Future of Agriculture

Bloomfield Robotics: https://bloomfield.ai/Kubota North America Corporation Acquires US-based AgTech StartupFOA 228: Solving the Rural Connectivity Problem with Dr. Sara Spangelo of SwarmQuick note: I am still looking for a couple of brands to partner with in 2025. If your company might be interested in positioning yourself as an innovator in the ag industry, I would love to talk with you about my quarterly presenting sponsorship package. This is an exclusive, I only work with a maximum of four companies per year, and I’m hoping to have all of them locked in by the end of the first quarter of 2025. So if your company is doing innovative work and you’d like to share that with thousands of leaders in the ag industry, please reach out to me at tim@aggrad.com or via LinkedIn or Twitter. I’m happy to share details. Ok, now back to today’s conversation with Mark DeSantis. As I mentioned, Mark was first on the show about four years ago on episode 228 in October of 2020. Since that time, Mark and team grew Bloomfield AI, a company that helps specialty crop growers improve the health and performance of their crop on a per-plant basis using computer vision and artificial intelligence. Then this past September, it was announced that Kubota had acquired the company. I wanted to invite Mark back on the show to talk about the experience and his views on where autonomy, robotics and digital ag go from here.   Mark led Bloomfield through the acquisition and is now a consultant to Kubota. Prior to joining Bloomfield in 2019, he was previously cofounder and CEO of RoadBotics (acquired by Michelin), a company that assessed roadway infrastructure using AI. So he’s been in this space of robotics for real world applications for a long time. He is also an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.

Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola TwilleyPrime Future Newsletter by Janette BarnardThe Great Beef Bonanza and the Fall of the Cattle Kingdom"Our ancestors learned to control fire before modern humans even evolved. But our ability to command cold at will dates back a little more than 150 years. Mechanical cooling refrigeration produced by human artifice as opposed to the natural chill offered by weather dependent snow and ice wasn't achieved until the mid 1700s and wasn't commercialized until the late 1800s, and it wasn't domesticated until the 1920s."That is a quote from the book that we're gonna be talking about here today, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley. I'm very excited to dive into this book. There's so much here on the history of refrigeration and we take for granted how much refrigeration has changed our food system and our world in a number of profound ways.But I'm also excited to not be tackling this massive project by myself. Coming back for another episode is my good friend, animal agtech venture capitalist, and creator of the Prime Future newsletter, Janette Barnard. Also from Twilley's book: "It's impossible to make sense of our global food system until you understand the mysterious logic of the all-but-invisible network of thermal control that underpins it. We overcame not just rot, but seasonality and geography as well."Listen as Janette and Tim unpack their takeaways from this incredible book about the history of refrigeration.

Tenacious Ventures: https://tenacious.ventures/Farmhand Ventures: https://www.farmhandventures.com/“Navigating a future of cross sectional forces” (AgriFutures Australia Report): https://agrifutures.com.au/product/navigating-a-future-of-cross-sectoral-forces/Ag’s Scifi (and Non-Fiction) Future: Horizon Scanning… so what? with Shane Thomas: https://tenacious.ventures/insights/ags-scifi-and-non-fiction-future-horizon-scanning-so-what-with-shane-thomasCitrus Moves North with Farmer and Orangepreneur Lindy Savelle: https://tenacious.ventures/insights/citrus-moves-north-with-farmer-and-orangepreneur-lindy-savelleFoA 348: Investing in the Future of Fertilizer with Sarah Nolet of Tenacious Ventures: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-348-investing-in-the-future-of-fertilizer-with-sarah-nolet-of-tenacious-ventures-agtech-so-what-crossoverFoA 112: Accelerating AgTech with Sarah Nolet of AgThentic: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/future-of-agriculture-112-accelerating-agtech-with-sarah-nolet-of-agthenticFoA 127: Expanding the Global AgTech Ecosystem with Connie Bowen of The Yield Lab: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/future-of-agriculture-127-expanding-the-global-agtech-ecosystem-with-connie-bowen-of-the-yield-labFOA 220: Agricultural Solutions for Hunger and Poverty with Paul Winters of IFAD: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-220-agricultural-solutions-for-hunger-and-poverty-with-paul-winters-of-ifadFoA 260: The Lentil Underground with Dave Oien of Timeless Seeds: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-260-the-lentil-underground-with-dave-oien-of-timeless-seedsThere are few topics that seem to get people more riled up than climate change. Most of the episodes I’ve done that focus on climate as a theme receive comments from people that seem to think I’m being an alarmist and others thinking that I am drastically underestimating its impacts. I could take this as a sign to avoid the topic altogether, but that’s not really how I roll. I instead take it as a sign that we need to ask more questions and gather more data and context to understand what has everyone so fired up. And the concept for this episode came to my mind while I was listening to the Agtech, So what? podcast with Sarah Nolet. Specifically, their August episodes which are titled: “Citrus Moves North with Farmer and Orangepreneur Lindy Savelle” and “Ag’s Scifi (and Non-Fiction) Future: Horizon Scanning… so what?” with Shane Thomas. I’ll leave links to both episodes in the show notes. But both describe this concept of a climate refugee, which put simply is people leaving their home for reasons that could be the result of changes in climate. So citrus producers leaving the state of Florida as one potential example. In that second episode about Ag’s Scifi Future, Sarah and guests are breaking down a report commissioned by AgriFutures Australia called “Navigating a future of cross-sectoral forces” that you can download for free via a link I’ll leave in the show notes. One of the 10 forces outlined in that report is the emergence of climate refugees, which created an interesting discussion on that episode. I’ve heard talk about climate refugees before, in fact it’s been mentioned a couple times on this podcast. Episodes 220 and 260 come to mind. But I always thought of it as something that could happen in a worst case scenario in the future, not as something that is happening today. I also found myself wondering if we are attributing to climate change what would be explained by other forces, like regulations and economics. We have a lot of dairies that moved out of California for those reasons, but we don’t call them regulatory refugees. So is this term intentionally dramatic to fit a climate agenda? I consider Sarah a friend and someone who is very well researched and intellectually honest, so I wanted to invite her back on the show to address some of these questions with her. And in the meantime, I was interviewing Connie Bowen of Farmhand Ventures for an episode about labor and she made the interesting connection between labor challenges and climate change, which I thought fit well in this episode, so you’re getting a bit of a two-for-one episode today with two extremely sharp ag investors. 

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. 

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.

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 RoboticsSteve Saunders of Robotics PlusBen Alfi of BlueWhite RoboticsTim Bucher of AgTonomyI 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 these solutions? Does this technology really solve much-talked-about “ag labor problem”? Will farmers actually adopt this? What’s next for ag robotics? Previous episodes featuring robotics and automation: Tractor Driver is Now a Remote Opportunity With Craig Rupp of SabantoLaser Weeding And Growing A Robotics Company Toward An IPO With Paul Mikesell of Carbon RoboticsThe Path To Superhuman Farming with Curtis Garner and Brent Shedd of Verdant RoboticsRobotic Harvesting and Beyond with Kyle Cobb of advanced.farmAutonomous Sprayers with Gary Thompson of GUSSAg Robotics Roundtable  

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. 

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. 

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 KrommFrank Zybach: A man who revolutionized agriculture - INEDA“The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital US Water Source” - Scientific American“Ogallala Timeline” - OgallalaWater.orgPumped Dry: A race to the bottom of the Ogallala in Kansas - YouTubeNational Inventors Hall of Fame: Frank Zybach“Frank Zybach - Inventor of Center-Pivot Irrigation Machine” - NE State Historical Society“Frank Zybach and the Center Pivot System” - Now You Know NE YouTube1982 Frank Zybach - NE Hall of Agricultural Achievement“Drilling Down, Pumping Up: A History of Center-Pivot Irrigation and Hydraulic Fracturing in Kansas” - Brandon Leudtke, University of KansasEverything About Irrigation Pivots - SmarterEveryDay YouTube“A Vanishing Aquifer” - National GeographicOgallala / High Plains Aquifer: America's Quiet Disaster - YouTubeOgallala Aquifer - WikipediaWhat is the Ogallala Aquifer? - Ogallala Commons

Adam Maxwell, founder of Voyage Foods, disrupts the food industry with sustainable and innovative processing techniques, including the use of upcycled ingredients. Alongside guest host Jennifer Barney, they delve into the revolutionary impact of food trends on agriculture. The discussion reveals how familiar flavors, like coffee and chocolate, can be transformed sustainably, balancing taste and accessibility. They also explore the journey from startup to global manufacturing and the importance of cost-effective solutions in meeting modern consumer demands.