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 rights consultant for WestWater Research, a leading advisory firm in the water rights industry. In today’s episode we talk farmland and water, and the perception of more outside institutional money being deployed in rural areas. And when we say institutional money, we are talking about large organizations such as banks, pension funds, or insurance companies who are usually investing on behalf of their stakeholders. Skye is unique in that he grew up in a very rural part of eastern Oregon on a farm and ranch so he really understands the perspectives of both the producers and the investors looking to get into this industry.
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 for the planet, better for the animals, and better for people everywhere. Utilizing its proprietary, cell-based technology, the company is creating better-for-you milk ingredients sustainably and affordably, with benefits that extend beyond the dining table and into the heart of humanity.” When I first heard this description I was highly skeptical about their ability to compete with what I know is a very efficient dairy industry. But what I learned from Fengru shed a lot of light on where...
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor: Calgary, Alberta! http://www.calgaryagbusiness.com/ (www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com) Greg Peck research: https://hardcider.cals.cornell.edu/ (https://hardcider.cals.cornell.edu/) Cider Chat Podcast: https://ciderchat.com/ (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 to dream of one-day owning an orchard-based cider company. Dr. Greg Peck is a pomologist, cider expert, and an associate professor in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell University. His research addresses the challenges of sustainably and profitably producing tree fruits, and has conducted research in fruit-crop production systems in California, Washington, New York, and Virginia. He really ...
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 producer how they are finding ways to lower their carbon footprint, produce both dairy and beef using the same resources, drive costs lower, and partner with companies like Shell to take their operation to the next level.
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 started Prognostix, which used to be called Poultry Sense, in 2016. As Alan will describe, he saw a lot of opportunity in the use of sensors and data to improve animal welfare and efficiency. Merck Animal Health Ventures invested in the company in 2019 and then ended up acquiring them in 2021. We talk a little bit about that part of Alan’s story as well. Connecticut-based Ancera is a pioneer in microbial-based risk assessment and monitoring solutions. So what does that mean? They have a ...
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 animal welfare and environmental sustainability, and 3) Create incentives for farmers to move to more regenerative practices — those that are not simply "do less harm" but those that provide a net positive benefit to the environment and surrounding communities. Before Walden, Philip was a Director at Bain Capital and held various positions in private equity and consulting. Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-hea...
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 also talk about how Ag Growth International or AGI is using Farmobile’s platform to connect data from all sorts of equipment including things like grain bins and dryers to reach unprecedented levels of interoperable farm data. Some really interesting topics to cover on today’s show, make sure you stay to the end to hear his vision for where all this stuff is going. Jason is currently serving as a Senior Vice President for AGI Digital. AGI Digital is the collection of technology assets that...
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Blue Ocean Barns: https://blueoceanbarns.com/ Today’s episode features Joan Salwen, co-founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Barns. Joan grew up in the long shadow of her family’s Iowa farm where she harvested cherries and cared for the sheep. During 20 years as a Managing Director at Accenture, Joan managed $50M+ client relationships and led the firm's Atlanta practice for organization and change strategy. In 2015, Joan transitioned to Stanford, where she built a team that energized university, market and government interest in seaweed as a solution to climate change. She founded Elm Innovations, a non-profit platform for exploring the potential of the seaweed-livestock connection and ultimately co-founded the commercial engine for it, Blue Ocean Barns in 2019. I’m very excited to share today’s episode with you. There is so much here. Not only does th...
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ EverAg: https://www.ever.ag/ Dairy.com: https://www.dairy.com/ Prime Future: https://primefuture.substack.com/ Today’s episode is really a unique opportunity to hear from someone who has been working on what it means to digitize agriculture supply chains for over two decades. I can’t think of anyone who better understands the potential here for our industry, but also the reality of the challenges that lie ahead than Scott Sexton of EverAg and Dairy.com. Dairy.com is a leading provider of software, risk management, and market intelligence solutions for the dairy industry. The company was formed in 2000 by investors that included eight of the largest dairy cooperatives, and since that time continued to grow based off just that initial investment and their own earnings until they brought in an outside investor just a few years ago in 2019 and starte...
Thank you to our quarterly presenting sponsor, Merck Animal Health Ventures: https://www.merck-animal-health.com/animal-health-ventures/ Jan Willem van Groenigan https://www.wur.nl/en/Persons/Jan-Willem-prof.dr.ir.-JW-Jan-Willem-van-Groenigen.htm Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JWvanGroenigen YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJz4ijSeqjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt77IvHaZuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6em_8iFfKIk Jan Willem van Groenigan is a professor of Soil Biochemistry at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He is a trained soil fertility specialist, and him and I originally connected about some soil carbon sequestration work that he was a part of. You’ll hear from one of his co-authors about that on a future episode. But when he told me that he was spending a lot of his time these days focused on the role of earthworms in agricultural soils, I knew I had to get him on the show to talk about that topic. He has been a part of several stud...