Chilean wrap-up

When I prepared to travel to Chile in February, I really didn’t know what to expect, other than the fact that I was going to escape the cold Northeastern winter for South American summer for a week.

I had never been anywhere in South America, so I was looking forward to broadening my horizons. I came away with an appreciation of all the work that goes into bringing produce to market, a real education into the technology being used to make that happen, and an admiration for the Chileans we met on our tour.

I hope everyone has had the opportunity to read my editor’s blog on our Web site for a detailed description of where we went and what we saw. But I wanted to wrap up with a some high-tech and high-touch revelations..

On our first full day in Santiago, we met with representatives of our host, the Associacion de Exportadores de Chile. Christian Carvajal, ASOEX’s marketing manager for Europe and Asia, and Ricardo Adonis, technical manager for Fundacion para el Desarrollo Fruticola, described the growth of the industry, the marketing efforts surrounding Chile’s push into foreign markets— and some of the challenges growers and exporters face getting their products into those markets—and some of the technical innovations Chilean growers are developing to improve fruit quality and yield.

One of the most impressive pieces of technology was a series of weather stations, in operation less than a year, that are designed to feed information to growers, in real time, of a variety of conditions such as temperature, wind and precipitation. The stations are programmed to send text alerts to designated cell phones to alert people of a potentially dangerous condition, such as impending frost.

Very cool stuff, but something else we were told impressed me even more. Because agriculture is a seasonal business, someone asked as question about the workers who pick the fruits and vegetables. What happens to them in the off-season?

Rodrigo Lopez, general manager for Agrocap, explained that his organization offers a training program for these employees on a host of necessary skills and understanding, such as safety and sanitation, which eventually allows them to be certified. Certification, Lopez explained, gives them the opportunity to go to other farms in the country with a document that proves they are skilled in farm labor. It may also lead to more training and the ability to get ahead in the agricultural field.

“Certification allows for social mobility, and it builds self-esteem,” Lopez said.

Everywhere we went, we were impressed by how workers were treated. Most farms and processing plants provide free meals for workers, and at San Jose Farms, staff put on a picnic each St. Joseph’s Day, March 19, and pickers can bring their families.

At the table grape vineyard we visited, the manager explained how they employees to follow proper procedures on the handling of the fruit.

“We simply ask them, ‘Is this something that you would serve to your own family?’,” he said. “It reminds them that the fruit will go to another family’s home.”

Such an approach might seem like a no-brainer, but those words came back to me when I was reading about all of Toyota’s struggles with faulty accelerators and brake pedals. Perhaps some of that “high touch” philosophy in American industries would make them safer.