Ag Innovation Begins on the Farm

On today’s episode, we celebrate the end of our first full year of the podcast by taking a look back at some previous episodes in order to take a look forward into the future of agriscience. In the spirit of Agriscience Explained and the fact that we believe true ag innovation has to be farmer-led, we’ve invited an innovative farmer to join the show for this episode. Tim Nuss of Nuss Farms operates in Lodi, California. In addition to his day job on the farm, Tim also started a podcast called The Modern Acre with his brother Tyler about eight years ago. This weekly show that focuses on entrepreneurs in the ag industry also led them to launching something called AgList about a year ago. Tim is a great example of a farmer thinking differently about agricultural innovation. Our conversation connected very closely with several of our episodes we’ve done for this podcast this season.“ A lot of farmers are in really challenging situations right now and they're exhausted with financials of the business and just getting through the year of really keeping yourself open to new ideas and having those conversations takes a lot of work and takes a mindset…You just have to keep that positive growth mindset and know that if you have a limited budget, like don't put innovation on the back burner. It still needs to be a part of the budget.” - Tim NussAgriscience Explained hopes to not only emphasize innovation but to highlight that innovation doesn’t matter unless it can be applied. And in order to go from science to solution, effective communication has to happen. As any good entrepreneur does, beyond farming and beyond podcasting, Tim noticed an additional problem that needed a solution. Seeing this chaotic landscape of the ag biologicals market, Tim and his brother Tyler decided to launch a website called AgList. AgList helps farmers and agronomists filter through various biological products and find out what real users have to say about them. Companies pay to list their products on the platform so that they can be endorsed by customers who have firsthand experience with them. “ It's very hard for individual farmers to talk to a hundred different companies to see if their product works…. We just saw this as an opportunity where there's a lot of challenge to understand as a farmer what works for you. The landscape map is cool to look at, but it's really challenging….So kind of leveling the playing field, putting it on an independent platform to kind of be able to click through and understand what products are actually relevant for you.” - Tim NussPrevious Episodes Referenced: Agriscience Explained with Sam EathingtonCrucial Conversations About Biologicals in AgricultureUnlocking Agriscience InnovationGene Editing: Pathway to ProgressPermanent Cover Crops Take RootScience, Sustainability and the Art of FarmingDiscovering Tomorrow’s Biotech TraitsAgriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.