Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ CropIn: https://www.cropin.com/ Software is Feeding the World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/newsletter Today’s episode features Krishna Kumar of CropIn. Krishna shared with me CropIn’s 12 year journey in the agtech world, which I think is in some ways representative of agtech’s journey more generally. They started by building applications for farmers and companies with a vested interest in agricultural supply chains. From scaling their digital s...
Dec 28, 2022•33 min
Visit Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ XtremeAg: https://www.xtremeag.farm/ Farmer innovators featured on this show: Kristjan Hebert Greg Bethard Mike & April Clayton Paul Greive Zack Smith Peter van Wingerden Trey Hill Claire Smith Jesse Pella Patrick Smith Kelly Garrett Mike Evans...
Dec 21, 2022•44 min
Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ California Cotton & Climate Coalition: https://californiacottonandclimatecoalition.com/ Bowles Farming Company: https://bfarm.com/ FiberShed: https://fibershed.org/ Today’s episode is about the work being done by the California Cotton and Climate Coalition or C4. This is an example of a group of people that aren’t interested in the hype and greenwashing that goes on in so many “sustainability” circles. They are doing the hard work of bringing the righ...
Dec 14, 2022•42 min
Sound Ag: https://www.sound.ag/ Ripe Robotics: https://www.riperobotics.com/ Today’s episode features Hunter Jay, CEO and cofounder of Ripe Robotics, a startup working on autonomous harvesting of fruit. The prototype is in small scale commercial trials, and will be ready to scale up in 2023 & 2024. The company has 2 commercial trial partners and another 30 companies on its waitlist, who spend a combined $85m USD on picking annually. Most of you have probably heard about robotic apple picking...
Dec 07, 2022•38 min
Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Neutral Foods: https://www.eatneutral.com/ Jennifer Barney's "The Business of Food" newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/ When I first read about Neutral Foods, I thought “that’s really smart branding”, but can they really back it up? And if so, how? And what’s in it for the farmer to incentivize them to make changes that benefit society, but may or may not benefit them? That’s really what today’s episode is all about. We’re about to brin...
Nov 30, 2022•39 min
Visit Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Do Good Foods: https://dogoodfoods.com/ Harborview Farms: https://www.harborviewfarms.net/ Trey Hill Interview: https://youtu.be/FRC1Ca9klGA Future of Agriculture YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClJpE4tdH2NN6Plj1UIWNwA Justin Kamine co-founded Do Good Foods with his brother Matthew to combat climate change by fighting food waste. They’ve created a closed-loop system with state-of-the-art infrastructure designed to upcycle surplus g...
Nov 23, 2022•40 min
Visit Sound Agriculture's website: https://www.sound.ag/ Our featured guests today are Sound Agriculture's CEO Adam Litle, as well as co-founder and CTO Travis Bayer. If you’re thinking you’ve heard all about Sound from previous episodes of this podcast, that’s great! But I will assure you there is a lot more you haven’t heard yet and this episode is well worth your time. Adam and Travis really do a great job of capturing a huge trend for the future of agriculture: the convergence of biolo...
Nov 16, 2022•38 min
Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ Farmers Risk: https://farmersrisk.ag/ Today’s episode features Dakota Hoben, co-founder and CEO of Farmers Risk. This is an interesting look at a new startup that is taking on a complicated topic: grain marketing. As many of you know, buying and selling grain is where I started my career, so I’m always curious about companies in this space, but frankly, always a little skeptical as well. Just knowing how many variables are at play in these decisions, not ...
Nov 09, 2022•39 min
Visit Sound Agriculture: https://www.sound.ag/ The Breakthrough Institute: https://thebreakthrough.org/ Alex Smith Bio & Articles: https://thebreakthrough.org/people/alex-smith "To Decarbonize Food Production, Washington Must Invest" https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environment/to-decarbonize-food-production-washington-must-invest "The Problem With Alice Waters and the 'Slow Food' Movement" https://jacobin.com/2021/12/organic-local-industrial-agriculture-farm-to-table/ "Fr...
Nov 02, 2022•40 min
Visit our sponsor: https://www.sound.ag/ EFC Systems by Ever.Ag: https://www.efcsystems.com/ CropLife, "Top 6 Questions (and Answers) Every Agribusiness Should Be Asking About Cyberattacks and Data Security": https://www.croplife.com/iron/software/top-6-questions-and-answers-every-agribusiness-should-be-asking-about-cyberattacks-and-data-security/ Farm Progress, "Protect your farm from cyberattack": https://www.farmprogress.com/management/protect-your-farm-cyberattack I’ve been wanting to do som...
Oct 26, 2022•36 min
Visit our sponsor: https://www.sound.ag/ April Clayton Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppleApril111 April the Apple Gal YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DOJG_0BOYGv00KAw-CuxQ/videos April on “Real Food, Real People”: https://realfoodrealpeople.org/april-clayton-002/ April on “The Farm Traveler”: https://thefarmtraveler.com/2020/04/22/podcast-episode-53/ April on “What The Farm”: https://farmercitygirl.libsyn.com/144-april-clayton-organic-orchardist I’ve been following April Clayt...
Oct 19, 2022•40 min
Visit our sponsor: https://www.sound.ag/ LandScan: https://landscan.ai/ Today’s episode with LandScan founder and CEO, Dan Rooney. We could spend the entire episode going through Dan’s background and expertise in this field, but I wanted to get right to the interesting work he’s doing at LandScan, a company they’ve been working on quietly since 2019. They’ve developed what they call “the most advanced and practical site characterization and analysis technology. These multiple layers are a series...
Oct 12, 2022•40 min
Visit our sponsor: https://www.sound.ag/ Seal the Seasons: https://sealtheseasons.com/ The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/ Today’s episode features Alex Piasecki, co-founder and COO of Seal the Seasons, a retail consumer brand of packaged frozen fruit and vegetables. Seal The Seasons is aptly named as its mission is to bring locally grown produce to your grocery store 12 months a year. They do this by sourcing high quality fruit and vegetable varieties from loca...
Oct 05, 2022•37 min
Visit our sponsor: http://www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com Over the past couple of weeks, two former guests of this podcast, Vence and TeleSense, have announced that they have been acquired. This prompted a random idea in my head to do an episode called 10 former guests that have been acquired. But I first wondered: have there even been ten yet? A quick scan of previous episodes and a little bit of Googling revealed that there have been at least 10 that have been acquired in some form or fashion. ...
Sep 28, 2022•48 min
Visit our sponsor: http://www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com Pattern Ag: https://www.pattern.ag/ FoA 170: Genetic Testing for Soil with Dr. Poornima Parameswaran: https://aggrad.libsyn.com/foa-170-genetic-testing-for-soil-with-dr-poornima-parameswaran-of-trace-genomics Today’s episode features a conversation with Mike Tweedy, VP of sales for Pattern Ag. Pattern Ag is a predictive analytics company that uses DNA sequencing of the soil to see the actual biology in farmers’ fields that they claim has never ...
Sep 21, 2022•33 min
Visit our presenting sponsor: http://www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com HEMPALTA: https://www.hempalta.com/ Phyto Organix: https://phytoorganixfoods.com/ We often get excited about the future of agriculture being more diverse and distributed and differentiated, but this is not going to happen by just planting new crops. Entire value chains need to be created to facilitate rich and diverse crop rotations and food choices. A critical piece of this is processing. These are the entrepreneurs that tap directl...
Sep 14, 2022•30 min
Visit our quarterly presenting sponsor: https://www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com Bruins Seed Consultancy: https://www.bruinsseedconsultancy.com/ "20 Most Famous Plant Breeders": https://european-seed.com/2022/07/20-most-famous-plant-breeders-1-5/ Dr. Marcel Bruins studied Plant Breeding at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, followed by a PhD award on Fusarium resistance in wheat. He worked for 10 years with a vegetable seed company as Manager Plant Variety Protection. He then served for 7 years ...
Sep 07, 2022•32 min
Visit our presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com California Ag Solutions: https://www.calagsolutions.com/ Livestock Water Recycling: https://www.livestockwaterrecycling.com/ Joining us on today's episode is Silas Rossow, president of California Ag Solutions, which is a crop consulting company that helps growers leverage technologies and production practices that meet the needs of the crop and the goals of the farmer. Silas says they're known for their in depth understanding of the ecologi...
Aug 31, 2022•43 min
Visit our presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com Nitricity: https://www.nitricity.co/ Today’s episode features Nico Pinkowski, co-founder and CEO of Nitricity, which is a company electrifying and distributing the production of fertilizer. As it is done today, fertilizer emits as much as 5-7%/yr of total global GHG emissions. The company can trace its beginnings back to Stanford University where Nico received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Nitricity and Nico have been awarded num...
Aug 24, 2022•33 min
Visit our presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com Posterity Ciderworks: https://posterityciderworks.com/ Brendan Barnard Twitter: https://twitter.com/IntractableLion Posterity Ciderworks Twitter: https://twitter.com/posteritycider Kris Barnard Twitter: https://twitter.com/KrisMBarnard FoA 318: The Budding American (Hard) Cider Industry with Greg Peck, Ph.D. https://player.captivate.fm/episode/49237ec9-117d-4d16-9569-0672b5e9aeca Today’s episode features Brendan Barnard of Posterity Ciderwo...
Aug 17, 2022•41 min
Visit our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com Builders VC: https://www.builders.vc FoA 169: Investing in Farmland with Carter Malloy of AcreTrader https://player.captivate.fm/episode/2d02dd15-9faa-469b-8b5d-5b99233a3a53 FoA 188: Fintech Meets Agtech to Invest in Farmland https://player.captivate.fm/episode/44a98802-07c3-4295-87c0-e0965881e5b2 Joining us on today’s episode is Mark Blackwell of Builders VC. Mark is actually based in Calgary, but Builders is a Silicon Valley - b...
Aug 10, 2022•39 min
Visit our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.calgaryagbusiness.com Teffola: https://www.eatteffola.com/ The Business of Food Newsletter: https://jenniferbarney.substack.com/ FoA 221: Bringing Commercial Quinoa Production to Colorado: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/fd94a32f-7554-46b4-9ba5-bfc50a371680 Claire Smith is the founder of the ancient grain granola brand Teffola. She comes from a 7th generation farming family in Michigan where Tenera Farms has been farming wheat, corn, and soy since ...
Aug 03, 2022•41 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com AgriPlay: https://www.agriplay.com/ A4 Systems: https://a4.systems/ Joining us for today's episode is Dan Houston, president of AgriPlay. Dan has over 17 years of experience in commercial real estate. He is a partner in a company called A4 Systems, which looks for industry issues that can use their expertise in data and technology. They have started two companies in agriculture: the first being HerdWhistle, a feedlot manage...
Jul 27, 2022•35 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com Root Agricultural Advisory: RootAgAdvisory.com Skye Root on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skye-root-cfa-5064463/ Skye Root is the founder of Root Agricultural Advisory where he manages and grows farmland portfolios throughout the Western USA. Prior to starting his company he worked as a senior vice president for Westchester Group Investment Management, a global farmland asset manager. And before that he was a water ...
Jul 20, 2022•36 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com TurtleTree: https://turtletree.com/ "From Farms to Incubators" https://bookshop.org/books/from-farms-to-incubators-women-innovators-revolutionizing-how-our-food-is-grown/9781610355759 Joining us on today’s episode is Fengru Lin, co-founder of TurtleTree, which is based in both Singapore and California. The company describes itself as “a biotech company dedicated to producing a new generation of nutrition—one that’s better f...
Jul 13, 2022•29 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor: Calgary, Alberta! www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com Greg Peck research: https://hardcider.cals.cornell.edu/ Cider Chat Podcast: https://ciderchat.com/ Today is an episode I’ve been very excited about for a long time because it combines three of my biggest passions: cider, farming, and this podcast. It’s part history of apples and cider, part analysis of the growing cider industry, and part personal indulgence of asking an expert if I’m crazy t...
Jul 06, 2022•41 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Prime Future Weekly Newsletter: https://primefuture.substack.com/ Video of High Plains Ponderosa Dairy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s91pH9wNKOw Today’s episode covers some really progressive concepts in modern agriculture, and specifically modern dairy. Greg Bethard is the CEO of High Plains Ponderosa Dairy in Kansas. You’re going to hear from the lens of a...
Jun 29, 2022•41 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Verntures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Poultry Sense: https://www.poultrysenseltd.com/ Ancera: https://www.ancera.com/ For the first half of today's episode you’ll hear an interview with Alan Beynon, founder of Poultry Sense. Then in the second half you’ll hear from Ancera founder & CEO Arjun Ganesan, who I’ll formally introduce a bit late in the episode. Alan Beynon is a veterinarian in the UK who...
Jun 22, 2022•37 min
Philip Giampietro is the CEO and president of Walden Local Meat Company. Founded in 2014, Walden is New England and New York's leading brand of locally raised, sustainable meat. They are part of the first cohort of companies to legally reincorporate as a public benefit corporation or B-Corp. Philip says their purpose is to “make local work," with a more specific mandate to: 1) Connect adjacent rural and urban communities, 2) Produce the healthiest products possible with leading standards of anim...
Jun 15, 2022•38 min
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ AGI: https://www.aggrowth.com/ Farmobile: https://www.farmobile.com/ Today’s episode is a fascinating look at the value of farm data. Jason Tatge has been thinking about farm data for decades now, and you’re going to hear about the early days of trading data over the phone, to how that concept is basically what we know today as carbon credits and NFTs. He’ll al...
Jun 08, 2022•38 min
