Future Of Agriculture

Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/  Blue Ocean Barns: https://blueoceanbarns.com/ Today’s episode features Joan Salwen, co-founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Barns. Joan grew up in the long shadow of her family’s Iowa farm where she harvested cherries and cared for the sheep. During 20 years as a Managing Director at Accenture, Joan managed $50M+ client relationships and led the firm's Atlanta practice for organization and change strategy. In 2015, Joan transitioned to Stanford, where she built a team that energized university, market and government interest in seaweed as a solution to climate change. She founded Elm Innovations, a non-profit platform for exploring the potential of the seaweed-livestock connection and ultimately co-founded the commercial engine for it, Blue Ocean Barns in 2019.  I’m very excited to share today’s episode with you. There is so much here. Not only does this project have incredible

Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ EverAg: https://www.ever.ag/ Dairy.com: https://www.dairy.com/ Prime Future: https://primefuture.substack.com/  Today’s episode is really a unique opportunity to hear from someone who has been working on what it means to digitize agriculture supply chains for over two decades. I can’t think of anyone who better understands the potential here for our industry, but also the reality of the challenges that lie ahead than Scott Sexton of EverAg and Dairy.com. Dairy.com is a leading provider of software, risk management, and market intelligence solutions for the dairy industry. The company was formed in 2000 by investors that included eight of the largest dairy cooperatives, and since that time continued to grow based off just that initial investment and their own earnings until they brought in an outside investor just a few years ago in 2019 and started expanding into some n

Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Jan Willem van Groenigan https://www.wur.nl/en/Persons/Jan-Willem-prof.dr.ir.-JW-Jan-Willem-van-Groenigen.htm Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JWvanGroenigen YouTube videos:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJz4ijSeqjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt77IvHaZuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6em_8iFfKIk  Jan Willem van Groenigan is a professor of Soil Biochemistry at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He is a trained soil fertility specialist, and him and I originally connected about some soil carbon sequestration work that he was a part of. You’ll hear from one of his co-authors about that on a future episode. But when he told me that he was spending a lot of his time these days focused on the role of earthworms in agricultural soils, I knew I had to get him on the show to talk about that topic. He has been a part of several studies on earthworms

Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Innovating Agtech: https://soundcloud.com/user-73017811 SomaDetect: https://somadetect.com/ Books: Adventure Finance, Farm and Other F Words, The Third Plate Today’s featured guest is Hannah Senior. Hannah grew up in a farming community but followed a career into corporate life working with multinational companies, including 5 years with the retailer Tesco.  She completed an MBA at Stanford University before returning to the UK and agriculture, when she acquired PBS International, a company which makes products for plant breeders and seed producers around the world.   She describes her professional expertise as a stool with three legs, spanning agricultural technology, entrepreneurship & plant breeding.  Hannah holds Board and advisory positions with several AgriTech companies including Crop Health and Protection, the UK’s government-backed Agritech centre for Crops,

Thank you to our presenting sponsor Merck Animal Health Ventures! https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Loftus Labs: https://www.loftuslabs.com/ FoA Community: www.Patreon.com/agriculture.  Today’s episode is all about farm business data and analytics. The story is different from others you’ve probably heard about though, in that Loftus Labs is not selling a product. They offer a service to help farmers to build customized processes to gain deeper insights into their unique business. Long time listeners might recall my interest in there being a “Geek Squad for agriculture”, this is like what I had in mind, but actually a lot better.  Patrick Smith and Dan Maycock are two of the co-founders of Loftus Labs. Pat is a fourth generation farmer and the CEO of Loftus Ranches in the Yakima Valley in Washington state. They grow primarily hops and apples, and they are vertically integrated: selling hops to breweries around the world, and packing and marketing apples both in partnership with ot

Thank you to our presenting sponsor Merck Animal Health Ventures! https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Floating Farm: https://floatingfarm.nl/ Vence: https://vence.io/  We have a fascinating story today about the world’s first floating farm. To some of you that may sound far fetched or maybe even like a gimmick, but I assure you it’s anything but. And it can open our minds to new possibilities for what and where a farm can be. Even a livestock farm.  Today's episode features both Peter and Vincent van Wingerden. Peter has a background in engineering and started his company to build large buildings on the water. His experience in New York City in 2013 prompted him to focus full time on the concept of a floating farm. He’ll talk more about that in the moment. Joining Peter is his son Vincent, who also happens to work in agtech with Microsoft. Vincent is a Technical Architect for data and AI and ag is one of the sectors he is working in. It was so great to have both Peter and Vincent o

Thank you to our presenting sponsor Merck Animal Health Ventures! https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Unfold website: https://unfold.ag/ John Purcell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jppurcell/ Unfold Twitter: https://twitter.com/Unfold_Ag  John Purcell, Ph.D. has worked in agriculture for over 30 years, including  long career at Monsanto and then Bayer. For the past dozen or so years before leading Unfold he worked in their vegetable seed division. His earlier work led to innovations for crops such as corn, cotton, and wheat. John earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the USDA before going into industry. He is also part owner of a family ranching operation in Montana.  John started thinking about genetics for vertical farming while still at Bayer, but they decided that the vertical farming industry was so different, it not only needed it’s own products, but it’s own compa

Thank you to our presenting sponsor Merck Animal Health Ventures! https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ StockCropper website: https://thestockcropper.com/ StockCropper YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheStockCropper Zack Smith Twitter: https://twitter.com/zebulousprime Today’s episode really speaks to the core of what this podcast is all about. We look at the current trajectory of where agriculture is headed, identify some of the negative outcomes associated with that trajectory, and explore how people and technology can play a role in creating a better future. I’m excited to share with you today’s conversation with farmer and Stockcropper co-founder Zack Smith. If you’ve listened to the episode with Joe Bassett, or the recent episode with Paul Greive of Pasturebird, or if you spend any time on ag twitter or ag youtube, you probably have an idea of what the StockCropper is all about. But today’s episode goes deeper into why these types of innovations are important. We talk about c

Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ I’m very pleased to welcome the leader of the Merck Animal Health Ventures Team, Stephen Murray, joining me on today’s episode. Originally brought up on a sheep and beef farm in New Zealand, Stephen spent the first part of his career as a dairy veterinarian in that country. He decided to leave private practice for industry, which led him through a series of roles and acquisitions to working for Merck Animal Health in 2011. Stephen built the animal health ventures group from its foundation in 2016 - developing the team, ways of thinking and processes that are needed to invest, partner and work with young technology businesses that are of strategic interest to Merck Animal Health.  Today’s episode covers how an established industry leader embraces technology as a core competency, what the acquisition of Antelliq meant to that end, the role of strategic investors in the early

Today's episode is brought to you by Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ The Yield: https://www.theyield.com/ "From Farms to Incubators" book: https://bookshop.org/books/from-farms-to-incubators-women-innovators-revolutionizing-how-our-food-is-grown/9781610355759  Joining us on today’s show is Ros Harvey, founder and CEO of The Yield, which is an Australian agtech company that focuses on leveraging data science to provide large specialty crop producers with digital playbooks to improve farming operations and supply chains. The Yield is planning an expansion into the U.S. market this year after establishing themselves in Australia over the past seven years. We have an interesting conversation about their approach to farm data, why their playbook is a different approach from other digital ag companies, her thoughts on data ownership, and the need for more holistic approaches to agtech. 

Kristjan Hebert Twitter: https://twitter.com/KristjanHebert Kristjan Hebert website: https://kristjanhebert.com/ Hebert Grain Ventures: https://hebertgrainventures.com/ "Traction" by Gino Wickman "Get a Grip" by Gino Wickman "Rocket Fuel" by Gino Wickman Joining me again on today’s show is Kristjan Hebert. Kristjan is the managing partner of Hebert Grain Ventures (HGV), a 30,000 acre grain and oilseed operation in southeast Saskatchewan. If you listened to the last episode, you already know that this is part two of the interview, and I highly encourage you to go back and listen to part one if you haven’t done so yet. Kristjan talked in that episode about his transition from working in accounting to coming back to his family’s farm, the business principles and processes he has put in place to grow his operation, and a lot of just great business advice relevant to not just farmers, but anyone who is trying to run their business better.    We continue that theme today as we dive into the operating sys

Today's episode is brought to you by Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Kirstjan Hebert: http://www.kristjanhebert.com/ HGV: https://hebertgrainventures.com/ Maverick Ag: https://maverickag.com/ Kristjan Twitter: https://twitter.com/KristjanHebert Joining me on today’s show is Kristjan Hebert. Kristjan is the managing partner of Hebert Grain Ventures (HGV), a 30,000 acre grain and oilseed operation in southeast Saskatchewan. After a brief stint at accounting firm Meyers Norris Penny, he came back to farming with a focus on profitability. He is a graduate of Texas A&M’s The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP), which you will hear reference a couple of times today.  Danny Klinefelter of TEPAP, whose name will also come up in the interview, refers to Kristjan as “one of the most progressive young farmers he knows”. On top of all of that, Kristjan is also the co-founder of online farm labor platform WorkHorse Hub as well as Maverick Ag - providing custom designed lending, accounting, a

Today’s episode is brought to you by Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Suma Reddy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suma-reddy-0285386/ Future Acres: https://www.futureacres.co/ Wavemaker Labs: https://www.wavemakerlabs.com/  JOIN THE FOA COMMUNITY: www.patreon.com/agriculture Joining me on today’s show is Suma Reddy, the co-founder and CEO of Future Acres. Suma’s company builds advanced mobility and AI solutions for farms, starting with a robot called Carry, an autonomous harvest companion that increases production efficiency, improves farmworker safety, and provides real time data and analytics. So think like a fully autonomous cart or wheelbarrow that transports table grapes from where they are picked to where they are loaded out of the vineyard.  We definitely talk more about Future Acres in this episode and Suma’s vision for the intersection of people and technology in agriculture. We also talk about the labor problems that technologies like this help solve. But mostly, we talk about idea

Previous guests featured:  Richard Waite Dan Kittredge Jason Persall Paul Winters Xin Yi Lim Mark Remmert Sarah Mock Join the FoA Community: www.Patreon.com/agriculture For most of the history of industrial agriculture, consumers demanded of the food system four foundational criteria: price, safety, taste and convenience. This has not changed, nor do I have reason to believe it will in the future. What has changed is that we have realized that if we make those our only criteria, we fall victim to a host of other problems: health problems, climate change, environmental degradation, inequities, and unfortunately the list goes on.    New values have emerged from consumers that want more out of our food system beyond just the price, safety, taste and convenience which of course remain vital.  After spending some time reflecting on the past 300 episodes of this show, I’ve compiled a list of seven consumer values that I think will continue to shape the future of the ag industry, and I’ve drawn fr

Pasturebird: www.Pasturebird.com Prime Future newsletter: https://primefuture.substack.com/  Join the FoA Community: www.patreon.com/agriculture  Paul Greive and his in-laws decided to raise 50 chickens in their ¼ acre backyard, when those sold quickly he bought more, eventually becoming the largest pastured poultry producer in the country.  To scale Pasturebird, they built their own automated range coop to autonomously move 6,000 birds to new pasture every day using solar energy. This growth and innovation caught the attention of one of the largest animal protein companies in the country, Perdue Farms, who acquired Pasturebird in 2019. Janette Barnard returns to co-host today’s episode which is an incredible story of entrepreneurship, technology, regenerative farming, and a glimpse into the future of agriculture.  

Farmland LP: https://www.farmlandlp.com/ Join the FoA Community: www.Patreon.com/agriculture  Today’s episode is a unique approach to farmland investing. Farmland LP buys farmland and adds value by doing things like planting higher value crops, converting to certified organic, and implementing regenerative farming practices. The company then leases the land back out to farmers who agree to maintain these practices. Joining us on the show today is Farmland LP founder and managing partner Craig Wichner. Craig founded Farmland LP in 2009 and is responsible for day-to-day management, business strategy and all investment activity. He is a seasoned executive with nearly 30 years of experience building companies and investing.  Craig has also helped to manage his family’s real estate portfolio of apartment buildings for over 25 years. He also serves on the board of BN Ranch, Bill Niman’s successor company to Niman Ranch.  Craig and I have a fascinating and wide ranging conversation about investing in farmland, thei

Leaf Agriculture: https://withleaf.io/ GROWMARK: https://www.growmark.com/ FoA 238: 5 Barriers Limiting Agtech: https://aggrad.libsyn.com/foa-238-5-barriers-limiting-agtech-and-the-companies-breaking-through-them FoA 275: Digital Infrastructure for Ag Supply Chains: https://aggrad.libsyn.com/foa-275-digital-infrastructure-for-ag-supply-chains-with-jake-joraanstad-and-jesse-vollmar-of-bushel  Bailey Stockdale is the CEO of Leaf Agriculture which builds developer tools for agriculture. What that means exactly is what we’re going to spend most of today’s episode talking about, but in the meantime, you can think of them as the company that enables integrations between technology providers so that the user experience is seamless. In other words, technology users will never know they exist. Their customers are technology providers in the industry.  People like Brendan Bachman, who joins Bailey and I on today’s show. Brendan is the Senior Agronomy Technology Manager at GROWMARK/FS, which is one of the largest

FarmRaise: www.FarmRaise.com  Building a startup in ag? Email me: tim@aggrad.com  Support this show and join the FoA community: www.Patreon.com/agriculture    A point we try to drive home as often as possible here is that innovation on its own doesn’t really get anywhere until it can be implemented. For agriculture, that often means that the ideas we talk about here on this show need to actually work for farmers. So for the future of agriculture to be more data-driven or more technological or more regenerative, the tools and practices will have to be executable. And for farmers to find this out, they will need to experiment with them. Which is very risky. Luckily there are programs to help absorb some of that risk. A lot of them involve free money in the way of grants, or very cheap loans. But to access these programs requires an often tedious process of seeing if you are eligible then applying then waiting to hear back then keeping up with the ongoing reporting.  Lowering these barriers is exactly where

Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Support this show: www.Patreon.com/agriculture  Today, I’m excited to bring you an interview with a very interesting company in agtech, and a unique one in many ways. Adam Litle is the CEO of Sound Agriculture. Which is in the “sound science” sense of the word not the audio sense of the word. They have some really interesting scientific approaches to, on one hand, activating beneficial microbes to provide more nutrition to crops. And on the other hand to perform what they call on-demand breeding, which doesn’t actually change the genetics of the crop but blocks expression of certain genes by soaking the seed in a specific protein. Each of these individually is a pretty exciting innovation in agriculture, but I wanted to know where do they intersect? In other words, why is this one business instead of two? We get into that as well as some of the challenges of bringing innovations like this to the market, and much more on today’s episode.  As CEO, Adam leads the compa

Grounded Capital Partners: https://www.groundedcapitalpartners.com/ How would you rate the Future of Agriculture podcast using a scale of conventional (1) to aspirational (10)? Where along that spectrum do you think it should be? Email me at tim@aggrad.com to let me know or send me a DM on Twitter or LinkedIn.  Our guest today, Stephen Hohenrieder was first on the show back in episode 216 to talk about building a more distributed system. It remains one of my most popular episodes, and I still highly recommend it even after you listen to this one. In that interview in 2020, Stephen mentions that he is working on developing a more permanent investment vehicle to carry out some of his investment theses about the future of food. What he was describing is now Grounded Capital Partners, and I wanted to invite him back to talk about his work.  Stephen has over a decade of focus on regenerative food systems, having invested, studied and collaborated across diverse categories of food and agriculture — proteins, fru