In October, ag technology companies from around the globe will arrive in Yakima, Washington, for FIRA USA, a conference and trade show focused on building connections between growers and tech companies.
It’s not your typical trade show, said Maialen Cazenave, co-director of GOFAR, the Global Organization for Agricultural Robotics. The French organization has been organizing the FIRA conference in Europe for a decade and first brought the event to the U.S. in California four years ago.
“We are not a tech company, we are not a lobby group. We are a community builder, bringing together farmers, innovators, researchers and investors around a shared challenge: How do we farm more efficiently, more sustainably and with fewer hands?” Cazenave said.
The move to Yakima for 2026 represents an opportunity to reach more specialty crop growers, event organizers and supporters said during a press conference on May 12 at State Fair Park in Yakima, which will host the conference from October 20–22.
“This is an event to engage growers,” said Gabe Youtsey, chief innovation officer for the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. He has been involved with FIRA since it debuted in Fresno in 2022. “We need to build these (ag tech) solutions all across the U.S.”
Washington tree fruit growers welcome the opportunity to engage with emerging technology in their backyard, despite their present economic challenges, said Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association.
“There’s simply no way for producers to survive without improving the efficiency of their operations,” he said, citing challenges such as labor costs, drought and rising fuel and fertilizer bills. “Automation and technology have the potential to help growers with these and other challenges, but there’s a world of difference between a cool new toy and a game changer, and that difference is in how developers and manufacturers interact with farmers.”
FIRA bills itself as a chance to create those interactions, with conference sessions and equipment demonstrations targeting all of the Pacific Northwest’s diverse agricultural producers.
Several exhibitors introducing autonomous equipment joined in the press conference, including the GUSS sprayer distributed by John Deere, the Prospr sprayer from Yamaha Agriculture, and autonomous tractor technology in the form of retrofit kits from Kingman Ag and a factory-fit approach from Agtonomy in partnership with Kubota.
But the scope of the conference will extend beyond just robotics, Cazenave said.
“Growers are looking for technology that will work in their fields, their conditions and at their scale,” she said. “That means the full technology stack operations depend on.”
She expects 60 to 80 exhibitors.
The event will be free for growers. •
