Terviva: https://terviva.com/ Today’s episode is long overdue. For the past 15 years, today’s guest: Naveen Sikka, has been working to commercialize the pongamia tree. There are several things that are special about this emerging crop. First, it’s a legume, so like soybeans, peas, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, the plant forms symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, so in short, it can fix its own nitrogen from the atmosphere. Although the crop does still require some ferti...
Aug 14, 2024•42 min•Ep 428•Transcript available on Metacast 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....
Aug 07, 2024•38 min•Ep 427•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Podcast 00:36 Inspiration from a Recent Keynote 01:49 Reflecting on the Podcast's Jou...
Jul 31, 2024•19 min•Ep 426•Transcript available on Metacast 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 s...
Jul 24, 2024•39 min•Ep 425•Transcript available on Metacast 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 University Future of Agriculture 162: Cannabis Inputs with Dr Colin Bell of Mammoth Microbes Really excited this week to bring Dr. Matt Wallenstein onto the show. Matt is the Chief Soil Scientist...
Jul 17, 2024•39 min•Ep 424•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 11, 2024•39 min•Ep 423•Transcript available on Metacast Cultura Technologies: https://culturatech.com/ Metal Dog Labs: https://www.metaldoglabs.ai/ Software Is Feeding The World Newsletter: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftw If 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 exper...
Jul 03, 2024•38 min•Ep 422•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Arable Today'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...
Jun 26, 2024•37 min•Ep 421•Transcript available on Metacast 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 SwineTech FoA 117: Bridging the Gap Between AgTech Entrepreneurs and Farmers with Pete Nelson of AgLaunch Today's episode features Pete Nelson and Margaret Oldham from Aglaunch and Spencer Stensrude at Ag Ventures Alliance. If you’ve b...
Jun 19, 2024•49 min•Ep 420•Transcript available on Metacast 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 distribu...
Jun 12, 2024•38 min•Ep 419•Transcript available on Metacast Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/ AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/ Azure Data Manager for Agriculture (ADMA): https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/data-manager-for-agriculture Ag Powered Services: https://agpoweredservices.com/ "Scaling Sustainability Through Bayer & Microsoft Partnership": https://www.bayer.com/en/agriculture/bayer-and-microsoft-partnership Today's episode features conversations with Claudia Roessler and Mark Pendergrast. A quick heads up on a couple of things ...
Jun 06, 2024•42 min•Ep 418•Transcript available on Metacast 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 t...
May 29, 2024•37 min•Ep 417•Transcript available on Metacast Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/ AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/ 4AG Robotics: https://4ag.ai/ As you heard a bit about in last weeks episode, mushrooms are an incredible indoor crop with a ton of advantages and potential. But they are also extremely labor intensive. “When you have a crop that doubles in size every 24 hours, you're often picking mushrooms at the end of the shift because you know that they'll start colliding with other mushrooms or their caps will open up by the ne...
May 22, 2024•38 min•Ep 416•Transcript available on Metacast 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 fa...
May 15, 2024•34 min•Ep 415•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ed...
May 08, 2024•34 min•Ep 414•Transcript available on Metacast Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/ AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/ Software is Feeding The World: https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftw Beck'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...
May 01, 2024•47 min•Ep 413•Transcript available on Metacast Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/ AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/ ELO Life: https://elolife.com/ Pairwise: https://www.pairwise.com/home New Leaf Symbiotics: https://www.newleafsym.com/ Harpe Bio: https://harpebio.com/ "Biologicals are ‘economically unfeasible’ According to Report: The Shortcomings and Opportunities" by Upstream Ag Insights: https://www.upstream.ag/p/biologicals-are-economically-unfeasible I considered a title for this episode that was something like “The Biological Revo...
Apr 25, 2024•45 min•Ep 412•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 18, 2024•39 min•Ep 411•Transcript available on Metacast Headstorm: https://headstorm.com/ AGPILOT: https://headstorm.com/agpilot/ Hemprino: https://www.hemprino.co.nz/ Prime Future Newsletter: https://primefuture.substack.com/ We’ve all heard the stats about how little of what consumers pay makes it back to the farmer or rancher. Some producers, like New Zealand sheep farmer Paul Ensor, are seizing the opportunity to capture more of that value. "A lot of farmers don't know where their produce goes once it leaves the farm gate, but we're very well con...
Apr 10, 2024•39 min•Ep 410•Transcript available on Metacast 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-ag...
Apr 04, 2024•38 min•Ep 409•Transcript available on Metacast SWAT MAPS : https://swatmaps.com/ Follow Paul Sullivan on Twitter : https://twitter.com/SullivanAgro These 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 p...
Mar 29, 2024•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS : https://swatmaps.com/ University of Saskatchewan Precision Agriculture Certificate Program : https://admissions.usask.ca/precision-agriculture.php I 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 underst...
Mar 27, 2024•38 min•Ep 408•Transcript available on Metacast Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS : https://swatmaps.com/ The Context Network : https://contextnet.com/ Today's episode features Christian Guffy of the Context Network. I wanted to bring Christian on the show to talk about talent and growing a client services firm. I think those are both interesting and important topics that I haven’t done a good job of covering on the show. In client services, which is the business I’m in with the consulting that I do, all you have to sell is your t...
Mar 20, 2024•41 min•Ep 407•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Mar 15, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 pr...
Mar 13, 2024•38 min•Ep 406•Transcript available on Metacast 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, manag...
Mar 06, 2024•40 min•Ep 405•Transcript available on Metacast Variable Rate done RIGHT with SWAT MAPS : https://swatmaps.com/ Lavoro Agro : https://www.lavoroagro.com/ Software Is Feeding The World Newsletter : https://www.rhishipethe.com/sftw Work with Rhishi : https://www.metaldoglabs.ai/ Brazil has officially overtaken the US to become the top corn exporter in the world. And companies like Lavoro Agro are seizing a huge opportunity to bring more technology to Brazilian farmers. "A US corn farmer is gonna be two times more productive than that Brazilian ...
Feb 28, 2024•47 min•Ep 404•Transcript available on Metacast 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 w...
Feb 21, 2024•40 min•Ep 403•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Feb 14, 2024•37 min•Ep 402•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Technology This 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 ...
Feb 12, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
