Reservoir Farms, the 40-acre ag-tech testing hub in California's Salinas Valley, has hired former California Department of Food and Agriculture Undersecretary Christine Birdsong as head of external affairs, charging her with leading the incubator's expansion into new regions and institutions across the U.S. and internationally.

Birdsong left the CDFA in August, where she served as the department's second-ranking official after Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her in 2021. At CDFA she worked across the breadth of California agriculture — the largest farm economy in the U.S. — on sustainable pest management, trade, food safety, farm-to-school programs and ag innovation. She led development of California's Agricultural Research & Innovation Roadmap, a 10-year strategic blueprint launched in March to guide scientific discovery, commercialization and practical farming solutions statewide. She also represented California agriculture on trade missions to Japan and the Philippines.

Before joining CDFA, Birdsong was senior vice president, general counsel and director of people and culture at Sun Valley Rice Co., general counsel of the National Cotton Council of America, a congressional aide and an attorney.

Why the hire matters

Reservoir Farms launched conceptually in 2024 and held its grand opening in March. The site operates as a working farm and incubator where companies test robots, automation and data tools directly in commercial specialty crops — filling a gap that Birdsong says has long constrained ag-tech adoption.

"They are really filling a gap that's been present for a while," Birdsong told Agri-Pulse. "That is this gap of providing space … for real-world farming conditions so they can go to a farmer and offer a solution that actually works, without having to ask the farmer to try it on their own land."

Founder and CEO Danny Bernstein, a former Google executive, has framed the project as an effort to "accelerate innovation in spaces that really need it," particularly specialty crop agriculture.

In the announcement, Bernstein said Birdsong's credentials span the exact constituencies Reservoir must reach. "There are very few people who can sit across the table from a university chancellor, a state secretary, a congressional staffer, and a Salinas Valley grower in the same week and be credible in every one of those rooms," he said. "Reservoir's thesis is technology as resilience — and making that real requires someone who understands how policy, research institutions, and agriculture actually work together. She's lived it."

Birdsong will report directly to Bernstein. She will oversee partnerships with land grant universities, community colleges and research institutions; engagement across federal, state and local programs; government relations and policy work in Sacramento; and work with community organizations in regions where Reservoir launches test farms. The hire stems from a conversation between the two during Ag Day festivities at the state Capitol in April.

Policy leverage on automation

The appointment comes as Reservoir positions itself to meet grower demand for on-farm technology amid labor shortages and rising input costs. The company says advances in rugged AI and robotics — several demonstrated at its Ruggedize conference in August — have made on-farm autonomy commercially viable. Moving those tools from pilot programs to broad adoption, however, requires research partnerships, public funding and supportive policy. That is Birdsong's assignment.

"I spent a lot of years in the policy space and I learned a lot," she said. "Looking at all the challenges — labor challenges, water availability, helping crops adapt, mitigating climate change, market sustainability, chemical inputs — all of these policy issues I've been involved with, including the automation issue."

Her policy experience bears directly on a long-running regulatory sticking point: growers and University of California advisers have tried for years to amend a nearly 50-year-old state law requiring an operator to be physically at the controls while farm equipment is in motion — a rule that effectively blocks fully autonomous machinery in California fields.

"I think having a policy background is important," Birdsong said. "It helps with my conversations to be able to identify the people we need to be talking to and what we need to be talking with them about politically."

Reservoir also works with Western Growers, whose member growers flag on-farm challenges that shape which technologies the hub trials.

Capital and R&D momentum

The hire follows two significant financial commitments. Reservoir recently announced a three-year, $10 million research and development partnership with John Deere to accelerate deep-tech innovation for high-value crop agriculture. The incubator's venture capital arm is raising a second fund, earmarked at $50 million, to back early-stage companies in the segment.

"There is no future for agriculture without ag-tech," Birdsong said. "There are so many pressures on agriculture. For farms to be able to continue to do what they're doing, they're going to have to modify their operations and become leaner and more efficient. They can't do that without also developing new tools and new skills."

With Birdsong leading external affairs, Reservoir's next test will be converting its Salinas Valley pilot model — and its John Deere R&D dollars — into policy changes and institutional partnerships that scale automation across specialty crop regions.