Agtech - So What?

While the term “organic” tends to be associated with small-scale production and a preference for manual tools over the latest technology, organic farming advocates claim their methods can reduce the need for expensive inputs like fertilizers and herbicides, improve soil health, and allow farmers to differentiate their product in otherwise global commodity markets. So, what can commodity agriculture learn from organic farming?

Our guest this week is Amy Bruch, a sixth-generation farmer of row crops, small grains, pulses, and oilseeds, and 2021 Organic Trade Association Organic Farmer of the Year. After starting her career as a systems engineer in food manufacturing, Amy travelled to work on large-scale soil improvement projects in Brazil. This experience “farming in another postcode” then led to her approach managing the family farm back in Eastern Nebraska, and turning nearly 2,500 acres into organic production.

In this episode, Amy talks about:

• How her experience improving degraded, acidic soils in regional Brazil makes her a better farmer at Cyclone Farms today
• The benefits of combining organic production techniques AND new innovations in technology
• How a focus on soil health is a gateway for more farmers to not only sequester more carbon, but also realize meaningful benefits for their crops & bottom line
• Why current organic farming standards are a potential onramp for farmers to adopt more “climate smart” agricultural practices

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Agriculture is exposed to a complex tangle of laws, trade agreements, and competing visions of the future. For farmers, adjustments by legislators at any level of government can have an impact. So while policy is often an afterthought for operators in tech, the pressure for farmers to be engaged and represented in the formulation of new policy is real. It’s for this reason that ag has always invested deeply in advocacy groups. Our guest this week is Emma Germano, President of The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) and Managing Director of her family’s fruit and vegetable business, I Love Farms. Almost two years into her tenure as President of an advocacy group that positions itself as “the voice of Victorian farmers and rural communities,” Emma joins us to speak about:

• What interests and skills led her to advocacy and working with the VFF
• The role of ag advocacy groups and the ROI they deliver for growers
• Why advocacy groups are under pressure to engage a new generation of members in regional communities
• What Emma sees as the central issues for Australian agricultural advocacy

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Back in May, we published an experimental bonus episode called “The Three Fears of Farm Data”. The conversation centered around the legitimacy of fears held by farmers about sharing their farm data, and kicked off with a particularly hot take: “We in agtech have completely f*****d farmers by making them afraid of sharing their data.” The episode got a huge reaction from around the industry - both positive and critical. It’s clear that the conversation around farm data is one that everyone in agtech, from farmers and startups to analysts and operators in agribusinesses, seem interested in continuing. Our latest bonus episode features Tenacious Ventures Partners and Co-Founders Sarah Nolet and Matthew Pryor analyzing the wide range of reactions that have been sent through over recent weeks. They’ll be discussing responses from:

• Bernie Byrnes, farmer and 2020 Nuffield Scholar
• Eric Taipale, CTO at ag insights platform Sentera
• Dan Shultz, agtech marketer
• Nigel Kleinschmidt, agtech industry professional and friend of the show
• Pip Grant, an operator and listener working in agtech and research
• Rhishi Pethe, author of Software is Feeding the World

It was the engagement of our audience that made this episode possible, and we are deeply grateful to these contributors and to everyone else that submitted a response we did not get to include. If you loved this week’s episode or hated it, get in touch. We might ask you to be on next! For more information and resources, visit our website.

Autonomous farming equipment and robotics in ag is more crowded than ever. Every new acquisition from an incumbent or deployment of venture capital into the space creates more buzz to sort through in the inboxes of analysts, entrepreneurs, and farmers. With the industry growing so quickly, it’s helpful to have a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening, and what it means for the future of agriculture. So, in this week’s episode we give listeners a framework to understand the rapidly moving world of autonomy in ag. Our guest is Andrew Bate, Co-Founder and CEO of SwarmFarm Robotics, who joins us to share his observations on the three major categories of autonomy that are emerging in ag. Drawing on his experiences as a farmer and founder, and insights from SwarmBot customers around Australia, Andrew speaks about:

• How his experience growing the family farm led to the creation of SwarmFarm Robotics
• What three categories are emerging in the marketplace of autonomy in agriculture
• Examples of the new farming practices that autonomy unlocks
• How SwarmFarm Robotics’ plan to scale differs from the dealership model

For more information and resources, visit our website.

When it comes to designing carbon programs in agriculture, there is a very real tension between the science and the commercial realities of drawing down carbon at scale. Particularly, the question of how to incentivize on-farm practice changes is one that many companies in ag carbon have failed to answer. Working at the intersection of these tensions is our guest this week, Emma Fuller, Carbon and Ecosystem Services Portfolio Leader at Corteva Agriscience. An accomplished data scientist and ecologist, Emma began her career in agrifood systems publishing research on West Coast fisheries in the US, before jumping into the world of startups at Granular. After their $300M acquisition by what is now Corteva Agriscience, today Emma designs programs that credit farmers for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or sequestering carbon in their soils. In this episode, Emma talks about:

• How it felt to move from academia into industry, and how Emma realized that the barriers to scaling carbon programs had little to do with science
• Why Corteva decided to partner with carbon marketplaces, and how this strategy is unlocking more scale and delivering value to both parties
• Conflicts of interest in carbon markets, and whether one company can both measure an intangible commodity and sell it

For more information and resources, visit our website.

This week we're bringing you the final episode in our three-part series on the future of ag insurance. Our journey started with learning the ins and outs of how the sector currently operates (check out the ag insurance 101 episode here) and then talking to key players about new products and technologies entering the industry (check out Damon Johnson on parametric insurance here). Today, Sarah is joined by Matthew Pryor to talk through their learnings in a live attempt to develop an investment thesis for ag insurance. They cover:

• Technologies and business models shifting the CAC/LTV equation in ag insurance
• How insurance is likely to change as agriculture faces more and more extreme weather events
• What entrepreneurs disrupting ag insurance need to be excellent at
• Possible areas for venture investment in ag insurance, from new products to enabling infrastructure and digitally-native business models

We hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain of how we think and work, but if you didn't, or you think we missed or got something wrong, we'd love to hear from you! Shout out at @agtechsowhat or via our website.

For a traditionally low innovation industry, things are starting to heat up in agricultural insurance. While it remains something of a black box for many people in agriculture, the forces of climate change and technological innovation are creating the right mix of incentives that could change how the whole industry approaches risk. This second episode of our exploration of ag insurance (check out the first, a 101 on ag insurance, here!) considers a digitally-native product in the hands of farmers today. Reimagining insurance like this will be the difference between farmers spending hours, days, and weeks dealing with brokers and getting payouts, compared to almost instant quotes, claims, and reimbursements. In this episode, our guest Damon Johnson, Director of Strategic Projects at Global Ag Risk Solutions, speaks about:

• What incentives are changing to increase the use of more data in agricultural insurance
• How parametric insurance works as an alternative to traditional agricultural products
• What’s involved in developing a parametric product to create new value for customers as well as vendors
• Where digitally-native insurance products might emerge as a value-add for sustainable farming systems and inputs

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Climate change will mean more frequent, extreme weather and more risk exposure for farmers around the world. This increased risk should be a driver for the business of agricultural insurers. But, it’s not easy to predict how climate change and digital-disruption might transform one of the world’s oldest industries. Actually, we’ve come to realize it isn’t easy to understand how agricultural insurance works at all. So, in the spirit of learning out loud, we’re releasing TWO episodes this week. This first one dives into the mysterious world of ag insurance with a 101-style conversation with Matt Coutts, Chief Investment Officer of Coutts Capita, and Tenacious Ventures General Partner Matthew Pryor. We talk about:

• How farmers think about risk and forms of insurance
• What ag insurance products actually do, how they work, who is involved, and what the dynamics are between different players from brokers to master agents
• Why ag insurance, as it is structured today, is a zero-sum game played out between insurers and farmers
• What the different forces are that will shape the industry into the future

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Recently the whole team here at Tenacious Ventures had the chance to get out of town and on to the farm. And not just any farm – we visited Jigsaw Farms, home to sheep farmer and long-time friend of the show Mark Wooton and his wife Eve. While out at Jigsaw, Mark and Eve gave us an update on their vision for “sustainable intensification” and their ethos for farm management. In that spirit we wanted to revisit our original conversation with Mark that was published nearly two years ago. After the recent visit to Jigsaw, it’s clear there are insights from this first discussion that are still valuable and relevant today, as Mark talks about:

• Balancing the social imperative to farm ethically with production methods that can keep businesses profitable,
• Keeping an eye on emerging trends like ecosystem services markets, and being open to the possibility of accessing premiums where they might emerge
• The growing regenerative agriculture movement, and the need for farmers to think critically about guidelines and principles that are often put forward as dogma
• The primacy of data in every decision that gets made on the farm

For more information and resources, visit our website.

It isn’t surprising that most farmers have to be expert planners and investors. But getting an inside view into how a farmer plans for the future of their business is a rare opportunity. In this episode, you’ll hear firsthand how Hallie Shoffner, a sixth-generation row crop farmer in the Mississippi Delta, makes decisions for her farm and company, SFR Seed. While Hallie is an enthusiastic adopter of new farming innovations, this conversation shows that every decision must be well supported by reliable data and the right incentives. Listen in to hear Hallie speak about:

• Investing in conservation practices as a tactic to mitigate financial and environmental risk
• What farmers like Hallie want to see from potential partners and vendors in agtech
• How COVID-19 impacted a large project to electrify operations on the farm
• Why many farmers are skeptical of participating in carbon programs and markets

For more information and resources, visit our website.