INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
How has COVID-19 affected the ag
irrigation industry?
As this issue goes to press, our world has been dealing with the COVID-19 health crisis for nearly 4½ months. In June, Irrigation Today reached out to professionals in various sectors of our industry to find out how the pandemic has affected their company. Here is what they had to say.
Trevor Mecham
Vice President of Global Technology Strategy and Industry Relations Valley Irrigation
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your company and what changes have you made as a result of it?
The health and safety of our employees continues to be our number one priority. From the beginning, we put enhanced safety measures in place across our global footprint to protect our workforce, customers, suppliers and communities. All Valmont products and solutions are considered essential, because they support critical infrastructure sectors as defined by the Department of Homeland Security and similar global government agencies. As a result, the vast majority of our manufacturing facilities have continued to fully operate during the pandemic.
How have you seen COVID-19 affecting your customers?
Certainly, the challenges related to the downstream impact of food supply disruptions have affected our customers. Commodity price declines, cash flow challenges related to canceled contracts and labor availability related to closed borders are the main implications. Our dealer network is facing similar challenges to managing their own businesses within each market, mitigating risks as best they can.
Franklin Gaudi, EdD, CID, CIC, CAIS, CCA
Assistant Professor, BioResource & Agricultural Engineering Department and Project Manager, Irrigation Training & Research Center Cal Poly State University
Describe how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected your organization and what changes you have made as a result of it?
Teaching at Cal Poly State University, we have seen dramatic changes to the way higher education is offered and delivered to our students. Asking a graduating senior to come back next year to finish a course that is only offered in the spring was not an option, so all of our classes had to move to a virtual platform. We had a week as instructors to transform our lectures and hands-on labs to meaningful virtual online courses. To adapt, I moved my lectures to live Zoom meetings, which, in some ways, was better than traditional lectures because the lectures are recorded. This gives access to students who couldn’t make it to class or additional review time for those who maybe didn’t quite understand a topic or equation. To give them a “learn by doing” lab, we filmed them in the first person as much as possible. In other words, they had to read pressure gauges, record volumes of water, time things and/or take measurements as if they were in the field. The approach has gotten positive feedback.
8 Irrigation TODAY | Summer 2020
irrigationtoday.org
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