Future Of Agriculture

Put AI to work on your farm: https://farmwave.io/Advancing Eco Agriculture: https://www.advancingecoag.com/AEA's Equity Crowdfunding Campaign: https://wefunder.com/advancingecoagRegenerative Agriculture Podcast: https://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/John Kempf on Twitter: https://twitter.com/realJohnKempfToday’s episode will challenge several commonly held assumptions about the future of agriculture. Take regenerative agriculture, which most define by the ability to improve soil and sequester carbon. But these are outcomes, even by-products, not the complete definition of regenerative, says John Kempf. John is a leading crop health consultant and the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture. He designs innovative soil and plant management systems to help growers realize the benefits of regenerative transition right away. We talk about what it means to be regenerative, the results they’ve seen from working with over 10,000 farmers across 4M acres, why they’ve launched an equity crowdfunding campaign and

Put AI to work on your farm: https://farmwave.io/Paine Schwartz Partners: https://paineschwartz.com/Today’s episode features Kevin Schwartz of Paine Schwartz Partners. This is a really interesting look at the food and ag industry from a totally different perspective. Kevin and his team are investors, but they’re not trying to invest in early stage startups like a venture capitalist would, or into farmland like other investors might. They focus on companies that already have proven their product, but for one reason or another might be looking to sell or take on an investor. Paine Schwartz Partners focuses their investing in these companies into two general categories: productivity - which includes seed and other inputs and technologies that help farmers and ranchers produce more efficiently and profitably. You’ll hear Kevin use the word “upstream” a lot, and he means upstream in the value chain, so these types of companies/products and services. Then their second area of investing is further downstream in

Put AI to work on your farm: https://farmwave.io/Farming Without The Bank: https://www.farmingwithoutthebank.com/"Becoming Your Own Banker" by R. Nelson NashFarming Without The Bank PodcastMary Jo Irmen is the author of the book Farming Without the Bank and a Infinite Banking Concept Practitioner who has set out to change how the farming industry is financed. She has helped farmers for 13 yrs see that there are financial solutions for them and the next generations. Mary Jo's mission is to take a 100 year old financial process and turn it around by making the bank plan B rather than plan A, give farmers back control, and allowing the next generation to take over without having to buy the farm from the bank with each generation.It’s important for me to note here, that I’m coming to this interview with a personal interest in this infinite banking concept. I’m not a farmer, but I see where it might be a good addition to my personal wealth-building strategy, and I also see where people who rely on banking even mor

Put AI to work on your farm: https://farmwave.io/Follow Farmwave and Craig on TwitterFoA 237: Use Cases for Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture with Craig Ganssle of Farmwave: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-237-use-cases-for-artificial-intelligence-in-agriculture-with-craig-ganssle-of-farmwaveToday's episode features Farmwave's harvest loss system, some broader perspective on artificial intelligence in agriculture, and how to build an agtech company that adds real value to farmer customers. Farmwave founder and CEO Craig Ganssle is my guest today. Craig first appeared on the show back in episode 237 in late 2020, where we talked a lot about Craig’s military and technology background and how he has applied it in agriculture. Today, we focus on creating real value for farmer customers, the role of artificial intelligence, and the journey of a successful agtech entrepreneur. If you’re still a little fuzzy on what Farmwave does, the most succinct way to sum it up is to say that they’ve built an au

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/"The Alchemy of Air" by Thomas HagerFoA 325: Electrified and Distributed Fertilizer Production with Nico Pinkowski of NitricityFoA 337: Synthetic biology for nature-based and data-driven farming with Travis Bayer and Adam Litle of Sound AgricultureFoA 348: Investing in the Future of Fertilizer with Sarah Nolet of Tenacious VenturesFoA 370: [History of Agriculture] William J Morse, the Father of the US Soybean IndustryWe learned in elementary school that soil, water and sunlight were what plants needed to survive. But for us to produce not just plants, but also food; food for billions of people, many of which live far away from the farm….we need fertilizer. Especially nitrogen. Lots and lots of nitrogen. Crops need other nutrients as well, but none are more essential than nitrogen. Before the 1900s, that nitrogen mostly came from manure or compost, or the very slow process of microbes that are able to fix small quantities of nitrogen from the air. And that

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Claire Taylor: https://www.nuffieldscholar.org/scholars/2023/claire-taylorClaire Taylor grew up on a small beef farm on the west coast of Scotland and went on to study Politics and International Relations at Edinburgh University. She is a passionate storyteller and writer, with almost a decade of experience working with the BBC and the Scottish Farmer – first as a reporter and later as political editor.Claire and I discuss her current pursuit: to travel the world in order to understand what she calls the anti-farming agenda, and learn what it means to have productive and honest conversations about the future of farming. Be sure to stick around to the end of today’s episode for a spotlight segment with Ohio farmer and United Soybean Board vice chair Steve Reinhard. What do you think? Do you think there really is an anti-farming agenda out there? And if so, what needs to be done to turn the tide on that? I’m always glad to hear from you either on Twitter or the contac

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Fractal Agriculture: https://fractal.ag/Ben Gordon is the founder and CEO of Fractal Agriculture, a passive farmland investment partner that invests alongside farmers rather than competing against them for land. After serving as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, Ben worked in ag tech, management consulting, and private equity due diligence before his most recent role leading Corteva Agriscience’s carbon program. Kyle Mehmen is a partner at MBS Family Farms, a successful family-owned, family-operated corn and soybean operation in Plainfield, Iowa. Kyle and his family are ardent stewards of their land, leaning into sustainability balanced with profitability.I’ve had the opportunity to interact with both Ben and Kyle in different capacities throughout the years. I worked with Ben’s team at Corteva to host some webinars last year on soil health, and Kyle was featured on this show as part of our Farm Data series with INTENT back on episode 226. So it was fun to

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Soy Innovation Challenge: https://www.thesoychallengelive.com/Farmer Coach: https://farmercoach.ca/Maverick Ag: https://maverickag.com/Hebert Grain Ventures: https://hebertgrainventures.com/FoA 302: Farm Business Strategy with Kristjan HebertFoA 303: Implementing a Farm Operating System with Kristjan HebertEvan Shout is the president and co-founder of Maverick Ag, a business consulting and risk management firm in Western Canada. He also sits as president, co-founder, and lead coach at Farmer Coach, an education and coaching program for primary producers in both Canada and the US. These organizations fall under the Hebert Group of Companies, which also includes Hebert Grain Ventures, a 30,000-acre grain and oilseed operation in southeast Saskatchewan, where Evan sits as Chief Financial Officer.I had the privilege of hosting Evan’s business partner, Kristjan Hebert on the show last year back in episodes 302 & 303. Those were very popular episodes about farm strate

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/More About Jim Rogers: https://www.jimrogers.com/Today’s episode features Jim Rogers. I will first admit that this episode is pretty selfish. I found Jim’s books, particularly “Investment Biker” “Adventure Capitalist” and “Hot Commodities” in college when I was trying to figure out where my interests were and where I might like to start my career. I already had an interest in agriculture, international travel, and investing, so they had a huge impact on me. In fact, I decided to start my career in commodities in no small part because of his writing. So, when I had the chance to interview him on his thoughts about the world generally, I jumped at it. This one might be a bit different from our normal content because Jim is looking at broader economic and geopolitical drivers from an investor perspective and not so much as a “ag person” but I think his perspective is extremely valuable. The other reason this one might be a little bit different is I couldn’t help but be

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Prime Future Newsletter: https://primefuture.substack.com/Leachman Cattle of Colorado: https://leachman.com/URUS: https://www.urus.org/In agriculture, we have exponentially more examples of people collecting data than we do of people using data to unlock real value supported by real dollars. Cattle genetics company Leachman Cattle is one of those few who demonstrated the ability to do just that. "You know, we kinda had set our own course to analyze our own data, to gather our own data to store it. And that's just been part of our model. It certainly wouldn't have been the cheapest route to go. But if you go the cheapest route, which is you put your data in a breed association, then we wouldn't have had any proprietary data or indexes. And I think it is that information and the way we use that information that. That led to the opportunity that we had to do business with URUS."That’s Lee Leachman, and Uris, who he mentioned there at the end, just agreed to acquire a

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Canopy Farm Management: https://canopyfm.com/Savanna Institute: https://www.savannainstitute.org/Kevin Wolz and I talk about the fundamentals of agroforestry, their potential in the midwest, what these systems look like, and the barriers and opportunities to agroforestry becoming a bigger part of the future of agriculture, especially in the midwest where Kevin is focused. In 2013, Kevin co-founded the Savanna Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting perennial and tree-based regenerative agriculture systems. Under Kevin’s leadership, the Institute quickly gained recognition for its transformative research, education, outreach, and breeding efforts.Kevin is also the CEO of Canopy Farm Management. He is leading that company to drive innovation in tree establishment and management via a mobile fleet of state-of-the-art farm equipment, appropriate automation, and holistic strategies for tree-crop integration. Make sure you stay

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Dr. Paige Stanley's website: https://paige-stanley.com/FoA 222: Digging Deeper Into Regenerative Agriculture with Paige Stanley: https://future-of-agriculture.captivate.fm/episode/foa-222-digging-deeper-into-regenerative-agriculture-with-paige-stanleyMetrics, Management, and Monitoring (3M) Project: https://www.noble.org/3m/Dr. Paige Stanely is an interdisciplinary scientist working to understand how grazing management can sequester carbon in soils to help mitigate climate change and build more resilient rangeland ecosystems. She draws on a wide range of disciplines including soil biogeochemistry, grazing and rangeland ecology, agroecology, rancher sociology, and political ecology to approach research questions holistically. Paige is particularly interested in the use of “regenerative grazing” (or adaptive multi-paddock grazing) by ranchers on rangelands -- a form of high-intensity, short duration grazing with potential for increasing soil C sequestration.We really

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Sustain-A-Grain: https://www.sustainagrain.com/The Land Institute: https://landinstitute.org/Today’s episode features Peter Miller and Brandon Schlautman, Ph.D. of Sustain-A-Grain. Sustain-A-Grain has a two-part mission: to introduce consumers to Kernza® perennial grain and to support family farms in growing Kernza®. The team has been growing Kernza® themselves for nearly 5 years in close collaboration with The Land Institute—where Kernza® was first developed. They are certified seed dealers, handlers, and growers, and they work with dozens of farmers across the Great Plains to grow and market their grain. They also work with food companies, restaurants, breweries, and distilleries to source high-quality Kernza®. This is an interesting episode about the potential for perennial grains, and what it takes to commercialize a brand new crop. The problems are different that what you would expect. For example, Kernza® has received a ton of press and excitement from so

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Perry Agricultural Laboratory: http://www.perryaglab.com/FoA 370: [History of Agriculture] William J Morse, the Father of the US Soybean IndustryJoining me today is the Chair of the United Soybean Board, Meagan Kaiser. Meagan has an impressive background growing up in agriculture and pursuing a degree in Soil Science from the University of Missouri. This set her up to join her family’s soil laboratory business, Perry Agricultural Laboratory which has been around for forty years based in Northeast Missouri. She is now a soil scientist and the chief operating officer for that business, and at the same time she farms with her husband, Mark, on the other side of the state in northwest Missouri. We will certainly talk about soil and about farming in today’s episode, but she’s here in another capacity, as the chair of the United Soybean Board, where she leads a group of 77 farmers who share one goal: to increase return on investment for US soybean farmers. It was a t

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/FieldClock: https://www.fieldclock.com/Sometimes in agtech we get a little too focused on solutions that are still years away from reaching widespread adoption, and overlook providing practical solutions for today’s problems on the farm. Joshua Farray is the CEO of FieldClock which helps track and manage farm labor. They’re a great example that ag technology doesn’t have to mean big venture capital bets on a world that’s drastically different than it is today. Through their customer-focused approach, FieldClock has remained laser-focused on helping farmers and farmworkers with very practical tasks like clocking in and out, getting paid properly for piecework, and keeping compliant with labor regulations. Joshua has a family history in the produce trade, and that’s also where he started his career. But int 2011 he decided to get into tech, and helped a lot of people in his network modernize their business through technology. His network was mostly made up o

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Alexandre Family Farm: https://alexandrefamilyfarm.com/The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/Today's episode features Blake Alexandre of Alexandre Family Farm. Blake is based in Crescent City, California on the far north coast of California. He and his wife Stephanie have been dairying there for over 31 years, and has raised five children who have started coming back to the family operation full time. They have been an organic dairy for about 25 of those 31 years, and in 2017 they started selling dairy products under their own brand, which is Alexandre Family Farm. There’s a whole lot more to the story, but he tells it much better than I do. This story was put together by my guest co-host for today’s episode, Jennifer Barney. As you might recall from previous episodes, Jennifer is a consumer-packaged goods (CPG) expert who lives in the Central Valley of California and got her start in the food industry 16 years ago when she founde

Soy Checkoff: https://www.unitedsoybean.org/Soy Info Center: https://www.soyinfocenter.com/Studying the past is one of the most important activities for not only gaining perspective on the current state of the industry, but also to zoom out and get a better vantage point on where things may go from here, and what factors may drive it in that direction. That’s why, perhaps ironically, studying the history of agriculture is essential for a podcast that claims to be about the future of agriculture. Plus, I think most of you are just a little bit nerdy about agriculture like I am and enjoy knowing more about its history.One of the things that has held me back from ever trying one of these episodes is that I worried it could very easily become a boring lecture of random facts and names and dates that didn’t really provide the real context I was hoping to provide. So I wondered, “what is the FoA approach to learning more about the history of agriculture?” And I came up with this: I’ll focus on a specific person who

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comINTENT: https://intent.ag/Randy Barker is the CEO of INTENT, an Agricultural Company focused on the use of technology to accelerate new innovations in agriculture. Randy is the co-founder of the business which draws on his vast global experience in launching agricultural technologies in over 30 countries over the past 25 years. INTENT serves a wide range of customers from startups to multinationals in their quest to improve adoption using data science & digital technologies.Long time listeners might recall hearing previous episodes with Randy and others from INTENT here on this show. They started the company around the same time this podcast started I believe, and we’ve always been really aligned in the mission to try to accelerate innovation, so it has been really cool to watch their development. Today, Randy gives an update on the company as they’ve evolved from managing farmer trials to offering a suite of digital sol

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comCorteva Agriscience: https://www.corteva.com/Replenish Nutrients: https://replenishnutrients.com/Today’s episode features Brian Lutz. Brian leads the Farming Solutions & Digital sub-function within the Research & Development organization for Corteva Agriscience.  In his role, Brian is responsible for the development of digital solutions that support the R&D pipeline and enable Corteva’s business.  Brian joined Corteva in 2021 in the Portfolio Strategy Program Management role and continues to contribute to the company’s long-term strategic planning.Brian and I talk about the role of digital tools in the future of agriculture. No, not another app or piece of software farmers are expected to use, but how a company like Corteva can leverage these tools internally to produce superior products and outcomes for farmers. Through this discussion we cover a variety of important topics, such as farmer data, biolog

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comAgGateway: https://aggateway.org/Today’s episode features Jeremy Wilson of AgGateway. Jeremy has been a passionate advocate and catalyst for digital connectivity throughout his professional agriculture career, working within organizations serving farmers including crop insurance, data collection and analysis, systems development, and field agronomy as a consultant for three decades. Leading up to his current role at AgGateway, Wilson was a highly active participant for more than a decade on some of the organization’s most important connectivity projects and volunteer leadership roles, including chairman of the Precision Ag Council and the SPADE project. He also served as chairman of AgGateway’s Board of Directors. Jeremy says his other real passion outside of ag data is farming, and he continues to operate the 800-acre family grain farm he was raised on near Olney, IL. Helpful to know before we dive in is a little bit m