Hanford High ag students learn AI as Fresno State supercomputer goes live
Hanford High’s honors ag class is using AI for real projects while Reedley College and Fresno State plug local growers into new computing power.
Hanford High ag students learn AI as Fresno State supercomputer goes live
Key Takeaways
- Hanford High students are using AI tools for on-campus ag projects led by teacher Jason Ferreira.
- Reedley College’s AgTEC program is training students in robotics, coding, and ag engineering.
- USDA NASS says the average U.S. producer is 58.1 years old in the 2022 Census.
- F3 Innovate and Fresno State launched an AI supercomputer in July 2026 to support Valley ag.
- HMC Farms in Selma uses AI to manage fleets and forecast stone fruit harvests.
In the classroom
Isaiah Escalera counted birds, not bushels. The Hanford High senior keeps chickens, ducks and a couple of fancy peacocks, and he said AI helps him track feed, eggs and profit in one place. "I see myself using it more and more," Escalera said. Big plans, short time.
Inside Jason Ferreira’s honors ag science room, the year started with shovels and a spreadsheet. Students restored the school’s small farm and planted milkweed and verbena for a monarch plot, then logged irrigation, counts and dates to see what the bugs tell them later. A hand‑drawn monarch sketch was taped to the shop wall.
Why it matters here is simple. The Valley keeps moving toward automation and data in the field, and kids who can run those tools will end up running crews and rigs. Ferreira tells them as much. "There’s more beyond just veterinarians and farmers in agriculture that are just as valuable," he said.
Where the training continues
After high school, some of these students land at the AgTEC Innovation Center at Reedley College in eastern Fresno County. Director Kaomine Vang said the point is to bridge hands-on field skills with code, sensors and troubleshooting. AgTEC puts students on agricultural robotics, basic engineering and coding so they can walk onto a ranch or a packing line and make sense of the gear.
Vang doesn’t dodge the demographic math. The average producer in the United States is 58.1 years old, according to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture. That creates openings for younger workers who can manage a drip line, parse a data sheet and still fix a loose chain on a shaker.
The big iron at Fresno State
In July 2026, F3 Innovate and Fresno State switched on a shared AI supercomputing center to bring serious compute to local classrooms, labs and operations. The idea is to cut the cost and friction for growers, processors and students who want to test models for real jobs, not paper demos. "We’re talking about really equipping the people doing the work," F3I CEO Priscilla Koepke said.
Some are already in. Selma-based HMC Farms uses AI to manage vehicle fleets and predict stone fruit timing so crews hit the orchards when the set is right. Vice president Drew Ketelsen put it plain: "If you’re not jumping into this AI and using these tools, you could be missing out on being able to maintain a margin."
What the dollars say
Stone fruit is not a side note here. Fresno County’s 2023 numbers put peaches at $365.9 million in value, with grapes at $1.339 billion and almonds at $1.024 billion, according to the Fresno County Crop and Livestock Report. If AI squeezes a few points of packout or trims diesel hours across a fleet, that shows up in a milk check or a return per acre.
Back in Hanford, the kids keep logging what they see, from irrigation timing to caterpillar counts. "Are we going to evolve with the times or stick to what we know?" Escalera asked. He didn’t wait for an answer.
Central Valley AI is produced by the CVAI Agriculture Desk team and developed by Kaweah Tech, a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.