Future of Agriculture

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 collaborations with a range of scientists and engineers to track the storage and flow of nutrients, energy, and water throughout the crop-soil system. A range of stakeholders including government, NGOs, farmers, and industry regularly engage Mike to help advance sustainable crop production and soil management. His research has led to several public-private partnerships that benefit agriculture and the environment. Mike currently serves as the U.S. representative to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils. In 2022, Mike co-founded the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative (INI) with Sotirios Archontoulis, which leverages the latest advances in precision agriculture and collaborations with farmers to transform the scale of agricultural research. In 2023, the INI executed more than 300 unique experiments in collaboration with more than 70 farmers. Data from these experiments will enable university scientists and engineers to use the latest advances in data science to transform information for decision making about nitrogen management.

Cultura Technologies: https://culturatech.com/Metal Dog Labs: https://www.metaldoglabs.ai/Software Is Feeding The World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftwIf 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.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Arable: https://www.arable.com/FoA 256: Agtech Collaboration and Data-Driven Decision Agriculture with Jim Ethington of ArableToday's episode features Arable CEO Jim Ethington. Jim first appeared on this show on episode 256 back in 2021 and I was pleased to get a chance to sit down for a second interview with him in person at World AgriTech in March. His background is impressive. Prior to joining Arable in 2018, he spent 10 years at The Climate Corporation where he was VP of Product and grew the company to 50 million paid acres and built a team from 10 to over 600 individuals. So he started at Climate in 2008 when they were still called Weatherbill and stayed with the company through the big acquisition in 2013 and for years after that. So Jim has been thinking about the challenges and opportunities in digital agriculture for a long long time and it shows in the insights he shares in this episode. If you’re not familiar with Arable, they are an ag technology company that provides data insights and recommendations to help farms be more productive and sustainable. Specifically they have created an intuitive system for farmers and agronomists to optimize irrigation, fertilizer applications and other important farm decisions. This is all based around their Arable Mark 3 device. Jim is also one of the guests suggested by Lawrence King at Headstorm to give one of their client testimonials. Similar to Amie at Wilbur Ellis and Claudia at Microsoft, I wanted to make this one a full length episode because Jim is someone I wanted to have back on the show anyway to get an update on Arable and more of his insights on the future of ag. And he doesn’t disappoint. I’ll drop you into the conversation where he’s explaining the key insight from farmers that informs the work they do at Arable. 

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Ag Ventures Alliance: https://agventuresalliance.com/AgLaunch: https://aglaunch.com/FoA 068: Farmers Investing in AgTech with Spencer Stensrude of Ag Ventures Alliance and Matthew Rooda of SwineTechFoA 117: Bridging the Gap Between AgTech Entrepreneurs and Farmers with Pete Nelson of AgLaunchToday's episode features Pete Nelson and Margaret Oldham from Aglaunch and Spencer Stensrude at Ag Ventures Alliance. If you’ve been a long time listener to this show - i mean a REALLY long time listener - you heard Spencer back on episode 68 in 2017 and Pete on episode 117 in 2018. I’ll link to both of those classics in the show notes. Since that time the two organizations have partnered together based on a shared mission of investing in farmer-led innovations. They each have unique aspects to their models, which i’ll let Pete, Margaret and Spencer describe to you. But they also are joining forces in a way to put the farmer at the center of investing in and incubating early stage agtech companies. There are some really interesting points brought up in this conversation that I’ve been thinking about a lot since we recorded it a couple of months ago. Things like, should billion dollar unicorn exits be the measure of success for venture capital? Or number of viable lasting companies? Or maybe jobs and economic impact on communities? Is the fact that venture capital gets poured into so many businesses that fail a feature or a bug when it comes to advancing agriculture? And does the fact that we are in a commodity driven business mean that by definition, all of the value created by companies will eventually get squeezed out and extracted by low cost leaders? Some thought provoking questions that I think you’ll enjoy pondering as you listen to Spencer, Margaret, and Pete. Spencer Stensrude invests at the intersection of transformational technology and agriculture. He is the CEO of Ag Ventures Alliance, which is a farmer-owned cooperative with a mission to increase farm profitability. They make venture capital investments in startups with a direct impact on farmers. Before joining AgVA, he started and operated some small businesses, invested in income-producing real estate, and worked in the commercial lending industry.Pete Nelson has been experimental farming, venture investing, and creating innovation hubs in agriculture with farmers across the US and Canada since 1997. He is currently co-founder and President of AgLaunch, a nationally recognized farmer-led innovation platform for advancing the next generation of agricultural technologies.Margaret Oldham is the Vice President of Innovation at AgLaunch. She is an experienced marketer and coach with a reputation for working with clients to implement successful marketing and training strategies in animal health, crop protection and specialty crop segments. 

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Carbon Robotics: https://carbonrobotics.com/Paul is the founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics. What Carbon Robotics is doing is novel and interesting in and of itself, and we’re going to talk a lot about that in today’s episode. But it’s important to note that Paul has a really impressive history of building technology companies outside of agriculture.Before starting Carbon Robotics, he co-founded Isilon Systems, a distributed storage company, in 2001. Isilon went public in 2006 and was acquired by EMC for $2.5 billion in 2010. In 2006, Paul co-founded Clustrix, a distributed database startup that was acquired by MariaDB in 2018. Immediately before Carbon, Paul served as Director of Infrastructure Engineering at Uber, where he grew the team and opened the company’s engineering office in Seattle, later focusing on deep learning and computer vision. So in today’s episode we’re going to talk a lot about laser weeding, building a field robotics company, Paul’s views on artificial intelligence and where he sees applications for the tech in agriculture, and the challenges an opportunities ahead for carbon robotics and agtech in general. I’ll drop you into the conversation where Paul is explaining his desire to jump from tech to agtech, and how that transition has been for him. 

Explore the collaboration between Microsoft and Bayer in the agriculture sector, focusing on the Azure Data Manager for Agriculture. Learn about the importance of industry partnerships and innovations in data management for smarter agronomic decisions. Discover how companies like Headstorm are shaping the future of agriculture through technology consultancy and collaborative efforts with key players in the AgTech ecosystem.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Phospholutions: https://www.phospholutions.com/Sentinel Fertigation: https://www.sentinelfertigation.com/I’m a firm believer that in the U.S. our agricultural research and extension programs at our land grant universities truly are national treasures. But of all the outstanding research that’s done at these institutions every year, not enough of it seems to get commercialized. Today we highlight two young entrepreneurs that each began their entrepreneurial journeys at their respective campuses, and are today growing real businesses helping farmers with different aspects of nutrient management. Today, you'll hear from Hunter Swisher, founder and CEO of Phospholutions which initially commercialized research done at Penn State. He does a great job talking about some of the major issues with the status quo when it comes to phosphorous. If you haven’t looked into it before it’s seriously eye opening. Then we’ll move west to Nebraska, where Jackson Stensell formed his company Sentinel Fertigation based on research he was doing as a grad student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also focuses on nutrient management but specifically on irrigated crops. Hunter Swisher currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Phospholutions, Inc., which he founded prior to graduating with his B.S. degree in Plant Sciences from Pennsylvania State University. Phospholutions is a sustainable fertilizer company with the mission of improving global phosphate efficiency. Jackson Stansell is the founder and CEO of Sentinel Fertigation. Sentinel Fertigation leverages satellite imagery and geospatial data to empower precision nutrient management - particularly for nitrogen fertigation. Originally from Dothan, Alabama, Jackson did his undergrad at Harvard where he also played football. He was pursuing a masters degree at Nebraska when he turned the research he was doing into a business and decided to put his PhD on hold to commercialize the technology.

Sean O'Connor from 4AG Robotics discusses the challenges of harvesting mushrooms and the benefits of robotic automation. He explains how robots can increase yield and weight by picking at optimal times. The podcast delves into the history of automation in agriculture, the barriers they face, and the trust they need to gain from farmers.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Ecovative: https://www.ecovative.com/ MyForest Foods: https://myforestfoods.com/ I’ve been meaning to do an episode on mushroom farming and mushroom technology for a long long time. But the right story just never presented itself. Then I got connected with Ecovative and about the same time got in touch with the subject of next weeks’ interview and all of a sudden I have two fascinating stories of fungi! And these aren’t far-fetched companies: they are proving commercially that mushroom farming shouldn’t be kept in the dark when it comes to the future of agriculture. In fact, when you think about the vast diversity of fungi that exist in nature, it’s surprising to me that we haven't seen more done to commercialize them for food, fiber and other resources (relative to domesticated plants and animals). But there are reasons to believe that’s starting to change, and will likely be accelerated through advancements in biotechnology in my opinion. So this is a great time to bring on Eben Bayer, co-founder and CEO of Ecovative, which he co-founded clear back in 2007. Ecovative is now the leading mycelium technology company in the world. He is also Co-founder of MyForest Foods, and is listed as an inventor on 64+ patents. Eben grew up working on his family's farm in Vermont, where he began thinking of mycelium as a new category of material with myriad possibilities. He has since developed mycelium technology into the basis of sustainable innovations across industrial categories, including applications in construction, packaging, food, automotive, fashion and apparel.We will of course focus on his work in food and specifically on the bacon product made from his mycelium.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Wilbur-Ellis: https://www.wilburellis.com/ Today's episode features Amie Thesingh, president of ag solutions and chief technology officer at Wilbur-Ellis. Today’s episode is a perfect compliment to last week’s episode with Brad Fruth of Beck’s Hybrids. Both Beck’s and Wilbur-Ellis are well-established family-owned companies that aren’t just resting on their laurels. They’re looking ahead and wanting to be on the cutting edge of technology and innovation. Like last week’s episode, the perspective Amie shares is both grounded in the realities of how agriculture really works, but also forward-looking and open to how the industry is evolving and changing. In Amie’s role, she has to wear three different hats: Strategy and business development for the company as a wholeRunning their ag solutions business, which includes digital solutions, sustainable grower solutions, and their proprietary products portfolio - really focuses on innovation and the futureAnd the IT function - how they’re using digital and data internallySo it’s a big job for the 103 year-old leading international marketer and distributor of agricultural products, animal nutrition and specialty chemicals and ingredients.Amie joined Wilbur-Ellis in 2020, bringing deep strategy, commercial and general management expertise to her role, along with experience that spans the food, agribusiness and technology industries. Before Wilbur-Ellis, Thesingh held a variety of leadership roles at Cargill, where she developed and executed solutions for farmers, including new product development. Most recently, she was Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Innovation for Cargill’s protein businesses in Latin America, Europe and Asia. She created the first global strategy and acquisition portfolio across these regions, identified the critical levers for aggressive organic and M&A growth, and subsequently took responsibility for go-to-market and innovation improvement efforts.And that’s where i’ll drop you into today’s conversation, where Amie is talking about her valuable experience at Cargill, and how that set her up for her current role at Wilbur-Ellis.