The Modern Acre

Craig Rupp is the CEO and Founder of Sabanto, a Farming-as-a-Service company that provides total turn-key agriculture services using our supervised autonomous equipment platform. Connect with Sabanto Website | Twitter

Ariel Patton, creator of the insightful Topsoil newsletter, dives into the financial intricacies farmers face today. She discusses how essential understanding profit and cash flow is for sustaining agricultural businesses. The conversation touches on the rise of mega farms versus micro farms, and innovative models like Singing Frogs Farm that help farmers transform into price makers. Ariel highlights the potential of new income avenues like carbon credits, emphasizing optimism in reimagining farming for improved profitability and sustainability.

Grant Jones is the Co-Founder and Chief Agricultural Officer at Mt. Joy, a fast casual restaurant on a mission to accelerate global adoption of regenerative agricultural practices. Connect with Mt. Joy Website | Instagram

Tune in this week to hear Tim and Tyler's takeaways from attending the 2023 World AgriTech Innovation Summit in SF. They hit on the state of farmers, biological innovation, the retail/advisor ecosystem, M&A and consolidation, and more!

Michael Macolino is the Managing Director for the APAC region at SVG Ventures THRIVE, as well as a serial entrepreneur and business advisor. He launched his first company at 21, which started a 15 year journey to launch four other businesses across a range of industries. His long term support of entrepreneurship and mentoring was recognised in 2020, as a winner in the InDaily 40 under 40 awards. Michael’s curiosity for solving problems using technology led him to Agriculture and the food system, where he now leverages his skills, experience and network to help AgriFood Tech startups commercialise and scale their innovations to redesign the food system. Prior to joining SVG Ventures Thrive Michael led AgriFood Tech at BDO Australia for 4 years, where he was an advisor to several Investors, Start-ups, Agribusinesses and Government Departments. Michael is deeply engaged in the development of the AgriFood tech eco-system, working with various startup events and programs, as well as being the co-organiser of the South Australian AgriTech Meetup Group. Michael’s thinking on redesigning the food system was featured in his TEDx talk, in which he detailed the potential of emerging technologies in agriculture to build a more sustainable and resilient food system. Connect with Michael Website | LinkedIn | SVG Ventures Thrive

Stuart Woolf is President and CEO of Woolf Farming & Processing. Woolf Farming & Processing is a family owned operation whose primary business is the production and processing of agricultural commodities. He was involved with the establishment of two related entities: Harris Woolf California Almonds and Los Gatos Tomato Products. Harris Woolf is a processor and handler of raw almonds. Los Gatos manufactures bulk tomato paste for industrial users. Connect with Woolf Farming & Processing Website

World AgriTech Discount Code (10% off): ACREFRIEND Elizabeth Fastiggi is the Head of Worldwide Agriculture at AWS. She partners with customers on transformative initiatives that align digital innovation with their business vision and is motivated by the opportunity to create solutions that create a healthier, transparent, and more inclusive food system. Prior to AWS, Elizabeth led Market Development at Indigo Agriculture and Business Development at Farmers Business Network. Previously, Elizabeth was a private equity investor with GE Capital and Ziff Brothers Investments, structuring investments in the energy and agriculture sectors. Elizabeth began her career at the Environmental Defense Fund, developing partnerships with market leading corporations to improve environmental and financial performance. Connect with Elizabeth AWS Agriculture Solutions | LinkedIn

In this new monthly series, Tim and Tyler talk with Ariel about her latest Topsoil edition - "Turns out, Seasons are a Thing in Agriculture: a framework for understanding seasonal activities in agriculture." Ariel Patton is the creator of Topsoil, a newsletter bringing you monthly frameworks to help make sense of agriculture, at just the right depth. Ariel has focused her career on driving digital transformation of agriculture to help farmers manage their businesses more profitably and sustainably at Monsanto, Granular, Corteva and currently, Mineral. Connect with Ariel Topsoil Newsletter | LinkedIn

Aaron Hutchinson is the President and Co-Founder of CropTrak. CropTrak brings decades of experience as the leading cloud technology solution to document, share, and analyze an entire supply chain in real-time from source through production. By digitally enabling and connecting their entire supply chain management process, customers can more seamlessly weave together the story of their product, contract, and certification – resulting in significant efficiency gains internally and improved supplier relationships. Started more than a decade ago by a team of entrepreneurial farm kids and data security experts with a background in 3D military GIS software, they set forth to help create the most efficient, effective and transparent supply chain. Connect with CropTrak Website | LinkedIn

Tim's LinkedIn post on our experience with organic farming went viral. We dig into our experience and thoughts on organic before providing some updates on The Modern Acre Co-op membership community! Links Co-op | Apply for a Pass | TopSoil Newsletter