Future of Agriculture

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. 

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. 

Full Harvest: https://www.fullharvest.com/Software is Feeding The World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftwMetal 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. 

Dan Schultz, lead category designer at Schultz Collaborative, specializes in helping agtech companies innovate their product commercialization. In this engaging discussion, he emphasizes the shift from mundane marketing narratives to compelling storytelling. Schultz reveals how businesses can redefine markets through category design, fostering community engagement and sustainable practices. He highlights innovations like Carbon Robotics' laser weeder and the impact of local agriculture in revitalizing rural economies—encouraging a movement toward meaningful industry change.

Sabanto: https://sabantoag.com/FoA 241: From Drives to Driverless with Craig Rupp of SabantoI’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.

Naveen Sikka, an innovator with 15 years of experience in commercializing the pongamia tree, dives into its potential as a sustainable source of bioenergy and plant-based protein. He discusses pongamia's unique ability to fix nitrogen, adapt to various climates, and provide high oil and protein yields. The conversation reveals the challenges faced in promoting this 'super tree,' including genetics development and market education. Explore how Terviva is overcoming hurdles in funding and creating partnerships to make pongamia a viable alternative in agriculture.

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.

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 Podcast00:36 Inspiration from a Recent Keynote01:49 Reflecting on the Podcast's Journey04:26 Challenges in Discussing the Future of Agriculture08:31 Framework for Thinking About the Future of Agriculture09:38 Current Trends and Historical Insights12:20 Innovations on the Fringes13:43 Considering Unpredictable Changes18:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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 AtchisonAtchison 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

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 UniversityFuture of Agriculture 162: Cannabis Inputs with Dr Colin Bell of Mammoth MicrobesReally 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.