Future Of Agriculture

Check out the SWAT Agronomy Podcast on any podcast platform!  Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show:  https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU If you’ve ever tried to grow any food crop - shoot, even a garden - you know that insect pests are unavoidable. Over the past 100 years, chemical pesticides have been developed as efficient and cost effective ways for farmers to manage these pests. But as I’m sure you know, they are not without their downsides: pests are building resistance, they are constantly under environmental scrutiny, and frankly, there hasn’t been much innovation in this space.  Our guests today, Anna Rath and Ben Cicora of the company Vestaron say: we’ve seen this before. They’ll lay out a case for you that what’s happening right now in ag chem has already played out in human chemistry. The clear winner has been biotechnology: namely using peptides, which are essentially just proteins except smaller, instead of chemistry. In human pharmaceuticals

Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show:  https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU  While we here in the U.S. have an agricultural system built upon exports, while our guest today lives in Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates which currently imports 80% of their food. What we view here as needed viable technology to create a more sustainable agriculture is likely to be different there.  We have on the show His Excellency Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi. Dr. Tariq is the Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO). He leads the organisation’s efforts to grow and diversify Abu Dhabi’s economy through private sector investment. He also oversees strategic initiatives that support the emirate’s economic growth and reputation on the world stage. One of those initiatives was to entice leading agtech companies from around the world to establish new R&D and production facilities in the emirate. In 2020, ADIO announced partnerships with AeroFarms, Madar Farms, RNZ

Check out the SWAT Agronomy Podcast on any podcast platform!  Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show:  https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU  Over the past decade, one of the areas agriculture has changed significantly is in the number of available digital tools that can be used on the farm. On the surface this is a great thing, but if - and only if - these tools are easy to use and produce actionable results. And even then, a farmer is only going to use so many tools even if they are all great.  Jim Ethington has been thinking about these issues for over a decade. He started at The Climate Corp in 2008, when it was still known as WeatherBill and was not yet exclusively an ag-focused company. He stayed with the company for a decade, through many milestones including the acquisition by Monsanto and the integration of the 640 drive that we featured in episode 241 with Craig Rupp. He left the company in 2018 as VP of Product to take a job as the CEO of Arable, wh

Today’s episode is brought to you by FieldAgent by Sentera. One key piece of the agtech conversation that often gets overlooked is the most likely customer for a lot of digital tools may not actually be a farmer. For many of them, an advisor to that farmer may be the one actually performing that task, and may have the biggest vested interest in adopting cutting-edge technologies.  We’re calling this little mini-series “The Tech-Enabled Advisor.” We will profile some of the farmers’ advisers: agronomists, ag retailers, consultants, and other local professionals that farmers rely on for guidance, advice, and implementation. To help me identify the right tech-savvy advisors for these episodes, and to make sure we hear from different types of guests, I’ve asked various agtech companies to partner with me on these episodes.  The first one to say yes, was the sponsor of today’s episode: FieldAgent by Sentera. FieldAgent enables agronomic advisors to make more timely decisions by taking data they’re already using

Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU Today we get a unique global view into agtech and agribusiness. We are joined by Greg Meyers, who is the Chief Information Officer and Chief Digital Officer of https://www.syngenta.com/en (Syngenta) based at their world headquarters in Switzerland. Most of you are familiar with Syngenta but you may or may not know they are the largest crop protection company in the world and the third largest seed company in the world. They also provide digital ag platforms to 125 million acres of global crop production.  Greg offers his perspective as someone with a front row seat to the global digitization of agriculture. We talk about the agtech customer in various countries, Syngenta’s acquisition strategy, their role in both digital ag and soil health, and some interesting ideas worth pondering about the future of agriculture.  “The reality of it is that a lot of the growers really have a very s

Please participate in our listener survey to help us focus the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/shrCB33GWIUCIxVRU  E-commerce is nothing new. I think all of us have probably bought more online than ever this past year. But the company we’re featuring today, Pinduoduo, has taken this to a whole other level by gamifying e-commerce and making it a social experience. A big part of their strategy is selling agricultural products online. One of the biggest drivers changing the future of agriculture is consumer preferences, what they buy and how they buy it. Today we explore some pretty incredible insights into how this is changing in China.  We have on the show Xin Yi Lim, who is the executive director of Sustainability and Agricultural Impact at Pinduoduo. The platform, which has been described as “where Costco meets Disney”, started in 2015 and has grown to over 700 million active users in China. Before joining Pinduoduo in 2018, Xin Yi worked for SIngapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, both in its

Thanks to the Field Work podcast for sponsoring this episode. Visit www.FieldWork.org to learn more.  Interest in local and regional food systems has been trending upward for a long time. The pandemic has only accelerated consumer interest in having strong relationships with where they buy their food. But what sounds easy on the outside: farmer produces food and consumer buys it - is much more complicated in practice. First of all, there aren’t enough local/regional slaughterhouses for livestock producers to scale their direct-to-consumer operations because of low margins, regulations, and labor. Today’s episode tells the story of how Adam Parks built a local meat business, and how he is part of a group that has formed a cooperative to solve this problem of local meat processing. Adam is the founder of Victorian Farmstead Meat Company located in Sebastopol, California. They have been selling local meat in the area since 2010 at farmers markets, through a CSA (community supported agriculture), and more recent

The reason for today’s special episode is The Farm Workforce Modernization Act that recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is now moving on to the Senate. This legislation is an effort to make progress on the mess that is U.S. ag labor policy. Shay Myers, a farmer who was featured on this show back in episode 178, called me to talk about the importance of this bill to U.S. farmers and their employees. In fact, over 300 agricultural organizations supported the bill. Ag labor reform like this has been attempted for decades, but has never been passed, mostly due to politics.  First, what does this bill do? Put simply, it improves the process for H-2A workers, which is the name of the visa for temporary agricultural workers. It also makes it mandatory that agricultural employers e-verify employees legal work status for employment. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it establishes a program for agricultural workers and their families who are already in the United States to earn legal status

Thanks to the FieldWork podcast for sponsoring this episode. Visit www.FieldWork.org to learn more.    This episode is a good follow up to https://aggrad.libsyn.com (Episode 250) about one example of how agtech is helping smallholder farmers in developing countries. We are again talking about the potential for agtech in developing markets in this episode, but this time from a different perspective. My guest Igor Buchatskiy sees real opportunities in very large integrated agricultural operations. Whereas last week we focused on smallholder farmers, this episode is about the very large, sophisticated operations that are hungry for technology and innovation in the developing world.  Igor is a mechanical engineer by training, but after getting his MBA at the University of Chicago, he started a career in management consulting. That led to a job with a family office back in his home country of Ukraine. It was in that role that he discovered his love and fascination for agriculture in 2007. Since that time, he’s

Thanks to the FieldWork podcast for sponsoring this episode. Visit www.FieldWork.org to learn more.  We talk a lot about the types of technologies that are geared towards larger operations, but what’s out there that has the potential to really improve the lives of small farmers, especially of those in developing countries. We have a really interesting example of one of these innovations in this episode. https://wrmsglobal.com (Weather Risk Management Services) is an India-based company that collects data to help producers manage their risks. The company started off as offering just crop insurance products, which is still a big part of their business, but they’ve also expanded into products that incentivize and reward farmers for using risk management strategies.  In other words, a farmer pays a premium and agrees to certain farming practices. In return they are provided a guaranteed yield, and paid if their yield drops below that threshold. This helps take away the risk of adopting new practices. https://wr

Thanks to the FieldWork podcast for sponsoring this episode. Visit www.FieldWork.org to learn more.  David Doll is the General Manager of Rota Unica Agriculture based in Portugal. He grew up on a direct-to-consumer apple and peach orchard in southern Indiana, then got a master’s degree in plant pathology from UC Davis. After a decade as a farm advisor for the University of California focused on tree nuts, he took on his current role of moving to Portugal to manage a large-scale diversified tree crop operation there. On top of all of that, he writes what I think is probably the most in-depth blog dedicated to just one crop that I’ve ever seen at http://www.thealmonddoctor.com (The Almond Doctor). I’ve really appreciated interacting with David online and in the FoA community. I think you’re going to really enjoy his perspective here today.    “I think everyone would say the same thing, but you have to be able to be willing to know what your shortfalls are, be honest with yourself and then throw in the extra

We can all agree that sustainability that comes at the expense of productivity and efficiency is not truly sustainable at all. We are going to need to meld together what’s best for the productivity and profitability of growers with the ecosystem services they can provide.  Just recently agtech company FluroSat announced that they acquired another agtech company, https://www.daganinc.com (Dagan), and the combined company was re-branded to a new name: https://www.regrow.ag (Regrow). You might remember FluroSat founder Anastasia Volkova from her first appearance on this podcast back in episode 175. She joins us again today, now as CEO of Regrow, along with Dagan co-founder and now Regrow Chief Strategy Officer Bill Salas. Both of them are accomplished scientists as well as entrepreneurs. We have a great conversation here about why this merger made sense, what differentiates their carbon model, called DNDC, from other ways to model carbon sequestration, and how their newly combined and rebranded company will he

The question of “what are the real problems in agriculture that need to be solved?” is one we ask often here on this show. If you ask that to a dozen people, you’ll probably get about 20 different answers. But herbicide resistance is one that hits home for many. As you’re about to hear, the tools we’ve been using for decades are becoming less and less effective, and the pipeline for new active ingredients has been empty for a long time. Every year more and more weeds show signs of resistance - which is not a trend that can continue.  Today’s guests are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Israel-based WeedOut, a biological herbicide company which uses proprietary pollen to sterilize weeds like Palmer Amaranth, otherwise known as pigweed. Dr. Efrat Lidor Nili and Dr. Orly Noivirt-Brik are both accomplished scientists who have already been a part of one successful exit: they worked at Rosetta Green which was purchased by Monsanto in 2013. WeedOUT is a portfolio company of Fulcrum Global Capital, who partnered with m

Today Janette Barnard co-hosts to bring us an innovative virtual fencing product for cattle ranchers. Frank Wooten joins us as the founder of Vence. Vence offers producers optionality in their grazing operations whether large or small. This technology provides for rotational grazing opportunities while bridging obstacles such as large uneven terrain, poor connectivity and weather dynamics. The ramifications of this opportunity may allow US producers to better compete in the grass fed and grass finished product market.    “At a high level we are solving the problem of increasing yield and land management for cow-calf and cattle operators around the world…..we are enabling the ability to set up animal control at a very granular level without the need for physical fences or manual labor.” - Frank Wooten   “It’s not that physical fences are an insufficient solution. It's that they are a static solution to a dynamic problem.” To be able to adapt your ranching practices to changes in your land and terrain allow

Today’s show connects back to episode 241 with Craig Rupp of Sabanto, where we talked about, among many other things, how the Climate Corp has been able to become a central data collection platform on so many large scale farms.  Ranjeeta Singh, the Chief Product Officer of The Climate Corp joins us to further explore data ownership, product strategy and design thinking. Ranjeeta was hired last year to drive the product strategy and roadmap for Climate’s digital farming solutions. She has more than two decades of background in hardware and software at the intersection of IoT, AI and data science with companies like Intel and Teradata. She holds five patents at Intel, and multiple publications. She is also the recipient of the “Top 50 under 50 most powerful women in technology”. Her perspective as someone coming from a career in tech to now a career in agtech is something I found interesting and insightful.    “People only think of Climate as a Fieldview platform...I have talked about the three lines of busin

This is one of two short episodes I’m releasing for you today, both exploring some aspect of farm data. You may have already listened to the first part with Dr. Terry Griffin at Kansas State University. Now we turn our attention to another Purdue graduate, Aaron Gault, cofounder and agronomy manager of Advanced Agrilytics. Advanced Agrilytics offers agronomy services equipped with their analytics platform, which helps farmer customers get a better picture of what’s working and not working in their agronomic practices.  Aaron focuses on in-season crop management and the understanding of real-time crop performance influenced by the environmental conditions of any given growing season. Aaron’s ability to integrate yield response probability with in-field stimuli is a key component of Advanced Agrilytics sub-acre approach to understanding yield. Before joining Advanced Agrilyitcs, Aaron worked as a professional agronomist for leading agriculture companies. Aaron and I discuss what makes Advanced Agrilytics app

For the first time, I’m releasing two episodes on the same day. I’ve trimmed each of the two episodes down to about half of my normal length so the total time commitment on your part is still about the same as a regular week, but if you’re a subscriber, you probably already noticed, there are two today.  There’s a few reasons for this, but mostly it’s to try something new. This isn’t something I’m planning to keep doing on a regular basis, but maybe occasionally, if you like it, so let me know what you think.  Both of today’s episodes are about farm data. This one you’re about to hear is on the economics of farm data with Dr. Terry Griffin, and the next one is on the analytics of farm data with Aaron Gault, which I encourage you to listen to after this one.   I’ve been meaning to bring Dr. Terry Griffin on the show for a long time, because he is not only well-researched and data-driven, but as you’ll hear he’s not afraid to explore ideas that may be somewhat unconventional or even unpopular. Terry is asso

Big shoutout to two new members of the FoA community this week, Italo Guedes and Sara Faivre, thank you both for your involvement and support. If you’d like to support this show and join a community of some really smart people passionate about ag, you can do so at www.patreon.com/agriculture.  For years, I have been on a somewhat public quest to understand regenerative agriculture. Where is the line between regenerative and not regenerative? Are these claims I’m hearing of more profit with very few inputs credible? Where is the science that backs all this up? Where does ag innovation and technology fit into this model? These are just a few of the many questions I have asked. This goes back to episode 44 in 2017, and shows up again and again in episodes 64, 109, 135, 182, 199, 216, 222, and 232...just to name a few. Frankly, I’m often left with more questions than answers. Not because my guests haven’t been forthcoming - they have. I think it’s more due to the fact that it’s more complicated. As my guest on t

Craig Rupp is the CEO and founder of Sabanto. Prior to founding Sabanto he was a cofounder of 640 Labs where FieldView Drive was originally created. The first part of today’s episode will be about Craig’s journey at 640 Labs and its eventual acquisition by Climate Corp. Despite all of these impressive innovations and industry game-changers, that’s not the only thing he joins us to share about today. His current project, Sabanto, is gaining momentum and continuing to develop its autonomous tractors.    “In the last month, I was just amazed as to how mature our software is and how hands-off we have become. The little tractor that we use is very dependable and our software is very mature.” - Craig Rupp   The Sabanto tractors can participate in tillage, cultivation and tine weed and are one of the “hardest working tractors in the US” according to Craig. While initially they required intensive monitoring they have continued to develop and allow for more autonomy. By continuing to develop the technology and all

In recent years, the idea of farmers getting paid based on stewardship has really taken off. Whether that’s the discussion of companies paying for carbon sequestration, soil conservation, water quality or any other number of “ecosystem services”, it seems to be a trend that is not going away any time soon. But how much real demand is there for this vs. just marketing and PR? Obviously, we all want cleaner air and water, but who is lining up to pay for it to create the right incentives to make it happen? And, does this even scale? Jason Weller is the Vice President of Truterra, LLC, the sustainability solutions business of Land O’Lakes Inc.. Many do not know that Land O’Lakes Inc. is one of the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives. Before joining Truterra, Jason served as Chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the nation’s largest working lands conservation organization. That makes him uniquely suited to talk about the role of both public and private sectors in this sustainability conve