ag tech startups and serving to them commercialize with specialty crop area trials when the merchandise are prepared.
Duflock cautioned that Barrera’s harness and any of the middle’s future problem winners face an extended, costly and dangerous street. They’ll want a number of assist to kind an organization, he mentioned. He recommends the brand new nonprofit create a grant-funded laboratory surroundings, 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 advised Barrera she might 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 convey their very own to the job.
Barrera discovered his solution 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 stop shin bruising, a forked pole to make fruitlet thinning simpler, and retractable gloves that shield 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 essentially workshop these concepts, after which who’s going to pay attention 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 discovered to stitch whereas mending conveyor belts in a sugar cane refinery.
“We now have many concepts that we will convey to bear,” he mentioned. •
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