20245118143291

Leap received USDA-SCRI planning grant 2020-51181-32137 and found that labor availability is the most critical sustainability challenge facing nursery crops producers, a labor-intensive industry that includes potting, pruning, staking, scouting, weeding, taking inventory, harvesting, and loading orders.

Nursery crop production relies heavily on full-time workers augmented by seasonal employees.

Scarce availability among both is limiting producers from facilitating rural prosperity and economic development.

Despite the acknowledged advantages of automating repetitive tasks, overall adoption of innovations in nurseries is low due to few mechanisms designed specifically for nursery crops, and no reliable, consistent decision-making aids to determine economic feasibility.

Leap's long-term economic benefit is a sustainable US nursery industry that is more resilient to labor shortages and that drives economic growth of rural communities.

Leap's trans-disciplinary team will 1) develop new automation and evaluate existing automated nursery technologies that improve labor efficiency;

2) evaluate socioeconomic impacts of automation and develop decision-making tools to inform adoption strategies that optimize the limited available labor;

3) develop a route to accelerate automation adoption for growers by mapping diffusion of current innovations through their information-sharing networks;

4) assess consumer preference and willingness to pay for impacts to economic, environmental, or worker health benefits by augmenting tasks with automation; and

5) educate stakeholders with Leap resources to increase awareness and accelerate adoption of automated nursery technologies.

Leap's outcomes will strengthen private land stewardship and rural economies by accelerating automation adoption, improving worker experiences, attracting available labor, and creating higher skilled positions thereby maximizing sustainability of US nurseries.

North Carolina State University

NOT APPLICABLE

10.309 - Specialty Crop Research Initiative

Institute of Food Production and Sustainability (IFPS) [USDA - NIFA]

Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 United States

Single Zip Code

USDA-NIFA-SCRI-010534