Can Agriculture Technology Save The World?
- Mar 8, 2022
- 6 min read
Written by: Roger Royse, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Agriculture causes 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[i] It need not be that way. For years, the tech industry has been working on ways to make farming smarter, more efficient and more sustainable.
Since 2014, the Silicon Valley AgTech Conference[ii] has showcased the newest, boldest and most innovative AgTech companies in the Valley and beyond. Many of those companies have matured and are now significantly changing the business of food production. Here are a few highlights. Robotics. Precision agriculture is often thought of as a way to maximize output with minimal inputs, but the benefits of technology go far beyond farm profits. For example, the Silicon Valley startup Blue River Technologies (sold to John Deere) replaces herbicides with visual imaging, deep learning and robotics to identify and zap weeds while leaving the rest of the field alone. Famed Texas cotton farmer Billy Tiller once told me that Blue River’s solution reduced his use of chemicals by 96%. Ninety-Six Percent!
Robotics has risen to meet the challenge of California’s farm labor shortage, which has been worsened by strict immigration policies, an aging farmworker population and COVID. Autonomous Vehicle (AV) tractors are also gaining momentum and electric tractors are now available.[iii]
Animal Ag. Cattle is a large emitter of methane.[iv] Unless alternative meats and proteins become widespread, the most likely solution is the reduction of emission through feed additives. Mootral is one such company that has developed an additive that reduces cattle methane. Manure is also a contributor as it produces 3% of global methane emissions. Some startups are working on recycling technologies that mitigate the problem. The Yield Lab [v] runs the global Manure Challenge [vi] which highlights some of these solutions.
Water. The Western US is in a serious drought this year and has been in and out of drought for decades. California’s storage is depleted and groundwater will only last so long before it becomes too briny or salty for commercial use. Whether due to political reasons or lack of action, California has too few reserves. Much water storage was built in the 1930s and cannot easily support current demands. Monterey County stands as an exception to the rule, where farmers can access a unique underground river, the 2nd largest in the world, recharged by two farmer-built reservoirs, which refill with rainwater in the winters. Other counties do not have that kind of water storage and technology must fill the void. Desalination machines can convert salty groundwater to water that can be used for agricultural production, but desal is costly. Some companies have built water farms based on solar power. Other ideas include water from air, water substitutes and precision irrigation. Water technology demonstrates the power of innovation to conquer huge problems, but adoption is key.
Weather. “Who can the weather command?” asked Jerry Garcia in the song Black Peter. But we can control the weather in the form of controlled environment ag (CEA). Traditional ag is loathed to give credit to the cannabis industry for this advance but, as a high-value crop, cannabis has aided the technology advances now applied to several varietals such as tomatoes, berries and leafy greens. LED lighting (which replaces natural sunlight) has traditionally left a large carbon footprint but that problem will soon be solved, if it has not already, and you may someday see locally grown pineapples in places like Minnesota. CEA also reduces carbon emissions by reducing the need for cross country transportation of food and results in greater food safety and reduced inputs.
Speaking of weather, many would say that the AgTech revolution was launched by a weather app – Climate Corporation started with a service that used data to predict crop losses for insurers. It’s almost billion dollar exit in 2013 attracted the interest of the venture capitalists (VCs) in Silicon Valley and we have been off to the races since then. There have been a few similar exits since then, but the sector is still young (see below).
Food Waste. The protagonist in Steinbeck’s East of Eden thought he had the solution to the food transport problem with refrigerated train cars. Having grown up in the produce industry, I have seen firsthand how much food is wasted from farm to table through spoilage, damage or time – 40% to 50% of produce doesn’t make it by some estimates. Much of that waste can be eliminated through sensors and data, which all refrigeration to be more efficient and riper food to be moved more quickly. Some companies working on the problem of food waste include Full Harvest,[vii] Re-Nuble,[viii] Spoiler Alert,[ix] Apeel,[x] and BinSentry.[xi]
Biologics. As a kid fishing the Red River, I had to check with a state agency about whether there were too many nitrates in the river to eat the fish. The sole source of the problem was chemical fertilizer runoff from farms. Modern technology is taking the chemicals out of farming and replacing them with clean solutions. Pam Marrone, whose company Marrone Bio Innovations creates biological products for crop protection, plant health and waterway systems treatment, says that “biologicals are growing rapidly at double-digit [compound annual growth rate] as chemicals are increasingly restricted or banned. Also, farmers are becoming more aware of biological solutions and integrating them into [integrated pest management] and crop production programs, seeing the increased [return on investment].”
Karsten Temme, CEO of Pivot Bio, spoke at the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Conference about replacing synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (one of the biggest environmental issues in Ag) with microbes. Pivot Bio may be changing the industry and just raised $430M in July 2021 bringing their funding total to $600M.[xii]
GMO stacks reinvented. Several exciting companies are working on newer genetic approaches to help grow crops with reduced nitrogen, water, pesticides, and even turning a plant into a living sensor. Inner Plant, for example, can detect plant stress within hours (not weeks) from space.[xiii]
Sustainable Protein. Some of the biggest, most revolutionary advances are being made in replacing animal protein with plant protein. As an example, IndieBio of San Francisco and New York is incubating companies engaged in this modern-day alchemy. This could be significant. According to IndieBio partner Gwen Cheni, "The future of food isn't merely about the 3% of vegans, but that the 97% rest of us who will eat more plant-based. Just one plant-based meal a week by the 97% is more impactful than doubling the 3% vegans."
Market Acceptance. California’s agricultural business is highly regulated, extremely volatile and complicated. Despite the radical technological advances, innovation adoption has been slow. According to Aaron Magenheim of AgTech Insight and Growers Insight, the industry still faces big challenges. Most farmers are more comfortable with old school ways of doing business and have a hard time actually relying on technology, especially when their entire season might be at risk. Aaron also notes that there is still a large knowledge gap between ag technology companies and their markets along with an industry filled with mostly point solutions, creating difficulty in implementing and demonstrating their value proposition. AgTech Insight helps startups to bridge that gap while Growers Insight helps farmers realize the value of integrating processes and technology.
The Role of Investment. Despite the problems, venture capital is interested. Like many world-changing industries, AgTech is being driven not by large established players but by startup innovators, often backed by venture capital. According to AgFunder, the sector of AgriFoodTech investment continues to break records, reaching $31 billion in 2020, up more than 8X from 2012.[xiv]
These are just a few of the solutions under development as of this writing. Many more are on the drawing board. In a world of bad news and daily disasters, technology offers a glimmer of hope to part of the problem. The best is certainly yet to come.
Roger Royse, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Roger Royse is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Haynes and Boone, LLP and practices in the areas of corporate and securities law, domestic and international tax, mergers and acquisitions, and fund formation. He works with companies ranging from newly formed tech startups to publicly traded multinationals in a variety of industries. Roger is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel and former chair of several committees of the American Bar Association Sections of Business Law and Taxation. Roger has been an instructor or professor of legal, tax and business topics for the Center for International Studies (Salzburg, Austria), Golden Gate University School of Law and Stanford Continuing Studies. Roger is a nationally recognized authority on AgTech – the technology of food production - and the legal considerations for companies in this industry. Roger is also the author of 10,000 Startups: Legal Strategies for Success and Dead on Arrival: How to Avoid the Legal Mistakes That Could Kill Your Startup and has been interviewed and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fox Business, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, Tax Notes, Inc. Magazine, Nikkei Asian Review, China Daily, San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, The Recorder, 7X7, Business Insurance and Fast Company.
References:
[i] World Resource Institute Climate Analysis Indicator Tool (2018) [ii] www.royseagtech.com; https://tmt.knect365.com/silicon-valley-agtech/ [iii] The legal future of autonomous vehicles [iv] Since most cattle are raised for 80+% of their lives on pasture ground that is very carbon negative, the whole cycle may actually be carbon negative. [v] https://www.theyieldlab.com/ [vi] https://www.manurechallenge.com/ [vii] https://www.fullharvest.com/ [viii] https://www.re-nuble.com/ [ix] https://www.spoileralert.com/ [x] https://www.apeel.com/ [xi] https://www.binsentry.com/ [xii] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/pivot-bio-startup-using-microbes-replace-synthetic-fertilizer-raises-430-mln-2021-07-19/ [xiii] https://innerplant.com/ [xiv] https://agfunder.com/
