Not all the big headlines in 2025 were doom and gloom. The Packer’s technology coverage often highlighted the hopeful and helpful ways the produce industry is growing and adapting the changing conditions.
By it’s very nature, most ag tech is helping arm the growers of today for the realities of tomorrow.
For example, in mid-March, The Packer’s Jennifer Strailey talked with FarmWise CEO Tjarko Leifer about how the business’ restructuring was helping it prepare for the next chapter in ag robotics with its precision weeding technology. That new chapter involved being acquired by Taylor Farms, which had previously implemented FarmWise’s Vulcan technology and saw a reduction in its weeding costs of nearly $550,000 as a result.
“We believe in the FarmWise technology and think we have an important role to play with industry adoption in the specialty crop space,” said the president of Taylor Farms agricultural operations. “This acquisition is another step forward in our mission to drive the future of agriculture with thoughtful and impactful innovation.”
Reducing Food Waste With an Apps
In late August, The Packer’s Jill Dutton looked into how various apps are changing the way retailers deal with unsold food items approaching their sell-by dates, thereby preventing food waste. The three food waste-reducing apps in focus in the story are Too Good To Go and Flashfood, both geared towards connecting retailers with individual consumers in need of lower-cost options, and Careit, which connects retailers to nonprofits and community organizations in their areas for food donations.
Apps like these have a big potential to not only reduce food and especially produce waste, Dutton’s sources said, but also benefit retailers financially as well.
“The ability to sell more product, even at a discounted price, suggests greater food access could be achieved while recouping previously lost revenue,” one source said. “Additionally, applications that enable more accurate forecasting, facilitate coordination of logistics and optimize inventory management could prevent food from going to waste all along the supply chain.”
A Visceral Type of Technology
For a long time, consumers have shunned GMO foods. But in early September, Strailey sat down with Nathan Pumplin, CEO of Norfolk Healthy Produce, the company behind the Empress Purple Tomato, which is bioengineered to have more antioxidants. He said that consumers are hungry for change and starting to see through GMOs’ past bad publicity.
“When the first GMOs were launched, they were really marketed to farmers, and the innovative farmers said, ‘OK, there’s these new GMO crops, do I want to use them?’ And they very quickly saw, ‘Wow, this solves a lot of problems for me. Yes, I want to adopt them,’” said Pumplin.
“What was forgotten was that it was food being produced and sold to consumers, and consumers never had an opportunity to engage with GMOs in the food system,” he added.
But that has changed. Pumplin reported that 80% of consumers the company surveyed about the purple GMO tomato said they were interested to extremely interested in trying it.
Technology in Defense of Tech
In late October, The Packer’s Christina Herrick did a deep dive on a device to deter copper theft called Cop-R-Lock. The brainchild of a former law enforcement official and customizable farming automation company Farmblox, the Cop-R-Lock device aims to reduce or even eliminate the costly issue of copper thefts on farms.
“Every pump site, depending on its location, has upwards of a 40% chance of being hit every year by a thief,” said the Farmblox CEO. “Every time it happens, it’s between like $8,000 and $100,000 just for fixing the equipment, not minding the cost to the crop for the lack of irrigation for weeks on end, sometimes months.”
Working much like a home security system for your farm equipment, the system involves a wire wrapped around and inside the irrigation system’s conduit. When cut by a potential copper theif, an alarm goes off. The system will text the grower and also alert local law enforcement in the area, in an effort to help prevent and respond to copper thefts while they are happening.
These were some of the top tech stories The Packer covered in 2025, and there will be plenty more coverage in 2026, which you can find here.
