Future of 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.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/ProducePay: https://producepay.com/Today's episode features ProducePay founder Pablo Borquez Schwarzbeck. Born and raised in a 4th generation farming family from Mexico, Pablo brings over 20 years of experience in the fresh produce industry. After growing up on the family farm – Campos Borquez, a premier supplier of fresh asparagus and grapes to the United States and Canada – Pablo went on to work for The Giumarra Companies, managing grower relations in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and the United States. Pablo returned to the family farm as Chief Financial Officer, then went on to complete his MBA at Cornell University, where the idea of ProducePay was started, founded and launched. Last year the company announced that longtime board member and advisor Patrick McCullough would take over as CEO, and Pablo moved at that time into the role of Executive Director of the board. But as you’ll hear in this interview he is just as energized as ever about their mission and their future. We talk about the challenges of the produce trade and why there is so much waste and so many intermediaries involved, why he thinks there in a position to create a better model, what role financial technology has in their ability to pull it off, how interest rates and investor sentiment impact companies like ProducePay, and how his transition has been from founder to CEO to board director. There’s a lot to this story but a good place to start is acknowledging that we all want quality produce to be at the store every time we show up, whether its in season locally or not. For that to happen, there’s a lot of people involved around the world, and a lot of waste along the way. ProducePay may have started as a way to better capitalize farmers, but now they have their focus on how they can help those farmers manage price risk. And the guy who started it all is today’s guest, Pablo Borquez. 

Brazil overtakes the US in corn exports, Lavoro Agro brings tech to Brazilian farmers. Alex Wimbush discusses AI pressure in ag retail. Product management in agriculture and ag retail explored. The podcast delves into the digital solutions driving efficiency in Brazilian farming.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/TransparentSea: https://www.transparentseafarm.com/[Video] "How America's Biggest Indoor Shrimp Farm Sells 2 Million Shrimp Every Year": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AK_RQ1uaGs[Video] "Tour of TransparentSea Farm's urban shrimp farm": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wnyi1Sc6pk Today’s featured conversation is with Steve Sutton, founder and CEO of TransparentSEA Farm in Southern California. I’m excited to share this one with you. I became very interested in indoor aquaculture this past year. As I think about vertical farming for vegetables, my biggest concern comes down to spending big dollars on real estate, technology, energy and labor to produce a product that really isn’t that valuable - both in terms of dollars and nutrition. However, with fish, you have a much more valuable product than say lettuce. So, why haven’t we been talking more about indoor aquaculture? That was the question I asked myself, and it turns out, some people HAVE been talking about this - a lot. And it’s exciting, but also carries with it a lot of the same realities as all of indoor agriculture. It was very interesting to get into these realities with Steve on today’s episode. Even if you’re not interested in aquaculture at all, this episode is worth listening to because the parallels to other farming systems are evident. He also calls attention to some serious issues with labeling, and changing consumer behavior that I think is really important for anyone in a food-related industry. But first, a bit of a shrimp farming primer: not only are these little critters delicious, nutritious, high in protein and extremely versatile - i’m trying hard right now not to quote Bubba from Forest Gump - but they are very efficient. They are ready to be harvested in just four months with a feed conversion ratio of 1.4 pounds of feed for one pound of gain. For reference, that’s better than all the other major proteins like chicken, pork, beef, etc. You can also set up an indoor shrimp farm anywhere. Steve’s is relatively close to the ocean, but that’s mostly because he wanted to be close to the demand - he’s making his own saltwater on site, as you’ll hear. Steve’s background is after attending Columbia University he spent a year on Wall Street and decided it wasn’t for him. Wanting to make an impact he got very interested in fisheries which led to a master’s in marine conservation from the University of Miami and a career in aquaculture that ultimately led to him starting TransparenSea which has been in operation for about two years.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Forage Capital Partners: https://foragecapitalpartners.com/Jim Taylor of Forage Capital Partners. Jim has been involved with financing growth companies for over 20 years and has created and managed seven different funds prior to Forage. He was a founder of three growth equity funds, three subordinated debt funds, and the Farm Credit Canada Ventures direct investment program. Jim has raised and managed over $500 million dollars of growth capital in the Ag food industry. Jim has carved out a reputation for himself as the go-to person for anyone with an ag or food company with a proven product and business model that is ready to take on outside investment for growth. His approach makes so much sense to me as someone who can be a bit skeptical of a lot of what I see in early stage venture capital. But we’ve never covered this on the show, so I’m very excited to share with you this conversation with Jim Taylor.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Kessler Ag Ventures: https://kesslerag.ca/FoA 398: The Evolution of Precision Agriculture with Cory Willness and Derek Massey of Croptimistic TechnologyThis is the first installment of a new series of the podcast called "Field Reports", where we will hear from the people who actually use and hopefully benefit from the innovations we so regularly discuss on the show. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, because in this respect, the show has been very one-sided. We hear from the visionaries that are creating new ventures, technologies, programs, research and ideas. But we too rarely hear from those that try them, buy them, and have to make them work in practice and in the field. We’ve been doing this a little bit through the spotlight segments that have aired at the end of about one episode every month. Those are sort of customer testimonials from our quarterly presenting sponsors. I’ve really enjoyed these stories and the tried and true perspectives that come from them. So I’m going to make these short standalone episodes and a regular thing: sometimes with users of the technology from the sponsor, and sometimes not - just profiles of farmers and another users of agricultural innovations. In today’s case, Tyler Kessler owns an independent agronomy consulting business in Southern Saskatchewan alongside his wife, Brooke Dorgan. The company provides a range of agronomic and precision agriculture services for farmers who want to optimize yield, improve soil health, and reduce your environmental impacts. They are also a service provider of SWAT MAPS, our presenting sponsor this quarter. Before incorporating the business in 2015, Tyler worked in ag retail for eight years and spent a couple of years with an ag chemical manufacturer. He says in those days he wasn’t seeing a lot in precision ag that convinced him it was really adding a lot of value to farmers. But then he discovered SWAT MAPS. 

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Verdi Ag: https://www.verdi.ag/Arthur Chen is the CEO of Verdi, which is helping to climate-proofing agriculture with the world's first scalable platform to personalize healthcare for plants, helping the world's largest food brands radically optimize farm productivity and sustainability. In 2022, Verdi saved farmers over 7 million liters of water. Prior to Verdi, Arthur conducted precision agriculture research sponsored by Mineral at Google X. Arthur and I talk about variable rate irrigation, gaining traction as a new agtech company, and how technology like Verdi’s can make an impact on the future of agriculture. 

Michael Ott, CEO of Cquesta, a deep root trait company, discusses the unique technology behind Cquesta, challenges in the soil carbon market, and plans for collaboration within the agricultural industry. The chapter also explores the origins of Cquesta from the Salk Institute's harnessing plants initiative and highlights the importance of deeper roots in improving crop resilience and achieving long-lasting carbon storage. They also discuss their monetization plan, including forward selling the carbon and partnering with seed companies and farmers.

Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS: https://swatmaps.com/Agricultural Economic Insights: https://aei.ag/AEI.ag Presents Podcast: https://aei.ag/podcast/David Widmar is an agricultural economist specializing in agricultural trends and the farm economy. Through his research, he supports agribusinesses and farmers in their strategic and planning efforts. David is the Managing Partner of Agricultural Economic Insights, AEI.ag, which he co-founded with Dr. Brent Gloy in 2014. Prior to AEI, David was a researcher with the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University and served as the economist for the Kansas Department of Agriculture. I highly recommend you subscribe to AEI’s content and go check out their podcast, AEI.ag Presents. I especially recommend their season on the 1980s farm crisis.In today’s episode, David and I discuss farmland values, the impact of higher interest rates, how to think about risk, and how to manage volatility in things like markets and inflation.