The state of California is responsible for producing ⅓ of vegetables and ⅔ of fruits and nuts for the United States, providing food to tens of millions of people in the country and worldwide.
Being a massive industry, it faces many challenges. One major challenge is drought, which has been dramatically increasing since 2021, making it harder to keep up with the food demand. Water shortage is a huge problem for the Golden State’s agriculture sector, which relies on 40% of the total state water supply.
Another long-lasting issue for growers is bird damage to crops. As research shows, bird damage is a significant factor influencing California farms’ production and profit: growers report seasonal damages that range from $2 million for blueberries to as much as $49 million for wine grapes, with an average of 4 thousand dollars per acre.
Considering growers’ numerous challenges, the agriculture industry must find effective and sustainable ways to protect future food supplies. The breakthrough solution could be the deployment of agriculture technologies such as laser bird repellents.
This is surely the case for Green Spring Farm in Stockton, where pesky birds used to damage more than 8% of the production. The farm reached out to Cypress AgriTech, a California-based partner of Bird Control Group, the industry leader of laser bird repellents, and was introduced to the laser bird deterrent AVIX Autonomic Mark II.
The AVIX Autonomic is a fully autonomous system that reduces bird damage by more than 70%. This high-tech scarecrow can be programmed via a user-friendly app to shine a laser beam across predetermined paths. Birds perceive green laser frequencies as solid objects and flee immediately when the beam moves toward them without getting harmed.
As a result of the laser bird deterrent deployment, the California grower reduced their crop loss significantly and saved 25 thousand dollars per year. A one-time investment that paid off in one agricultural season.
A table grape farm located in Bakersfield, California, successfully deployed the AVIX Autonomic as well. They already had bird netting installed on the farm, but that didn’t stop the birds from destroying the grapes.
“The problem was we had everything covered in bird net, but the birds were still divebombing in. I said, “You know what? We gotta get some lasers over here because I can’t control these things.” We put in two, and we were pleased with the results, and then this year, we bought nine more.” – says the table grape grower.
Many growers all over the country rely on Bird Control Group’s automated laser bird deterrent to reduce crop losses as the system works on all kinds of crops and bird species. More user case stories can be found here.
