Future of Agriculture

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Software is Feeding The World: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftwBeck's Hybrids: https://www.beckshybrids.com/ The word “innovation” is tossed around quite a bit - I’m guilty of overusing it myself. But what does it mean? There’s probably no better person to dig into this question at least in agriculture than Beck’s Hybrids director of innovation Brad Fruth. “Ideas are cheap.  Motivated people that are passionate about their ideas is what is lacking.”Beck’s Hybrids is the largest family-owned retail seed company and the third-largest seed brand in the country. But it’s Brad’s views on innovation and adding value to customers that really stand out today me in today’s episode.“Focus on what we're good at, which is seed, and the selection of seed, the placement and management of it, but then partner with best in breed on everything else.”Today, Brad shares some of the specific ways Beck’s Hybrids adds value to their farmer customers, and he shares openly and candidly his views on the current state of ag technology. “If you don't have a good value prop and you're not delivering value, then this is just the inevitable. Right? And so the industry probably needs a little bit of belt tightening to make sure that you are delivering direct farm value and you're just not blowing smoke.” Brad Fruth of Beck’s Hybrids sits down with guest host Rhishi Pethe on today’s Future of Agriculture podcast. Brad is the  is the director of innovation at Beck’s. He started there as an intern and has now worked there for about 20 years. Over that time, he has been dedicated to converging IT, data and agriculture into real solutions for farmer customers. This background gives him a perspective that you will really enjoy hearing because it is both technical and relatable, and always focused on what makes a meaningful impact at the farm level. Today’s interview was put together by our guest host, Rhishi Pethe. This is now the third episode Rhishi has brought to the program after Verdant Robotics in 391 and Lavoro Agro in 404. As many of you know, Rhishi writes the newsletter Software is Feeding the World. If for some reason you are not subscribed, you’ll find a link to do so in the show notes.

Exploring how the term 'biologicals' in agriculture lacks specificity and can mislead farmers about product efficacy. Discussing the shifts towards biotechnology, molecular farming, and CRISPR technology to revolutionize food production and crop improvement. Delving into the advancements of PPFMs for plant growth and biocontrol, along with the development of new herbicides for integrated weed management in agriculture.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Today’s episode features Headstorm CEO Lawrence King. Lawrence has over 18 years of technology strategy consulting experience. He got his start in agtech with Farmlink over eight years ago where he built an engineering team. That company ran into some hard times, and Lawrence found himself with a talented team of engineers and no work to do. He tapped into his contacts in agtech looking for strategy and engineering talent and Headstorm was born. Today, Headstorm has worked with companies all throughout agriculture and in similar industries who want to implement large-scale technology initiatives in their businesses. He’ll give us a few examples of what that looks like. Also, Headstorm recently announced a product of their own called AGPILOT, which uses generative AI to give ag retailers and other agronomists a new interface to record and access their data which ultimately allows them to better serve farmer customers.Lawrence has a lot of battle-tested wisdom about what works and what doesn’t work in agtech, and he shares a lot of those insights in today’s interview.  

New Zealand sheep farmer Paul Ensor discusses seizing value in the farm to fashion supply chain with his brand Hemprino, blending merino wool and hemp to create sustainable products. Challenges of managing a consumer business on top of farming, supply chain complexity, and the shift from commodity to brand in agriculture are explored.

Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/Bayer Announcement: https://www.bayer.com/media/en-us/bayer-pilots-unique-generative-ai-tool-for-agriculture/Bayer AgPowered Services: https://www.bayer.com/media/en-us/bayer-collaboration-with-microsoft-connects-farm-data-to-address-lack-of-data-interoperability-in-agriculture/Microsoft World Agri-Tech Reflections: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/blog/sustainability/2024/04/02/world-agri-tech-2024-pioneering-agriculture-resilience-with-ai/Claudia Roessler World Agri-Tech Reflections on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/claudia-roessler-microsoft_world-agri-tech-2024-pioneering-agriculture-activity-7180973495110057984-Bay4?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktopFoA 111: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with Jeremy Williams https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/future-of-agriculture-111-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-with-jeremy-williams-of-monsanto FoA 361: Meet Norm, FBN's AI-Powered Ag Advisor with Kit Barron and Charles Baron https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-361-meet-norm-fbns-ai-powered-ag-advisor-with-kit-barron-and-charles-baronFoA 266:Microsoft Wants to Democratize Data-Driven Agriculture https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-266-microsoft-wants-to-democratize-data-driven-agriculture FoA 345: Alphabet's Moonshot to Scale Sustainable Agriculture via Machine Learning with Dr. Elliott Grant of Mineral https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-345-alphabets-moonshot-to-scale-sustainable-agriculture-via-machine-learning-with-elliott-grant-of-mineral “Yield Maps Killed Agtech Software, Can AI Fix It?” https://tenacious.ventures/insights/yield-maps-killed-agtech-software-can-ai-fix-it Bailey Stockdale LLM Benchmarking: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gbstockdale_anthropic-claude-opus-is-the-new-leader-in-activity-7173365123196112896-SkEt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop A couple weeks ago, I had the chance to attend World Agri-Tech in San Francisco. I spent the vast majority of my time there in one-on-one conversations, some recorded and some not, about the future of agriculture. It was really an embarrassment of riches to have so many interesting people in one place who work in agtech or agribusiness. ReThink Events was kind enough to provide me with a media pass for the event, and our quarterly presenting sponsor Headstorm helped to coordinate some key interviews that will be a part of today’s episode and a few other episodes that you’ll hear later this quarter. Take note that all of these recordings happened live at an event with thousands of other people, so there will be occasional background noise, but overall I was pleased with the quality of audio I was able to get considering the circumstances. There’s a temptation at this event in particular and others like it to ask what’s new and what’s next? That begs the question of “does there always need to be something new to talk about?” because we probably have a lot of “old” things to still be working on and working through. I actually encountered what I would consider a healthy mix of innovations that aren’t new but still requiring a lot of work to make an impact. This would include a lot of topics that won’t shock you if you’ve been listening to this show for any amount of time: data, automation, biologicals, regenerative, climate change, venture capital, etc. But if there was one topic that was new - or at least new-ish - it was the talk of the potential of generative AI to drive positive change in agtech. It’s clear several companies have been working on this or at least thinking a lot about it. And if you want a quick and oversimplified explanation of generative AI, think of it as a tool that can take raw data and create content in the way of text, like Chat-GPT, images like Midjourney, audio, like you heard last year in episode 361 when I used Descript to generate the intro to the episode in my voice from text generated from FBN’s Norm. All of those are examples of generative AI using more mainstream applications, but all they require is a prompt by me typing or speaking what I want the tool to make for me. This what makes it generative - the tool is making the content - not me.  But what does this really mean for for the future of agriculture? Are these just fun and interesting tools, or do they represent a massive step forward in technological capabilities? That was the tone of a lot of the GenAI conversations I was a part of. One of the more intriguing panels at World Agri-Tech, at least in my opinion, was titled “The GenAI Era: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges in Agtech”. It actually included three former guests of this podcast: Ranveer Chandra at Microsoft (266), Jeremy Williams at Bayer Crop Science (111), and Elliott Grant at Mineral (345). Also sitting on the panel was Elizabeth Fastiggi at AWS and Feroz Shiekh at Syngenta. If I had to summarize, every member of the panel was eager to say that generative AI represents a dramatic shift in the capabilities we have to actually make data valuable. Or to use the cliche term “to turn data to insights”. But what exactly is generative AI? And what is so dramatically different about it? Is this just filling the need to have another “big new thing” that will potentially not live up to the excitement like agtech has developed a reputation for? Those are the questions I wanted to ask at World Agri-Tech, and will seek to help answer for you in this episode. 

SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Follow Paul Sullivan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SullivanAgroThese Field Report segments are short occasional episodes where we will hear from the people who actually use and hopefully benefit from the innovations we discuss on the show. We’ve already been doing this through the spotlight segments that have aired at the end of about one episode every month. I’ve really enjoyed these sort of customer testimonials that are provided from our quarterly presenting sponsors. So I’m taking what we were doing with those spotlights and creating standalone episodes with a similar concept: only now sometimes it will be associated with the sponsor, and sometimes not - just profiles of farmers and other users of agricultural innovations giving their report from the field. In today’s case, Paul Sullivan is a certified crop consultant and agronomist in Eastern Ontario. He has operated his agronomy services firm, P.T. Sullivan Agro, since 1997, and started using SWAT MAPS in recent years. This part of Ontario which is just outside of Ottawa, is mostly corn, soybeans and wheat. Paul’s work focuses on developing crop plans around nutrient management, pH, pesticides, and some genetic recommendations as well. Before starting the business, Paul spent eight years as a soil and crop advisor with the ministry of agriculture and food covering three counties with the provincial extension group there. So he has a long history of working directly with farmers to solve agronomic problems.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/University of Saskatchewan Precision Agriculture Certificate Program: https://admissions.usask.ca/precision-agriculture.phpI wanted to have a conversation about cutting edge tools and the future of digital agriculture, and I definitely think we succeeded in bringing that to you today. Both Steve and Preston are thinking deeply about the best ways to collect and analyze data, think about variability, and utilize this deeper understanding for real world outcomes on farms. Dr. Preston Sorenson is a research associate in the department of soil science at the University of Saskatchewan. His work focuses on mapping soil properties using a range of data sources, usually from satellite imagery and elevation data. He also works a lot with soil sensor systems, in particular for rapid carbon measurements. And carbon measurement is something we definitely get into today. Dr. Steve Shirtliffe is a professor also at the University of Saskatchewan but in the department of plant sciences. As I mentioned in the opener, he pivoted his career about seven years ago from his focus in agronomy to now working in the area broadly referred to as digital agriculture. His focus is on crop imaging and understanding in-field spatial variability and what causes it. Steve and Preston talk about digital tools, ag data, artificial intelligence, and what the future might hold for precision agriculture.

Explore the significance of talent in agribusiness problem-solving with Christian Guffy. Learn about talent acquisition, client services, industry trends, and sustainability. Discover the importance of diverse skills, remote work challenges, and cultivating innovation in agriculture.

SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Corteva Agriscience: https://www.corteva.com/These new Field Report segments are short occasional episodes where we will hear from the people who actually use and hopefully benefit from the innovations we discuss on the show. We’ve already been doing this through the spotlight segments that have aired at the end of about one episode every month. I’ve really enjoyed these sort of customer testimonials that are provided from our quarterly presenting sponsors. So I’m taking what we were doing with those spotlights and creating standalone episodes with a similar concept: only now sometimes it will be associated with the sponsor, and sometimes not - just profiles of farmers and other users of agricultural innovations giving their report from the field. In today’s case, Brett McArtor is a senior research associate at Corteva Agriscience based in Johnston, Iowa. Corteva has three major focuses: crop protection, seed, and digital which supports those other two - and that’s where Brett works. Since graduating from Iowa State, Brett has remained focused on working with farmers to perform trials and research projects on their operations. He thinks of it as farmer-led science to figure out how new products fit into their management systems and affect their bottom line. He also brings that information back to the company to help formulate or position products to better suit farmer needs.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/WonderCow: https://wondercow.com/The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/I believe that there are a lot of opportunities for those of us in agriculture in paying attention to food and health trends. I don’t personally love the term “food is medicine”, but obviously poor diet is a major cause of health problems, and we would all be better off to spend more of our time and probably our dollars prioritizing health and nutrition in our food choices. And that includes food supplements. But even I, who loves thinking about cutting edge things in food and ag, was pretty shocked to hear last year of the trend of people including colostrum from cows in their diet. Colostrum being the milk produced by the mother at the time of giving birth. As you’ll hear today, there is a growing number of health-conscious consumers that are looking to the unique nutritive bioactive properties of colostrum and this powder is selling for big bucks. Where there is a health trend - there is an agricultural opportunity. And that’s what we’re going to explore with guest host Jennifer Barney and dairy farmers Rob and Erica Diepersloot who are founders of WonderCow - powdered bovine colostrum for human consumption.