Future Of Agriculture

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comFyto: https://www.fyto.us/It’s not every day that we get to feature a promising new crop on this show. Especially one uniquely suited to convert dairy manure into a high quality protein-rich and palatable feed. Jason Prapas is the founder and CEO of Fyto, which is pioneering the commercial production of aquatic plants that are not only nutritious for animal feed, but also highly productive. But to truly make their mark on agriculture, Fyto will need to scale. Are aquatic plants the answer for converting waste into animal feed? Fyto’s Jason Prapas has the answer on today’s Future of Agriculture podcast. Jason and I are going to discuss the systems they are developing to commercially grow aquatic plants. Now, we are not talking about algae here. As Jason will explain, their focus right now is growing a very small plant that’s commonly referred to as duckweed. Fyto is in the process of setting up their systems on

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comFeedlot Health by TELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods: https://www.feedlothealth.comTELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods: https://www.telus.com/agcg Over the past five years or so, a Canadian telecommunications company has established themselves as a major player in agtech. Telus Agriculture has acquired a number of agricultural technology companies including Feedlot Health Management Services. Tye Perrett is the general manager of services and pharmaceutical supply at what is now Feedlot Health by Telus Agriculture and Consumer Goods. They are one piece of an overall strategy to optimize the food value chain through connected data from farm to fork. This is an ambitious vision, but Telus likely has the resources and patience to see it come to fruition.  Tye and I will talk about Feedlot Health specifically, both before and after the acquisition by Telus. We’ll also learn a little bit more about Telus’ o

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comNorm: https://www.fbn.com/norm Farmers Business Network: https://www.fbn.com/Today's episode features Kit Barron and Charles Baron of Farmers Business Network. However, today's episode is not about Kit or Charles as much as it is about Norm, FBN's AI-powered Ag advisor tool that they launched just weeks ago, but already has me fascinated about the potential impact on the future of agriculture. Charles has been on the podcast before, but it was clear back on episode 75, which aired in October of 2017. In that episode he provided a lot of the basics of Farmers Business Network which was founded in 2014, and is best known as a farmer-to-farmer network and e-commerce platform. Kit Barron has worked with farm data for a very long time with familiar names such as The Climate Corporation and FarmTogether. He now serves as the Head of Data Science and Analytics for FBN. Charles, Kit and I talk a lot about Norm, the potenti

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comBibamba: https://bibamba.com/ The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/  Mara and Patrick Tcheunou live in Denver, Colorado. In 2015, they decided to buy a farm in Cameroon where Patrick is originally from to grow cacao.Their first harvest was ready to go in 2020 - the year the pandemic started and the world changed. Circumstances pushed Mara and Patrick into creating their own unique single-source product line of premium chocolates, which they branded Bibamba. So how did they overcome all of the many challenges of creating this full value chain from scratch? And what are the pros and cons of living in the US while operating a farm in a country like Cameroon? The fascinating story of a young chocolate company on today's future of agriculture podcast.

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.comTruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture: https://www.truleaf.ca/ Goodleaf Farms: https://www.goodleaffarms.com/ Today’s episode features Jeff McKinnon of TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture. Jeff and I have a really frank conversation about the current state of controlled environment agriculture. He holds nothing back in talking about the industry’s struggles, but also about why he is still more bullish than ever about what they’re doing to provide local, fresh, indoor-grown produce. He also has some interesting ideas about other products that might be uniquely suited for these growing systems, and some great insights into the current state of fundraising and venture capital. Some background on Jeff: he has been working in senior financial Leadership roles over the past 18 years within a variety of sectors including financial services, real estate, retail and food & beverage.Jeff has always been active in the start-up to growth

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: http://www.calgaryagbusiness.comEdgar's Feed and Seed: https://www.edgarsfeedandseed.ca/I know many of you are entrepreneurial. Maybe you’ve dreamed about starting a company. But there are many established companies that are looking for their next owner. In 2013, at the age of 23, Elliott and Rebecca Miller acquired Edgar’s Feed and Seed in Ontario, Canada. Through a good relationship with the previous owner, Elliott and Rebecca were able to utilize seller financing to buy the local ag retail company. Now after 10 years of ownership, they’ve been able to not only keep it afloat but to grow and expand. In 2013 at the age of 23, Elliott and Rebecca, purchased a business, got married, and bought a farm. That’s a busy year! The business they bought is Edgar’s Feed and Seed, which today offers retail products for livestock and agronomic services for a wide range of crops. They’ve also started carrying frozen meats, cheeses and other specialty pantr

Find out how Calgary is leading the agribusiness revolution: http://www.calgaryagbusiness.comElevate Agronomics: https://www.elevateagronomics.com/Today’s episode features Trent Kubik of Elevate Agronomics. In 2020, Trent and his brother Troy purchased a long-standing seed business in Winner, SD named Winner Seed.  From this purchase, their new company Elevate Agronomics was born.  Along with the robust offering of seed and seed cleaning that the business already had, they added on chemicals, starter fertilizers, livestock supplements, Precision Planting planter enhancements, as well as other misc agricultural products.  Shortly after their acquisition, they took over operations of a similar business in a neighboring town and expanded their footprint which services out of two locations.  Currently they sell products into 10 counties in South Dakota and Nebraska.You’re going to hear about what led to finding this business opportunity for them to acquire, how they lined up their financing,

Try Acres for Free: https://www.acres.co/FoA 334: Cybersecurity in Agribusiness with Mike Moore of Ever.AgFoA 310: Investment Models with Hannah Senior of Innovating AgtechFoA 351: Agritourism and Adding Value on the Farm with Allan RobinetteFoA 355: Tule Technologies Acquired by CropX with Tom Shapland and John GatesFoA 301: Funding Innovation for Agriculture, People, and Planet with Suma Reddy of Future AcresSeven business opportunity ideas i've been thinking about lately: Security: Data security, cybersecurity, farm/ranch/rural crime securityAcquiring small/medium sized ag-related businessesPremium produceFarmer feedback and on-farm validationSoftware/outsourcing of farm regulatory/compliance Commercialization of university tech transferVenture studio in partnership with established industryBonus: independent education/analysis/insights of farmland investments: platforms, REITs, syndicates, physical deals, etc.Plus, a spotlight segment featuring David Gorder!

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/Tule Technologies: https://tule.ag/CropX: Today’s episode features Tom Shapland of Tule Technologies and John Gates of CropX. We have a great episode for you talking about Tule’s technology, Tom’s entrepreneurial journey, The decision on both sides for Cropx to acquire Tule, M&A in agtech and integration lesson, and the future of artificial intelligence in agtech. Tom is the co-founder and CEO of Tule Technologies, which is now part of CropX. As a graduate student at UC Davis, Tom developed the underlying technology that Tule commercialized which is a way to measure water use of crop plants over a broad area. Specifically they measure actual crop evapotranspiration or ET and he’ll talk a lot more about that. He founded Tule in 2013 after finishing his PhD work in this area. He went out and started talking to customers and getting sales early, which you’ll find is an important part of his entrepreneurial journey. Him and his co-founder Jeff LaBarge went the Y C

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/AGvisorPRO: https://getagvisorpro.com/Today’s episode features AGvisorPRO CEO Robert Saik. Rob is a well-known outspoken champion of agriculture, a Distinguished Agrologist, Professional Agriculture Consultant, and a veteran entrepreneur who has been on this show twice before in episodes 095 and 166. He has leveraged these strengths to found over 15 companies in the areas of Farming, Agri-Retail, Distribution, Media and Ag Tech. He was the founder and CEO of The Agri-Trend/Agri-Data Group of Companies which was acquired by Trimble.  He also served as CEO of DOT Technology Corp (Autonomous Farming) through the acquisition of DOT Robotics by Raven Industries.Robert is the founder and CEO of award-winning AGvisorPRO, a technology platform that connects those seeking agriculture advice with trusted experts who can provide answers now. Rob describes AGvisorPRO as a connectivity ecosystem that combines elements of other tools like Uber, e-harmony, Twitter and FaceT

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/IFPA's Fresh Field Catalyst Accelerator: https://www.freshproduce.com/resources/technology/fresh-field-catalyst/"Taste is King" on the Fresh Takes on Tech podcast: https://www.freshproduce.com/resources/technology/takes-on-tech-podcast/episode-56-taste-is-king/"Locally Grown Through Vertical Farming on the Fresh Takes on Tech podcast: https://www.freshproduce.com/resources/technology/takes-on-tech-podcast/episode-59-locally-grown-through-vertical-farming/ "Traceability is Crucial to the World Produce Industry" on the Fresh Takes on Tech podcast: https://www.freshproduce.com/resources/technology/takes-on-tech-podcast/episode-55-traceability-is-crucial-to-the-world-produce-industry/"New Innovations are Improving All Aspects of Our Produce Supply Chain" on the Fresh Takes on Tech podcast: https://www.freshproduce.com/resources/technology/takes-on-tech-podcast/episode-68-live-from-the-global-show-2022-part-four/"The Future of Automation is in the Fields" on the Fresh Takes

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/PYKA: https://www.flypyka.com/Michael Norcia is CEO of Pyka, which as I mentioned earlier is an autonomous electric aircraft company. Michael has a deep technical background in autonomous flight, having contributed to a wide variety of manned/unmanned electric aviation projects at Joby, Cora, and Kittyhawk. In 2017, Michael co-founded Pyka with the goal of combining two of his lifelong passions: electric aviation and business. This is a really fascinating interview that not only features some pretty mind blowing technology, but also a great example of finding product-market fit, overcoming regulatory hurdles, and taking a futuristic idea and converting that into a real business that solves real problems in the present day. For those of you who are entrepreneurial, I think you’ll be especially inspired, and you’ll probably also enjoy the questions I ask him about his Y-Combinator experience towards the end of the episode. 

Try Acres for FREE: https://www.acres.co/Robinette's Apple Haus & Winery: https://robinettes.com/The Land Podcast - The Pursuit of Land Ownership and Investing https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-land-podcast-the-pursuit-of/id1572511098 Exodus Outdoor Gear: https://exodusoutdoorgear.com/ Hello fellow ag nerds! Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Future of Agriculture podcast. My name is Tim Hammerich and every week you and I get to hear from the farmers, founders, innovators and investors shaping the future of the ag industry.Today’s episode features Allan Robinette. Allan is a fifth generation fruit grower and orchard manager at Robinette’s Apple Haus & Winery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They grow primarily peaches, apples, and sweet cherries and sell everything retail. We get into all sorts of interesting value-added concepts here including u-pick, farm retail, operating a bakery, winery and cider mill, corn mazes, gift boxes and a lot more. This one was a blast for me who grew up

Try Acres for FREE: https://www.acres.co/Magnetic Ag Newsletter: https://magnetic-ag.com/"Farm and Other F Words" https://bookshop.org/p/books/farm-and-other-f-words-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-small-family-farm-sarah-k-mock/16922376Imagine Content and Consulting: https://newsletter.imagine-content.com/"AEI.Ag Presents" podcast: https://aei.ag/podcast/"Agtech - So What?" podcast: https://www.agtechsowhat.com/One important change to agriculture that we probably don’t talk about enough is the changing ag media landscape. Farmers and those of us who work in agriculture traditionally would read industry publications and listen to farm broadcasters on the radio to get ag information. Those programs were funded by agribusinesses who new they had a fairly captive audience. Well as you know all of that has been turned on its head in the past 20 years. Now companies can have much more direct contact with their target audience, whether that’s a potential customer, a trade association member, a potential investor, collabor

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/advance.farm website: https://advanced.farm/ Today’s episode features Kyle Cobb, president and co-founder of advanced.farm. They describe themselves as a 21st-century ag equipment company centered around robotics, with a current focus on automating harvest and postharvest in fresh fruit. advanced.farm is based in Davis, California and has raised over $35M of venture investment led by Kubota, Yamaha, Catapult Ventures and Impact Ventures. Before advanced.farm, Kyle was a Co-Founder of Greenbotics, a cutting-edge platform for robotic solar panel cleaning that was acquired by SunPower in 2013.Kyle and I talk about the journey that led him and his team to robotic harvesting, the challenges of bringing this type of technology to the market, why Kyle is convinced that now is the perfect time for robotics in agriculture, how they’ve approached raising money and much more.

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/Agtech - So What? Podcast: https://www.agtechsowhat.com/Tenacious Ventures: https://tenacious.ventures/Today’s episode features a conversation on the future of fertilizer with Sarah Nolet. Both of us have been exploring the future of fertilizer on our respective podcasts, and we thought it would be fun to do a joint episode to talk about what we’ve learned. So you’re going to get not only Sarah and I’s thoughts, but also some highlights from episodes that provide insights into the future of fertilizer.Sarah Nolet is an internationally recognized food systems innovation expert and co-founder of Tenacious Ventures, a high-support, high conviction, sector-specific agrifood tech venture firm. Sarah has been instrumental in building the early stage agtech ecosystem - from advising dozens of startups, designing accelerator programs and consulting to established agribusinesses, to helping industry, universities and government develop and implement forward-looking initiatives

Try Acres: https://www.acres.co/The Ugly Company: https://www.theugly.company/The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/Today's episode features Ben Moore, founder of The Ugly Company, an upcycled dried fruit snack company. Ben is a 4th generation California farmer tackling the complex problem of food waste. Through Ugly Fruit, Ben is on a mission to achieve zero waste at farms by upcycling unmarketable fruit directly from farms to consumers.  Ben had an epiphany while in his tractor plowing culled fruit. Ben reasoned that much of this fruit is perfectly good to eat and a shame being dumped. So, he did some research on ways to bring stone fruit to use as a value-added product. It’s another way for consumers to minimize food waste – some of the listeners may have heard of grocery ecommerce companies like Misfit Market and Imperfect Foods where you can purchase slightly off-spec food. The two main problems with food waste is food insecurity – getting nutritious foods transpo

Visit Acres: https://www.acres.co/"How to Grow and Sell Carbon Credits in US Agriculture" https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-76.html Dr. Alejandro Plastina is an Associate Professor/Extension Economist in the Department of Economics at Iowa State University (ISU). His area of specialization is agricultural production and technology, with an emphasis on farm business and financial management. His research focuses on the socioeconomic drivers of conservation practices, voluntary pest resistance management, carbon programs, and agricultural productivity.Prior to joining ISU in 2014, Dr. Plastina was Senior Economist at the International Cotton Advisory Committee in Washington, DC. He graduated with a BA in Economics from the University of La Plata (Argentina) in 2000, and an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005 and 2007, respectively.I reached out to Alejandro when I was trying to make heads or tails of the various carbon programs

Visit our quarterly presenting sponsor, Acres: https://www.acres.co/Mineral website: https://mineral.ai/Dr. Elliott Grant is the CEO of Mineral, which is Alphabet's bet in sustainable agriculture.  Mineral is applying the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) to the existential challenge of sustainably doubling the planet’s crop productivity. Elliott and I really get past the buzzwords here and into the details of what exactly this technology is enabling on a practical level, and how it has the potential to impact agriculture and the way we do business. From my personal perspective, AI and ML have been talked about since way early on in this podcast, but it often felt like marketing to make their tool seem special. But it does feel like we’re hitting this tipping point now, where there are some really impactful technologies emerging, that can only exist because of the explosion in data collection and advancements in AI and ML, and I find that to be one of the most exciting aspects of

Try Acres for free: https://www.acres.co/Today we hear from AcreTrader with data science director Dr. Aaron Shew. Aaron is unique in that he has an extensive background in agriculture, economics, remote sensing and GIS and of course, data. In his current capacity, Aaron works with a team of software engineers, data scientists, and land experts to build advanced land analytics tools. He has master’s degrees in geography and agricultural economics and a doctorate in environmental dynamics from the University of Arkansas. He has more than 15 years of experience in the agriculture industry with 10 years of research experience focused on agricultural production and geospatial technologies.Aaron and I talk about the origins of the Acres tool, how it has already been helpful to AcreTrader which has 123 farms under management and ambitious goals to grow that number, why they would want to share this with the world - there’s even a free version that I’ve used - it’s pretty cool, and how this access to better data and