The Status of Labor-Saving Mechanization in Fruits and Vegetables

The objective of this paper is to examine the status of labor-saving mechanization in U.S. fruitand vegetable harvesting. Fruit and vegetable harvest mechanization has several potentialadvantages: reduced harvest costs, eliminate problems associated with finding good qualityharvest labor, permit longer harvesting days, and reduce exposure of harvest to human bacteria.Commercial mechanical harvesters for processed tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, tartcherries, apples, grapes, peaches, plums and grapes are in the hands of growers. To my surprise,considerable progress has been made on fresh market sweet cherry, apple and berry harvesters,and in the next few years commercial sales of these machines are expected. A negative shock tolabor harvest-labor availability or jump in the harvester wage or piece rate could rapidlyaccelerate adoption of the best mechanical harvesting technologies by growers and processors.[...]