While California’s fall fruits continue to flourish, the growing unpredictability of weather patterns poses new challenges for farmers. Tools such as artificial intelligence-driven platforms are now at the forefront of helping the agricultural industry anticipate and mitigate these risks, ensuring that future harvests remain abundant and diverse.
To learn more about AI’s potential in predicting agricultural supply chain disruptions, The Packer spoke with Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO and co-founder of Helios. This AI platform identifies and predicts agricultural supply chain disruptions before they happen. Using billions of signals, Helios can predict how certain fall fruits are impacted by climate risks such as droughts, heat, flooding and more, the company says.
Editor’s note: The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The Packer: What is Helios, and how does it work?
Martin-Rayo: Helios was founded in 2022 by former Google and JP Morgan Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning engineers and is the preeminent climate-risk platform to predict agricultural supply chain disruptions and commodity prices. Our mission is to stop food supply shortages before they happen. Using AI, Helios makes information that was previously only available to the largest multinational food companies, available to everyone.
How does Helios use AI to predict agricultural supply chain disruptions?
The Helios platform leverages billions of signals daily, at the most granular level, across 14 million locations. Our risk signals are generated by custom machine-learning models specific to each crop, rather than generic weather information, giving us a unique advantage to predict where and why disruptions are likely to occur. Our team of world-class data scientists uses sophisticated machine learning models to predict, analyze and interpret agricultural trends and risks, constantly evolving and improving in accuracy and effectiveness.
Which California fall fruits are most at risk due to climate change?
We worry most about California’s grape, apple and citrus growers based on some of the broader trends we’ve seen nationally that we’re tracking (e.g., Florida citrus production is down 90%; New York’s apple crops are suffering from winters that are too warm).
Specific to California, we’ve seen the following:
- For grapes, we expect to see continued stress here due to higher temperature peaks and less available water to counteract it. This means fewer table grapes for consumers, but it can be good for winemakers (think higher grape quality with plenty of concentration for those oaky chardonnays).
- Apples are faring much better in California than in other parts of the country (See last year’s bumper crop.), but we need to continue monitoring hotter winters (worse near the coast than in the Valley). If those trees don’t get their cold “rest” period, they won’t generate as many apples.
- Finally, we worry most about California citrus, which is being impacted by hotter temperatures (especially around Fresno). High temperatures can cause citrus fruit to drop, split or sunburn, and they can also affect fruit size, shape, color, texture, flavor and nutritional value.
What kind of data does Helios use to make its predictions?
Helios uses a comprehensive dataset that includes over 20 years of climate-driven data. This data is meticulously curated and analyzed to assess and mitigate risks across the global agricultural supply chain.
The dataset is gathered from a network of weather stations, satellites and environmental monitoring sources, as well as proprietary data collection tools and algorithms developed by Helios’ engineers.
This rich dataset is a vital resource for stakeholders in the agricultural commodity industry. It provides actionable insights and intelligence to inform decision-making processes. Covering over 50 agricultural commodities from various regions worldwide, the dataset includes daily information on factors such as temperature, precipitation levels and local news reports, enabling detailed analysis of agricultural supply chain risks.
How accurate have Helios’ predictions been in the past regarding the impact of climate change on fall fruits?
Helios has historically seen an 80%-plus level of accuracy in predicting agricultural disruptions for fall fruit. For example, last year Peru’s mango crop was down more than 80% due to higher-than-normal temperatures during its winter. The market didn’t realize this was happening until November (when prices went up [sixfold]), but we flagged it to our customers as early as August because our platform predicted this disruption was imminent.
What predictions are there for current fall produce crops?
For grapes, June and July across the state have been unusually hot this year, especially further north from Fresno to Porterville. That said, California has been having really hot summers for the past few years, and the average climate risk this year (27% of all days have been unseasonably hot) is lower than usual, so we expect a decent harvest. To put it in perspective, 2020 saw July have 40% of its days as high risk from being too hot.
In citrus, our platform suggests that the crop faces significant risks due to unseasonable heat (over 100 Fahrenheit) in central California, centered around Fresno, in the months of June and July, with predictions indicating that August will be warmer than normal, while the other regions are within normal ranges. Ideally, these regions will somewhat even themselves out, with lower yields in Fresno but better yields in different parts of the state.
We’re not too worried about apples — all of our apple signals show low-to-mid overall climate risk for the season. One interesting data point is that this year we’ve seen slightly higher temperatures in the winter, but still below the 45 degrees that apple trees need to generate flowers. So, this still bodes well for the fruit trees this season.
How might these climate risks and disruptions affect consumers in terms of availability and prices of fall fruits?
Consumers are often at the “bottom of the food chain” here. What does this mean? Growers and suppliers will always honor their larger multiyear contracts with global CPGs first and give short shrift to the smaller grocers that don’t have these huge contracts. Let’s assume there’s an abysmal apple crop this year. You’ll still be able to get your McDonald’s apple pie (one of the largest buyers of apples worldwide), but you may see fewer apples at your local grocery store, and you’ll see the price go up.
What can consumers do to support sustainable farming practices that mitigate climate risks?
This is such a good question and at the heart of where our food system needs to go. The No. 1 thing consumers can do to help support sustainable farming practices is to support farmers and retailers to waste less. You would be astounded at the amount of food that is wasted, because it’s not “pretty enough” to make it to the supermarket shelf.
For example, we recently visited a lettuce farm in California that grows millions of lettuces that we eat around the country. They discard more than 50% of each head of lettuce — not because they enjoy throwing away potential revenue, but because consumers only want to eat the clearer and “fresher-looking” core and not the darker leaves surrounding it. Once these lettuces make it to your supermarket, it’s a time bomb until they get a little darker or yellow, and then consumers won’t eat them.
Growers expect 40% of the produce they send to supermarkets to get thrown out. That’s right: almost half. So next time you’re in the supermarket, buy the tomato that’s a little soft or the lettuce that’s gone a little yellow.
How does Helios work with farmers, policymakers and other stakeholders to address climate challenges?
We’re about to kick off a pilot project to support farmers in Virginia impacted by changing weather patterns. We envision creating a free software platform that farmers can use to understand how the ecological conditions of their farms have changed over the past 10 years, predict weather patterns for the next decade and identify the best crops and agricultural practices for these new conditions.
Access to this information will significantly enhance Virginia farmers’ ability to increase yields, mitigate the risks of changing weather patterns and support Virginia’s rural communities. Eventually, we’d love to work with the federal government to expand this program and make it freely available to all farmers across America impacted by climate change.
