Actualidad nacional e internacional
Sep. 14, 2023EE.UU/Washington: productores de frutas realizan cosecha por las noches debido a ola de calor
Mark Hines’s workday starts while the sun sets, when the grass grows heavy with dew and the bugs are as loud as they are close. His friends call him the “Night Farmer.”
While others sleep, Hines roams his Derwood, Md., farm from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., picking tomatoes, melons, pumpkins and lettuce by the light of a headlamp and well after the heat of the day. As he works, his puppy, Cooper, plays alongside him in the eggplant vines, a light-up tag buckled to his orange harness.
Rising temperatures in key agricultural regions across the United States are leading more farmers to harvest in the middle of the night to safeguard the quality of their crops. There isn’t much data on the pervasiveness of night harvesting, but agriculture experts and farmers said the practice is becoming an important part of the industry’s future.
“Inevitably, it’s going to be hotter during the day, and that’s going to mean even more night farming where it’s feasible,” said Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of California at Davis. “And when I say feasible, I mean where it’s profitable.”
Hines started farming in 2020 and gradually shifted to evening hours to contend with the hotter Maryland summers. This year was even more brutal; scientists say it was the world’s hottest summer “by a large margin.”
“I tell people the sun has felt brighter these past few years,” Hines said.
Heat has become a major economic threat to the agriculture industry, and it’s only expected to get worse. By the end of the century, climate change could lead to worldwide crop damage five to 10 times greater than conventional climate models have predicted, according to a 2021 study published in the Journal of the European Economic Association. It’s also poised to cost the agriculture industry $4.65 billion annually in lost productivity by 2030, according to a study by the Atlantic Council think tank.
“Heat is the enemy of quality produce,” said Alan Schreiber, executive director of the Washington state commissions for blueberries and asparagus, and owner of a 200-acre organic fruit and vegetable farm in the Columbia River Basin.
Farmers are adapting as best they can. An entire industry has emerged to cool workers with ice vests and other technology. Some farmers are incorporating night harvests into their business for no more than the cost of headlamps, while others are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in machines specifically designed to farm at night.
“The weather seems to be getting more intense, we’re having to adapt, and we’re working off hours,” Schreiber said. “But other things stay on the same schedule. The trucks that come pick up produce, they still come at the end of the day. … The days are getting longer.”
Cooler temperatures, better fruit
While night harvests have become more common during recent heat spells, the practice “is as old as there is light,” Sumner said.
There are a number of advantages to picking fruits and vegetables at nighttime, but the most important is food quality. It’s easier to maintain the taste and texture of produce at cooler temperatures, and it takes less energy to store already cooled fruit and vegetables before transport, Hines and other farmers said.
Night harvesting is most common during the summer but also can extend well into October, when farmers often pick fruits and vegetables for 24 hours a day before the winter frost kills their crops, said J.J. Dagorret, whose company makes farm equipment.
In California, fruit like peaches, which are firmer at night and usually picked by machines, have been harvested at night for decades, Sumner said. For smaller fruits like wine grapes, which require more precision while picking, some farms still prefer to harvest during the daytime when visibility is better — but that’s beginning to change as temperatures rise.
Picking crops at night also helps mitigate the risk of sun damage, which can cause tomatoes to burst open and blueberries to shrivel in the hands that pick them.
Full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/09/heat-night-harvesting-farmers/
Washingtonpst/September 09, 2023
VOLVER A NOTICIAS