Who's Who Agri Food Tech
Last week I attended this event in San Francisco highlighting
the latest advancements in agri-food technology hosted by Rethink. Over 900 people
representing some 450 companies and institutions participated in this global
gathering of scientists, engineers, financiers, marketing/sales people,
entrepreneurs, public service/government representatives, academicians as well
as consultants like myself.
I have participated in this event in the past and certainly
this year exceeded my expectations as to what may have changed in this “fast-paced”
market sector. Note the quotes here as while the rate of adoption of new
technologies may not have increased significantly the technologists are rapidly
developing many solutions that are certain game changers as the industry seeks
to optimize or, in some cases, replace the agri-food value chain entirely in
the future. Game Changers
How to sum up the take
aways from this two day meeting? Let me just say that within the various
categories of ag and food tech (Robotics, Gene Editing – no longer GMO,
Biological Microbial Molecular Enhancers, IoT Sensors Controllers, Information
Technology Imagery Analytics) there are some exciting new advancements that can
clearly change the way that we produce food and deliver it to consumers
sustainably.
The highlights for me were in the rapid development of
disease or drought resistant varieties using what are referred to as “crispers”
(CRISPR, CASP) that have the potential to insure that the next Irish potato
blight famine never happens again. More importantly, scientists are developing
what I would refer to as bio/microbial enhancers that drastically reduce the need
for NPK simply by optimizing the plant itself. Improving the overall vigor of
the plant also minimizes the need for pesticides, too.
We were introduced to new harvesting equipment that can literally
handle the most difficult and delicate of all crops, strawberries, and also be
adapted for a number of other fruit and vegetable labor intensive crops. There
were people who are looking at the issue of creating new food products that are
nutritionally healthy AND better tasting. It is not just about improving yields
anymore.
Rethinking the Value Chain
One company is developing local fully automated greenhouses
that can deliver food to local grocers in half the time and one tenth the
distances traveled by the majority of our produce today. Think the Central and
Salinas Valleys next door to Trader Joes in Chicago and New York.
It's the Integration
Everyone is still trying to figure out the key to unlocking
the mystery of getting to the middle of that bell curve for adoption. Growers
and trusted advisors are being deluged with a lot of point solutions but very
little in the way of fully integrated and open systems. Without these solutions
growers will not move from data to information to knowledge to AI that quickly make
accurate decisions for those producers.
Gorillas in Our Midst
The agribusiness landscape is changing as we were introduced
to Corteva Agriscience, formally Dow DuPont Pioneer. The company will be
opening up some opportunities in promoting new farm management information systems
in a recent startup acquisition. How this unfolds we shall see.
Lest I forget. There is a new player coming to the dining
room table via the farm. Amazon. More on that later.
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