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Niqo Robotics: https://niqorobotics.com/
Five Questions About The Ag Robotics Revolution (FIRA USA Takeaways)
Today’s episode was recorded live at FIRA USA in Woodland, California. If you’re not familiar with FIRA it is the premier event for agricultural robotics and autonomous solutions in action. If you’d like more of my reflections and takeaways from the event go back and listen to episode 439.
But I wanted to feature this interview with Jaisimha Rao as a standalone episode for a few reasons: first, I think his story is interesting as a finance guy turned farmer turned agtech founder. He also uncovers some very real insights about agtech that he’s learned over the past 10 years or so in this industry. And they are a great example of an ag robotics company that is making real impact on farms, not just doing demos and talking about what the future might hold. Because what I’ve been most excited about lately is the commercialization of ag robotics and automation.
Walking around FIRA last month, my first reaction was, this all looks really familiar. Most of the technology has either been around a while or it looks a lot like machines that have. So at first glance you might wonder, are we just stagnating? But then you talk to these companies about what they’re doing with the technology. How many farms their working with and how many hours they have under their belt. In Niqo's case it’s over 50 autonomous sprayers running in India that have operated on over 120,000 acres and worked with over 2000 farmers. That is what has me so excited about what’s happening; what’s new - or relatively new, and what’s changing.
NIQO is now not only expanding in India, but also bringing their technology to the North American specialty crop market with their Niqo Robo Thinner which they had on display at FIRA.
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Geco Strategic Weed Management: https://geco-ag.com/
Today’s episode features a new tool in the toolbox for farmers fighting weed pressure. As I’ve had conversations with farmers throughout the country, there is no doubt that the costs of weed control is a major pain point. This takes a lot of different forms, from the hand labor crews in California’s vegetable crops, to herbicide-resistant kochia in the middle of US and Canada to just the sheer cost of chemistry that’s impacting the bottom line of farmers everywhere, it’s certainly an area ripe for solutions.
For the past few years, Dr. Greg Stewart has been working on a very interesting solution to use data to predict weed pressure. This is interesting because it’s addressing a major problem in weed control, but it’s also interesting because it embodies what where we all hope this “ag data revolution” is going: towards predicting problems before we experience them. This opens the door up for more proactive weed management solutions, in some cases before the crop is even planted.
Greg is a listener to the show and he’s heard my requests over the years to not just feature founders of new technology, but also the farmers that are trying the solutions, so he offered to connect me to Rob Stone. Rob was nice enough to join me for a short interview while in the cab of a tractor, so you’ll get his perspective as well. Rob is a customer of Geco and not compensated by them in any way. He was invited on to openly share his experiences.
Let’s dive into things here starting with an introduction to Greg. I’ll introduce rob when we cut to him mid-episode.
Dr. Greg Stewart is the founder and CEO of Geco Strategic Weed Management, who use AI and agronomic modeling for targeted and predictive control of weeds in farm fields. It requires no new equipment or new practices, and the turnaround time for a new farm can happen within a day. Geco is now serving over 60 farms across Western Canada.
Greg’s PhD is in the control of spatially distributed systems. He has worked with a range of industries. His data products reside on farm fields in Canada, US, and South America, in over 12 commercial greenhouses, 350 paper machines, 35,000 production diesel vehicles, and are creating more than $40M/year in value in manufacturing. He holds over 50 patents and 60 technical publications, and is a certified judge for competitive barbecue.
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FIRA USA: https://fira-usa.com/
SwarmFarm Robotics: https://www.swarmfarm.com/
Robotics Plus: https://www.roboticsplus.co.nz/
Bluewhite: https://www.bluewhite.ai/
Agtonomy: https://www.agtonomy.com/
Western Growers' Financial Case Studies: https://www.wga.com/innovation/case-studies/
A couple weeks ago I had the chance to attend FIRA USA, which is the gathering for ag robotics and autonomous equipment in agriculture. And autonomy has been on my mind a lot lately. You’ve seen an uptick in autonomy related episodes this past year or so, featuring companies like Verdant Robotics, Carbon Robotics and Sabanto all on different episodes. The reason for this is I’m definitely getting the sense that many of these solutions are starting to reach a tipping point from “wouldn’t it be cool if” to “this is actually being purchased and used on farms”.
And that’s exciting. So while I was at the event I recorded about a dozen conversations and asked some of the questions I have about what I’m choosing to call the “ag robotics revolution”. What you’ll hear today are clips from four founders who were at FIRA USA to feature their technology.
Andrew Bate of SwarmFarm Robotics
Steve Saunders of Robotics Plus
Ben Alfi of BlueWhite Robotics
Tim Bucher of AgTonomy
I should mention that Tim’s interview didn’t actually happened at FIRA, it happened earlier this year for a series of radio reports, but it really fit the episode and he was at the event I just missed him, so I wanted to include him. That said, I chose these four to feature on this episode for a number of reasons:
They all have some sort of focus on fully automating the power unit of the farm - aka the tractor - although this isn’t their exclusive focus as you’ll hear - but they all are taking different approachesThey are all originally from different countries, which I think really shows the global effort of this industry and the different perspectives that come with that. Andrew at SwarmFarm from Australia, Steve at Robotics Plus from New Zealand, Ben at BlueWhite from Israel, and Tim at Agtonomy from California. They represent the type of people leading this effort in that these are not young (no offense guys) silicon valley types. These are accomplished entrepreneurs and businessmen in their own right who don’t seem to be doing it because they need the money or they want to become billionaires. They really seem to just have a passion for the technology and the change it can bring to the future of agriculture. This to me is at the core of what made the people I interviewed at this event different from other agtech events I’ve been to. That, and the field demonstrations equipped with everything from fake orchards and vineyards to vegetable beds to a field crops area just big enough to showcase John Deere’s see&spray ultimate and its 120 ft carbon fiber boom was what separates this events from other agtech events.I’ll tell you more about each of the guests as we go and share some of my thoughts about robotics and the event, but overall through these four interviews, we had the chance to cover seven of the big questions I have about farm robotics, and i’ll outline those questions here:
Has the ag robotics revolution *really* arrived? What’s driving the push toward -
NuCicer: https://www.nucicer.com/
Growing Pulse Crops Podcast: https://growingpulsecrops.com/
If we were to re-think the food system and start with human nutrition as the goal, we would likely want food ingredients that are affordable, delicious, high in protein and high in fiber. Chickpeas fit the bill.
Kathryn Cook and the team at NuCicer are developing genetics for chickpeas with more protein to make them more functional and appealing to food companies. But can they pass enough of that value back to the growers to scale?
There’s a lot to this story and NuCicer is taking a really interesting approach to creating the rotational crop of the future that is nutritious, delicious, affordable and profitable for farmers.
Today’s episode has a lot of fascinating aspects to it, all of which I think give us some interesting threads to pull on when thinking about where agriculture is headed.
On the surface, NuCicer is crop genetics company working with chickpea, or what some of you might know as garbanzo bean, or others might know just as humus, arguably it’s most popular processed form. The company has been able to take the protein content from 20-22% up to 30-35%, which has major ramifications for its use as a food ingredient. One of those ramifications is the obvious - more protein - but it’s also a tastier source of protein and one that is rich in fiber and has fewer low value co-products, which is an interesting part of the story that we will get into.
If you think this is just another meat alternative story - guess again! This is really about adding protein and fiber to foods that are currently composed of other grains or oilseeds or peas. You’ll hear us use the word “fortify” which is referring to the ability to make a processed food healthier without sacrificing the eating experience.
But while a big part of the story here is using science to make better foods for people, we can’t lose site of the need for this to also work for farmers. Kathryn has a really interesting take on this that you’ll definitely want to hear because it’s a bit of a different approach from a lot of other genetics companies.
Speaking of Kathryn Cook, she is a materials scientist and engineer by training, spending the first part of her career with Boeing and Meta. But she is also the daughter of Dr. Douglas Cook, a professor of plant pathology at UC Davis.
Doug Cook had been working a lot with chickpeas in his research at Davis. The way Kathryn explained it to me is that when the chickpea was domesticated thousands of years ago, only a small number of seeds were brought forward in that process, so today 95% of the genetic diversity remains in the wild species. Doug Cook has been working to identify those species that are compatible with modern chickpea varieties and systematically cross pollinating to bring back some of that genetic diversity. The result is a novel library from which they can now launch new traits in the market. Part of that work started to include protein when they found dramatic difference in protein content in some of these wild species.
This work caught Kathryn’s attention at a time when she was considering leaving her job in materials science to pursue a startup in food and ag. The two ultimately co-founded NuCicer together to commercialize some of this research Doug was doing through a tech transfer agreement with the university. And they soon were awarded a $1M non-dilutive grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to get started.
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ChrysaLabs: https://www.chrysalabs.com/
Today’s episode features Sam Fournier, CEO and co-founder of ChyrsaLabs. I had the chance to briefly meet Sam at World AgriTech. Thank you to Sachi Desai and the Bayer team for the intro. And when I heard what they were doing, I immediately asked if he’d ever be willing to come on the podcast. This idea of providing real time soil information on nutrients has been tried before and as far as I know the tech just hasn’t worked. But ChrysaLabs has been at this since 2018 and have a track record of reliably providing this information, which is something that I think is super exciting for the future of agriculture. I wanted to ask more though about how the tech works, how affordable it could be for farmers and agronomists, what impact this could have on management decisions, and where Sam wants to take the company from here.
For some background: Prior to founding ChrysaLabs in 2018, Sam held strategic positions in the development of smart cities implementation projects, electric recreational vehicles manufacturing and electric vehicle sustainable power plant solutions. He holds a B.A. in political Science from Sherbrooke University and an MBA from Laval University, and is driven by his vision for a more sustainable agriculture ecosystem.
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I’ve never been to space, but it has been said that from outer space there are three man-made technologies visible: the Great Wall of China and electric illumination of the world’s largest cities are the first two. The third are the green crop circles created by center pivot irrigation.
It has been said that the center pivot irrigation system is “perhaps the most significant mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by the tractor”. Today, over 50% of the irrigated field acres in North America are using the center pivot concept. And other modern agricultural countries are catching up, such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
It’s no coincidence that this agricultural technology was invented by someone who farmed on top of the largest aquifer in the western hemisphere: the Ogallala Aquifer which is sometimes called the High Plains Aquifer.
Geologists estimate the aquifer was formed about 5 million years ago by ancient erosion from the Rocky Mountains carried eastward by rivers, along with the additional accumulation of countless rains and snows. It now stretches beneath 174,000 square miles, underlying parts of eight states: South Dakota, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and New Mexico, which makes up most of what we call the great plains.
This area has been the setting for numerous big ag stories over the years, from the great cattle drives of the 1800s that we covered in our Cattle Kingdom episode, to the land grab of the Homestead Act to the dirty thirties of the dust bowl. But there is no doubt that the center pivot was a major game changer, and it allowed the tough settlers of this rough country to turn this desert land into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.
I’ve had the chance to live in two different agricultural areas made possible by the Ogallala aquifer: in the panhandle of Texas where I lived and worked in Amarillo and Dumas, Texas. Then years later I lived in Northwest Kansas where I commuted up to my job in Benkelman, Nebraska. So I’ve been able to see firsthand what this incredible resource can do for farming and for rural economics when combined with the revolutionary ag technology we’ll discuss today: the center-pivot invented by Frank Zybach.
Frank definitely fits my criteria for these history episodes as an ag innovator that I wish I could interview if they were still alive. It highlights the impact innovation can have on the ag economy and carries valuable lessons for all of us aspiring ag innovators out there. But it also is a case study about agricultural sustainability. The aquifer is a limited resource, built from snowmelt coming off the rocky mountains over thousands of years. In the 72 years since Frank Zybach patented his invention, water levels in many parts of the Ogallala Aquifer have dropped drastically, many times larger than what could possibly be replenished.
Resources:
“How Center Pivot Irrigation Brought the Dust Bowl Back to Life” - Smithsonian Magazine
“The Boys from Valley - Frank Zybach” - McCook Gazette
“A History of Irrigation Technology Used to Exploit the Ogallala Aquifer” by Stephen White and David Kromm
Frank Zybach: A man who revolutionized agriculture - INEDA
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Voyage Foods: https://voyagefoods.com/
Jennifer Barney's Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/
I continue to be interested in pursuing episodes that are more on the food side of the industry. I think at first glance some of these stories might make you question whether it really belongs on an agricultural podcast. But I really believe consumer interest and food trends will drive the future of agriculture just as much if not more than any ag technology will. So it’s really important for all of us in agriculture to keep a close watch on these trends and connect the dots about what impact this could have on our industry.
Guest hosting today’s episode is Jennifer Barney. Jennifer has been very generous with her time to bring us several episodes over the years, all focused on food companies. In the past she has featured companies like: Teffola, WonderCow, Alexandre Family Farm, Bibamba, Ugly Fruit Company, Neutral Foods and Seal the Seasons.
She is a successful food entrepreneur, having founded, grown and sold an almond butter company called Barney Butter. Today she works with consumer packaged goods company as a consultant and writes the weekly email newsletter “The Business of Food”.
Jennifer is going to be interviewing Voyage Foods founder Adam Maxwell.
A native of Boston, Adam Maxwell, was drawn to a food career from an early age, pursuing his first professional experience as a 14 year-old pastry apprentice at James Beard award-winning restaurant, Clio. He continued working in fine dining while studying food science at McGill University. But before graduation, Adam left school to work at Chew Innovation Labs. It was there that he met one of his co-founders for Voyage Foods, Kelsey Tenney. After his time at Chew, eh went to work for Endless West, the worlds’ first and only molecular wine and spirits company. His belief that everyone deserves to enjoy their favorite foods without compromising on tastes, the risk of future access or sacrificing dietary needs led him to launch Voyage Foods in 2021.
00:00 Intro
00:31 Meet Adam Maxwell of Voyage Foods
01:20 Introducing Guest Host Jennifer Barney
02:23 Jennifer Barney Interviews Adam Maxwell
03:04 Adam Maxwell's Background and Voyage Foods' Mission
06:49 Innovative Food Processing Techniques
09:55 Sourcing Sustainable Ingredients
13:29 Challenges and Opportunities in Food Tech
17:34 Scaling Up Voyage Foods and Future Plans
33:01 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Dr. Trey Malone Profile: https://ag.purdue.edu/directory/tjmalone#:~:text=Trey%20Malone%20is%20an%20agri,on%20agri%2Dfood%20supply%20chains.
Trey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/treymalone
MS-MBA Joint Degree: https://agribusiness.purdue.edu/degrees/ms-mba/
Dr. Trey Malone is an agri-food economist and the Boehlje Chair in Managerial Economics for Agribusiness in the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University. His work focuses generally on strategic marketing and strategic decision making especially as it relates to what universities can do for industry. He has published over 60 research articles in outlets including Food Policy, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
Before Purdue, he worked as an ag economist with the University of Arkansas, and before that at Michigan State University. His insights have been featured in popular press outlets, including the New York Times, TIME Magazine, CNBC, CNN, USA Today, Fast Company, and Popular Science. And now the Future of Agriculture podcast.
This episode has been a long time in the making. I’ve known Trey, at least from a distance for years. He almost came on the show earlier this year, but then was offered his dream job to move from Arkansas to Purdue so we put it on hold until now. In addition to being an ag nerd, I’ve always had an interest in economics, specifically what drives markets and what drives behavior. I read Freakonomics years ago and am a listener to podcasts like Planet Money. So why it took me so long to realize that what i”m trying to do here with the Future of Agriculture is bring together my science and tech nerdiness with my business nerdiness is beyond me. When I say that this show is really at the core about ag economics, a lot of you long time listeners are probably saying “DUH!”, but to be honest I never consciously thought of it that way.
I share all this with you because I’m hoping this episode is just the start of featuring many other economists. No, i”m not going to stop covering agtech or sustainability or science or the other topics we we cover here on the show. But I do want to make a concerted effort to highlight the interesting work our countries 2,000+ ag economists are doing. And this episode with Trey is a great place to start.
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Farmland LP:
Back on the show today is Craig Wichner of Farmland LP. I had been reading in the news some of the big moves Craig and his team were making to acquire and add value to more farmland. And I thought, wow, this must be a tough environment just based on the prices of some of these specialty crops and the jump in interest rates. But what Craig shared surprised me, and I’m excited to share it with you today.
If you need a little refresher from Craig’s first appearance on episode 298 back in February 2022, here is some background:
Craig founded Farmland LP in 2009 with a simple yet powerful idea: to combine regenerative agriculture with proven real estate management practices from the commercial property sector. Thanks to that approach, Farmland LP is the largest fund manager focused on organic farmland in the U.S., delivering strong financial returns alongside demonstrable environmental and social benefits. Craig is responsible for day-to-day management, business strategy, and all investment activity at the firm.
Craig is an outspoken advocate for verifiable, data-driven standards for sustainable farmland investing so investors and consumers can look beyond misleading labels and support beneficial farming practices.
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Gallagher: https://am.gallagher.com/en-US
I’m pleased to welcome Gallagher Animal Management Chief Executive Lisbeth Jacobs onto the show today. There is nothing like the battle-tested point of view from a company that has been an innovator and market leader for a long time. In Gallagher’s case, it’s in technology for animal management. A quick description from their website: Founded in 1938, Gallagher is now known and respected in over 100 countries as a family-owned business built on customer-led innovation. From the electric fence to the cloud, Gallagher’s connected and customisable ecosystem of solutions empower our customers to work responsibly, productively, and profitably to protect what matters most.
So their customers are ranchers and livestock raisers, particularly those who raise livestock on pastures. And I love the juxtaposition of this pastoral customer grazing livestock like has been done for thousands of years, using the latest technology like virtual fencing which they sell under the brand e-shepherd. Lisbeth and I will talk about e-shepherd specifically, as well as Farmote, which is a joint venture between Gallagher and Barenburg to commercialize technology for automated pasture monitoring.
Lisbeth Jacobs joined Gallagher as Chief Executive - Animal Management in April 2021 and thrives on providing strategic leadership across the global footprint of the Animal Management operations.
Prior to this Lisbeth held senior leadership roles at the leading edge of applied innovation and sustainability with Fletcher Building, Uniservices, The Icehouse, and global steelcord & steelwire company Bekaert where she worked and lived across Europe, China, the Middle East, and North America. Lisbeth holds a PhD of Engineering from the University of Auckland. And her background in both business leadership and engineering both shine through in today’s episode.
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Full Harvest: https://www.fullharvest.com/
Software is Feeding The World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftw
Metal Dog Labs: https://www.metaldoglabs.ai/
I’m really excited to share today’s episode with Christine Moseley. This problem of food waste is one I’ve been interested in since starting this podcast. The first episode I dedicated to the issue was episode 040 clear back in early 2017 with Jonathan Bloom of Wasted Food. Then we’ve had other episodes with people like Olympia Yarger of GOTERRA, Abi Ramanan of Impact Vision, Larry Clarke of Nanoguard and Justin Kamine of Do Good Foods all talking about food waste. And if I’m being honest, I don’t think the needle has moved in how much food gets wasted every year. But I applaud the efforts of all of these people and Christine to take on such a massive and complex problem.
But I won’t be asking the questions today. I’m very pleased to welcome Rhishi Pethe back onto the show to host what I believe is his fifth episode. For anyone who doesn’t know, Rhishi has has extensive experience in artificial intelligence, supply chain & logistics, product, data & technology strategy, robotics & computer vision, sustainability, and data interoperability. He has held leadership roles at Mineral (an Alphabet company), The Climate Corporation (Bayer), Amazon, and other technology companies. He has led two startups through exits, and one through a spin out.
Rhishi is also the creator of the free weekly newsletter “Software is Feeding the World”, which I highly recommend and I will leave a link in the show notes where you can subscribe for free. It is always a please to pass the mic over to Rhishi and I appreciate him hosting Christine today.
And speaking of Christine….Christine Moseley, Full Harvest Founder + CEO, is a passionate serial entrepreneur. At age 17, she started a music education non-profit, Musical Empowerment, which is still growing nationally 16 years later. Currently, at Full Harvest, she is solving the food waste problem at the farm level with technology. Full Harvest is the first B2B platform for surplus and imperfect produce, connecting large farms directly to food & beverage companies.
Christine has over 15 years of experience in the logistics and food industries at both Fortune 100 companies (Maersk, P&G) as well as high-growth food start-ups. In her last corporate role, she assisted Organic Avenue, an NYC healthy food + juice start-up, double in size as Head of Strategic Projects and Business Development.
Christine holds an MBA from Wharton Business School.
Two really smart people talking about one of the greatest challenges our food system currently faces. Enjoy this conversation between Rhishi Pethe and Christine Moseley.
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Ag Done Different Newsletter: https://agtechmarketinginsights.substack.com/
"Reclaim Your Market Power: The Agribusiness Blueprint for Strategic Influence" : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aO__6x2ze9QSe_e7jyWvCKJzh-4-I7yW/view?usp=drivesdk
Schultz Collaborative: https://www.schultzcollaborative.com/
As lead category designer at Schultz Collaborative, Dan Schultz helps agtech companies around the world design their category and think differently about how they commercialize their products.
Dan is vehemently opposed to telling boring stories, sales pitches thoughtlessly read off spec sheets, oversold technobabble, undersold innovation, and venture money wasted on vanity marketing metrics. Dan helps companies stop droning on about incremental improvement and start building movements.
He is the author of the weekly newsletter Ag Done Different. You can read his full weekly newsletter at agtechmarketinginsights.substack.com
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Sabanto: https://sabantoag.com/
FoA 241: From Drives to Driverless with Craig Rupp of Sabanto
I’m really glad to get Craig Rupp back on the show today. Some of you might remember his interview on episode 241, where Craig shared the incredible journey of building 640 Labs which he sold to the Climate Corp and became the FieldView Drive. At that time, we also talked about his newest venture, Sabanto, which is bringing autonomy to agriculture.
Since that episode over three years ago, Craig and the team at Sabanto have evolved their offering from autonomy as a service to a kit that allows dealers and farmers to convert the equipment they already have to include autonomous capabilities. Along with that, they offer a service for remote operating and monitoring, which kind of blows my mind. Craig is hiring a team of remote tractor drivers to monitor several autonomous tractors at once, and we’ll talk a lot about that in today’s episode. Sabanto has also found an interesting niche in sod farmers. They work with farmers across basically all crops, but the amount of passes these sod farmers have to make in a given year, makes an offering like Sabanto has really compelling. This is also an episode about the evolution of on-farm autonomy and what the future might look like as adoption continues to grow.
For a refresher on Craig’s bio:
Raised on a farm in Iowa, Craig Rupp started his career in 1988 as a hardware engineer at Motorola, designing and developing the first GSM and Iridium mobile stations and John Deere in 2002, developing the Starfire receiver and Greenstar display.
In 2012, Craig founded 640 Labs, envisioning a simple iPad as a data collection and monitoring device for agriculture. Acquired by Monsanto in 2014, he made his FieldView Drive one of the most ubiquitous and low-cost data collection devices in agriculture.
In 2018, Craig founded Sabanto, a company that provides autonomous solutions for agriculture. He was the first to autonomously plant a farmer’s field in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and Indiana.
I really enjoy whenever I get a chance to talk to Craig, his intelligence and real world experience comes through in the wisdom that he shares.
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Terviva: https://terviva.com/
Today’s episode is long overdue. For the past 15 years, today’s guest: Naveen Sikka, has been working to commercialize the pongamia tree. There are several things that are special about this emerging crop. First, it’s a legume, so like soybeans, peas, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, the plant forms symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, so in short, it can fix its own nitrogen from the atmosphere. Although the crop does still require some fertilizer - just a fraction of what is required for a lot of other crops. Also like other legumes, the beans are very high in oil and protein. But unlike those crops it’s a tree, which can have benefits in terms of productivity, soil health, and adaptability to certain parts of the world. So you have this supertree, that is a nitrogen fixer that is a perennial and adapted to both periods of flooding and periods of drought, and most of all it produces a versatile and nutrient dense crop. Naveen’s going to share a whole lot more about pongamia, but I wanted to start with answering, why is all of this effort worthwhile?
And it is indeed a lot of effort. Naveen and his team are having to attack this from every angle to turn this tree into a viable commercial crop: developing genetics, growing practices, markets, processing, attracting interest from farmers, and educating potential consumers just to name a few. But they’re making real progress, and I find their commitment to the cause to be inspiring and certainly helpful to all of us hoping to make real contributions to the ag industry.
To give you his formal bio here before we jump in: Naveen Sikka is the founder and CEO of Terviva, an agricultural innovation company partnering with farmers to grow pongamia, a climate-resilient tree which helps to reforest land and revitalize communities. Under his leadership, Terviva has unlocked pongamia’s potential as a super tree capable of providing meaningful climate-change solutions. After more than a decade of innovation, Terviva has established an equitable and transparent supply chain where they harvest and transform pongamia beans into bioenergy and sustainable food ingredients called Ponova®.
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BovEye: https://boveye.com/
Flyover Whiskey: https://flyoverwhiskey.com/
FarmAfield: https://www.farmafield.com/
Andrew Minarick tells Tim about his latest company, BovEye, which is using computer vision and AI for remote livestock verification. As you’ll hear this is extremely important to his customer base which is not producers, but instead agricultural lenders. We also talk about his experiences in starting Flyover Whiskey, working for FarmAfield, getting his MBA at Stanford, and more. Cool stuff all the way around and a very fun conversation for me.
Andrew grew up on a small ag operation in North Bend, NE and has worked as an engineer and operator across a number of early-stage AgTech ventures, with a current focus on livestock production and financing technologies. He holds a B.S. in Biological Systems Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was a member of the Engler Entrepreneurship program and holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Andrew lives in Omaha, NE where he serves as the Founder/CEO of BovEye.
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In this unique solo episode, Tim Hammerich shares his framework for thinking about the future of agriculture. Drawing inspiration from a recent keynote at the 4th annual Soybean Research Forum and Think Tank, Tim discusses the rationale behind the podcast and shares the four key questions (plus a bonus) that guide his exploration into agricultural innovation.
00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast
00:36 Inspiration from a Recent Keynote
01:49 Reflecting on the Podcast's Journey
04:26 Challenges in Discussing the Future of Agriculture
08:31 Framework for Thinking About the Future of Agriculture
09:38 Current Trends and Historical Insights
12:20 Innovations on the Fringes
13:43 Considering Unpredictable Changes
18:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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PURIS: https://www.puris.com/
Growing Pulse Crops Podcast: https://growingpulsecrops.com/
Nicole Atchison is the CEO of PURIS Holdings, a vertically-integrated plant-based food company that operates from field to fork in primarily yellow peas. Nicole leads the agriculture side of the business, including contracting with growers, seed development and breeding, and innovation in product development. Her brother Tyler leads the ingredient side of the business. PURIS operates throughout the entire supply chain from developing genetics to developing new markets.
“So if you're making a high protein cereal, you need a different pea protein than if you're making a plant-based beverage, which is still using a pea protein. But those two pea proteins are slightly different. And that's really the innovation that we do on our processing side, is we create these different proteins with different functionalities so that they can work in these different applications.” - Nicole Atchison
Atchison describes the wet protein processing they are using that provides a unique protein stream with a lot of potential for furthering plant-based protein production. She sees potential for pulse proteins in providing protein sources for both consumer beverages and medical nutrition. As they ramp up production, PURIS Holdings is also active in ongoing efforts to regulate the impact of foreign pulse crop processing and imports affecting both global and domestic markets.
“I'm a huge advocate for pulse based ingredients because I do think that as much as we want and encourage people to have and eat whole pulses, that's not where the American consumer is today. We like convenient foods, packaged and processed. That's where our market is. And so we need to be able to drive these crops into those channels as well and that's why processing is so critical to the market.” - Nicole Atchison
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Syngenta: https://www.syngenta.com/en
[Soil Sense Podcast] Soil Health Assessment with Jordon Wade, Ph.D.
FoA 364: Supporting Soil Health with Dr. Steve Rosenzweig and Dr. Abbey Wick [Soil Sense Crossover]
Future of Agriculture 123: Nerding Out About Soil Health with Dr. Abbey Wick of North Dakota State University
Future of Agriculture 162: Cannabis Inputs with Dr Colin Bell of Mammoth Microbes
Really excited this week to bring Dr. Matt Wallenstein onto the show. Matt is the Chief Soil Scientist for Syngenta Group, where he leads their efforts to enable farmers around the world to improve their productivity and profitability through science-based innovation through soil health. Part of that team is my good friend and co-host of the Soil Sense podcast Dr. Abbey Wick, who you’ve heard on this show in the past. As well as Dr. Jordan Wade, who was a guest on a very fascinating episode of Soil Sense a year or so ago that I’ll have to link to in the show notes because it’s a great one. Anyway, so Matt’s putting together this dream team of soil scientists and I had to bring him on the show to figure out what I can about what they’re up to.
Prior to joining Syngenta in 2022, he was a professor and department head of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. His research focused on how the soil microbiome interacts with plants and the environment. He also co-founded a startup called Growcentia, which commercialized a phosphorus solubilizing microbial consortia developed in his academic lab and went on to develop other biostimulants. A cool connection there is one of Matt’s co-founders at Growcentia was actually on this show five years ago. I didn’t know Matt at the time so that’s more of a coincidence than anything else, but that’s episode 165 if you want to find that deep track.
Anyway, i’ll drop you into today’s conversation when Matt is telling me what attracted him to this position, even though he already had a startup and a thriving career at Colorado State when he decide to make the leap two years ago to Syngenta.
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FarmTest: https://farmtest.ag/
Iowa Nitrogen Initiative: https://www.agron.iastate.edu/portfolio/iowa-nitrogen-initiative/
Today’s episode is a really unique concept and potential game-changer for how we think about on-farm technology, management practices and research. Historically, universities and agribusinesses would conduct randomized controlled trials for the best data on how products work. But these trials are limited on where they can take place and how many replications could take place, so when a farmer says “what about MY field and MY management?” it’s not surprising that the bottom line comes down to: your results might vary. But we don’t know for sure or by how much.
But with advancements in technology, why can’t every field include some sort of trial to understand how that product is performing? This has been done in the past with check strips that a farmer would plant as sort of a control, but this is far from precise or scientific.
It just so happens that Nick Cizek is a bit of an expert in precision measurement and experimentation design, and he has created in FarmTest a way from farmers, their advisors, input companies and researchers to run real experiments on farm without interfering with a farmers operation. They are essentially increasing the scientific rigor of on-farm trials while removing the hassle factor. And today we talk to Nick about that as well as a user of the product: Dr. Mike Castellano of Iowa State University and the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative which conducted 270 unique on-farm trials last year to analyze nitrogen applications. He says that current university nitrogen recommendations are very coarse and really only differ based on broad geographies and whether the crop is after corn or soybeans, but with this data they are already finding consistently predictable differences in fertilizer requirements based on other important factors like soil type, crop residue management, and drainage.
This has big ramifications not just for research but for optimizing individual farm management practices and determining which inputs and technologies should be utilized and where and how much. Obviously this also could be very handy for input companies to more accurately represent their products because in agriculture the honest answer to “does it work?” is “it depends.”
Nick Cizek is an applied physicist specializing in precision measurement (Ph.D. Stanford). Before founding FarmTest in 2019, he worked for 4.5 years at The Climate Corporation / Monsanto / Bayer Crop Science. Specifically, he led teams designing and executing in-field trials to measure the performance of advanced nitrogen management systems. He initially joined Climate to help design and deploy a sensor network to collect local data to improve the value of their predictive agronomic optimization models. FarmTest envisions a future where all farms optimize their management practices based on statistically rigorous in-field performance data.
FarmTest builds software tools to automate on farm performance testing on commercial farms. We help researchers and growers design and analyze statistically robust field trials using commercial farm equipment. We make this easy by embedding product trials in variable rate prescriptions that account for all the nuances of each growing operation's fields, equipment, and management practices, and all the randomization, replication, and blocking needed for a statistically sound trial that produces a usefully small least significant difference.
Dr Mike Castellano’s work aims to increase the productivity, profitability, and environmental performance of crop production. To achieve these outcomes, he uses a systems approach and strong...
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Cultura Technologies: https://culturatech.com/
Metal Dog Labs: https://www.metaldoglabs.ai/
Software Is Feeding The World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftw
If there’s been a theme on this show over the past few months, it’s what does tech collaboration look like? Is it lip service or will it lead to real outcomes? You’ve heard from Lawrence King, Claudia Roessler, Mark Pendergrast, Jim Ethington and others all talking about this. Today, we hear from another leader who has proven experience in agtech collaboration, Jeff Schreiner.
Jeff is the senior vice president of global collaboration at Cultura Tech, a company that has acquired technology companies focused on agriculture across the value chain. Jeff is interviewed by Rhishi Pethe in today’s episode about collaboration, data, regulation, and the future of agriculture.
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