PODCAST · technology
Agtech - So What?
by Sarah Nolet
We tell the stories of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology to answer the question: what really is agtech and why should you care?
Episodes
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The missing link in agtech adoption, with Pip Job
Adoption isn't the final stage of ag innovation. And extension doesn’t just happen when workshops and fact sheets are added to research projects. Both need to be designed in from the beginning and supported for long enough for change to actually stick. The agriculture system invests heavily in...
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Can you build a farm for an uncertain future? With Simon Wallwork
Building a farm for an uncertain future means questioning some of the assumptions that have driven farming for decades. For Simon Wallwork, a brutally dry season in 2010 was the catalyst for rethinking his farming system. After years of predominantly cropping, he began looking more closely at...
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Business model breakdowns: ag equipment dealer Titan Machinery, with Shane Thomas
As technology makes equipment more autonomous, precise, and serviceable from anywhere, will dealers become less important? Or will they become an even more valuable technology-enabled partner to farmers? Today, Shane Thomas (Upstream Ag Insights) joins us to unpack the underlying economics of ag...
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Are we thinking about trees on farms all wrong? with Michael Taylor
What happens when you stop thinking about trees and agriculture as separate systems? In this episode, sixth-generation Australian farmer and engineer Michael Taylor explains what decades of planting trees have taught his family about farming, resilience and innovation. On their New England...
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What if every plant was a sensor? with Gary Schaefer
What if crops could tell you when they were sick, before you could see the symptoms? Gary Schaefer leads the commercial organization at InnerPlant, a company with a radically different approach to crop monitoring: engineering plants to communicate when they are under stress. InnerPlant’s…
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Can tech make agriculture brands more authentic? with Jim Gall, RB Sellars
Agriculture often talks about telling a better story, but Jim Gall, the CEO of RB Sellars argues the real challenge is giving people something worth believing in. RB Sellars is a workwear brand that’s well-known in regional Australia, largely for its work shirts. In this episode, Sarah speaks…
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Why good agtech doesn't always get adopted, with Chad Godsey
How do you know when a new agtech product is actually ready for the farm? Growing up on a family farm in Colorado over the declining Ogallala Aquifer, Chad Godsey has spent his career searching for ways to improve water and nutrient efficiency. These days he’s the Chief Agronomist for Green...
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Why taste beats sustainability at the checkout, with food futurist Mike Lee
What if the future of food isn't about convincing people to care more about sustainability, but rather focusing on what can improve taste? In this episode, Tenacious’ Dr. Maddie Mitchell speaks with food futurist and innovation strategist Mike Lee about the forces shaping the future of food,...
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Why soil health and profitability are deeply connected, with Nic Kentish
With the surname “Kentish,” Nic carries his family’s potato growing legacy. While it's one of pride, the journey has certainly not been easy. After returning to the family farm in South Australia, he found himself confronting one of the biggest challenges many farming families face: how to build…
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Can dairy’s waste stream power beef’s future? with Daniel Carson
What if one of agriculture’s most controversial “waste problems” is actually its most overlooked opportunity? Daniel Carson is an entrepreneur based in New Zealand, who wants to transform the beef industry from the ground up by directly addressing the challenge of what happens to non-replacement...
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Business model breakdowns: the Monsanto playbook, with Shane Thomas
Monsanto is one of the most influential and controversial companies in the history of global agriculture. But beyond the headlines, what can its evolution teach us about how value is created and captured in ag? As agriculture enters a new era shaped by technological advances, climate pressures…
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Can biomaterials compete on price, not just purpose? with Tina Funder
Some of the most transformative innovation in agri-food is happening downstream of the farm, in the materials, products, and industries that agriculture ultimately feeds into. In this episode, Sarah Nolet speaks with Tina Funder, founder of Alt Leather, an Australian startup developing fully...
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Better outcomes, not lower costs: rethinking agtech in horticulture, with Mark Trzaskoma
While agtech often celebrates breakthrough technologies that can slash costs for farmers, what if the real value of innovation lies somewhere else entirely? In this episode, Mark Trzaskoma joins Dr Madeline Mitchell to explore what agtech adoption actually looks like on the ground at Battunga...
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Business model breakdowns: co-ops and their future in ag, with Shane Thomas
Co-operatives have a long and sometimes colored history in agriculture, across the Western world. What role will they play in the future of agriculture? As agriculture becomes increasingly shaped by digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the question of who owns, governs, and benefits...
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Halter’s $2 billion question, with founder Craig Piggott
In less than a year, NZ-based virtual fencing company Halter raised $165 million and then $220 million more, reaching a $2 billion valuation at a time when global agtech funding is down more than 70% from its peak. By any measure, that's a remarkable achievement. But what does it actually mean?…
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Australian agtech: what we got wrong and right, with Sam Duncan and Natalie Engel
Seven years ago, agtech in Australia was still in its infancy. There were bold predictions, a flurry of startups, and an emerging ecosystem of programs and investors to back them. So how have things panned out? In this live stage recording at the 2026 AgriFutures evokeAG event in Melbourne, Sarah...
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Aligning corporates, startups and investors in agrifood, with Brad Fruth and Frank Wooten
While agrifood innovation often celebrates bold founders and breakthrough technologies, what happens when the incentives of corporates, startups and investors don’t quite align? In this live recording from evokeAG in Melbourne, Sarah Nolet is joined by Brad Fruth, Director of Innovation at Beck's...
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AI as a competitive farming advantage, with Paul Windemuller
While farmer distrust of AI remains a key adoption barrier, will farm businesses that are being set up for an AI future have a competitive advantage? Paul Windemuller is a pioneering first-generation farmer and Nuffield Scholar from Coopersville, Michigan (USA). Along with his wife Brittany, Paul...
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Native grains and Indigenous-led food systems, with Jacob Birch
While there is a growing recognition of the importance of indigenous knowledge in agriculture, all too-often, First Nations people are being asked to fit in with an established model. What if we flipped the script to create food systems that are led by indigenous principles? That’s what Jacob…
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The future of farming is autonomous, with Brett McMickell, Kubota
We’ve hit a tipping point for autonomy in agriculture, so how far off is fully autonomous farming? In this episode, Matthew Pryor sits down with Brett McMickell, Chief Technology Officer at Kubota North America, to unpack his view on what autonomy can deliver in agriculture and why it’s closer…
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Making underwater forestry scalable and sustainable, with Andrew Morgan
Today's episode is a tangible example of a company in the "natural capital" space. While not traditional agtech, the Hydrowood journey hits familiar themes: building a business within nature's constraints, managing capital intensity, and the frustrating search for the right investors. Andrew…
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Have we hit the tipping point for autonomy in ag? with Shane Thomas and Matthew Pryor
Over the past few years, the conversation about autonomy in agtech has moved from “but, does it work?” to “how can I get started?” This is a significant shift, indicative of autonomous machinery becoming a fully commercial category in agriculture. In this episode, Matthew Pryor, Founding Partner…
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The business case for electrifying agriculture, with Mike Casey
In the race to decarbonize agriculture, the spotlight often falls on carbon sequestration, genetics, and alternative proteins. But have we overlooked something that’s right in front of us? Electricity. Mike Casey is a self-described “tech bro turned farmer” from Cromwell, New Zealand. Mike runs...
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The realities of winding up an agtech app, with Nikki Davey
What happens when an agtech startup with market pull, a clear mission, and global momentum still doesn’t make it? Nikki Davey is the founder of Grown Not Flown, which helped thousands of local flower growers reach customers who wanted sustainable blooms. Nikki’s app directly addressed the problem...
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Agtech trends: bundling, unbundling, LLMs and more with Shane Thomas and Matthew Pryor
‘Bundling’ is a well-known business strategy, especially in tech, where it’s not only used to increase sales and move slow-selling products, but also to tie customers into an ecosystem (such as Apple or Microsoft). So what about all the unbundling that’s been happening in agtech recently? While...
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Putting cotton farmers at the forefront of the industry, with Marzia Lanfranchi
The biggest issue facing the cotton industry isn't fast fashion or water consumption. It's that the people growing cotton have been rendered invisible. The industry fixates on fiber quality and commodity pricing while the farmers themselves– and their role in determining sustainability outcomes–...
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Will China’s cheaper tractors disrupt ag equipment? with Lachlan Monsbourgh
As the world’s largest agricultural economy, when China makes a move, the world pays attention. China has just unveiled an ambitious plan to accelerate its development of ag machinery by shortening its research and development cycles. So will China dominate the future of agricultural machinery…
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From adoption problems to high-performance farm teams, with Kevin Boyle
When the agtech is not working in the field, we can be quick to search for answers in the product itself. But sometimes, the solution is not there. That’s because it’s not a technical problem, but rather a social systems challenge. Kevin Boyle is the Director of Organizational and Workforce...
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Can robotics solve farm labor challenges? with Sophie Thorel and Connie Bowen
Ask any farmer what their biggest challenge is right now and most will say ‘labor’. But what if, instead of trying to get more farm workers, we focused on changing the types of jobs available on farms? That’s where robotics comes in. Unfortunately, successfully commercializing robots in…
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Are agtech startups just digital agribusinesses? with Mark Kahn, Omnivore
The term ‘agtech’ now encompasses so many different types of businesses and innovations, that from an investment perspective, it can look overly complex. However perhaps the opposite is true? Mark Kahn, Managing Partner of Ominvore, shares his ‘agtech-agribusinesss convergence theory’; where…
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How 'food is medicine' could change farm economics, with Brad McNamara
“Food is Medicine” is extremely popular right now, and a few facts suggest it might be more than just a trend. The U.S. alone spends something like $1.5 trillion annually on diet-related diseases, and key issues like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and other diseases are on the rise around...
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How policy hamstrings agtech in California, with Walt Duflock
When it comes to the production of high-value food crops, California is, without question, a global leader. Plus, much of the state’s thousands of acres of farmland lies within close proximity of Silicon Valley, where high-tech tools and solutions are endemic. And yet, many California farmers are...
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Is AI the secret to next gen soil sampling? with Jack Oslan and Nate Storey
Finding the right solution often starts with finding many, many wrong solutions. When it comes to some of agtech's most beguiling challenges, like real-time, granular soil testing, many startups have found the wrong solution– either ones that simply don’t work, don’t work at the right price, or...
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Disrupting the agtech ecosystem: the strategies that shape markets, with Ron Adner
Longtime listeners have heard Sarah and Matthew talk about ideas like “ecosystem disruption” and “adoption chain risk” and “value architecture,” all of which stem from the works of Ron Adner. Ron is a researcher, strategist, and professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University…
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Making sense of recent agtech acquisitions, with Shane Thomas
Despite a persistent sense of uncertainty in the AgTech market lately, we’re still seeing startups get acquired– even if information about those acquisitions is opaque. Case in point: Syngenta recently purchased Intrinsyx Bio, a biologicals company, for an undisclosed sum. Why do companies…
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How GLP-1 drugs are reshaping food and ag, with Mary Shelman
Over the last few decades, a lot of products and technologies have promised to disrupt the diets and food buying habits of the world’s consumers. But nothing has made true on that promise quite like the emergence of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. These (as of now) injectables…
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Beyond VC: redeemable equity in agtech, with Connie Bowen
Big news from Tenacious– WE’RE HIRING! Do you share our mission of unlocking impact at scale in agri-food systems? Check out our open roles here. ... Is agtech a good fit for venture capital, and vice versa? This question - existential for some - is flying around in the ether right now. We’ve…
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Merging agtech startups to multiply value, with Rob Hannam
Between COVID-19, Avian Influenza, and African Swine Fever, ordinary consumers are more aware than ever of the risks of infectious diseases on animal and human health, and to society at large. Ag technology that helps farmers better prevent the spread of diseases is more relevant than ever, and...
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Paying for ag R&D when consumers won't, with Brooke Sauer
For commercial farming operations, determining whether or not new tools, technology, and practices work can be a big undertaking. From install and setup costs to helping the team involved climb the learning curve for effective use, even when technologies lead to big benefits, it can be tough to…
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A business model for novel ingredients, with Jake Berber
For years the food tech space has been rife with companies eager to replace familiar standbys– from protein to sweeteners to colorings– with cheaper, more healthful, or more climate friendly alternatives. There have certainly been a few successes, but there have also been some big and spectacular...
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Solving for adoption and channel in agtech… so what? with Shane Thomas
There are a few topics in agtech (and in the tech startup world more broadly) that are truly perennial– problems that must be solved again and again in new and innovative ways as markets, customers, and businesses evolve. Adoption is one of those challenges, and go-to-market strategies are…
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From demo farms to adoption, with Wine Australia's Paul Smith and Dave Gerner
When your organization is tasked with the job of getting growers to adopt new technology, there are a few tried, and frankly, not-so-true options to choose from. The world is lightly littered with various flavors of demonstration farms– properties where technologies can be piloted, field days can...
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Killing weeds without poison, with Liam Hescock
Controlling weeds on farms is a sticky, two part challenge. First, you’ve got to identify the weeds, as distinct from the plants you want to grow. Then, you’ve got to destroy the undesirables and keep the rest. For today’s farmers, these two tasks can seem straightforward, but to do them at the...
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2025 in agtech... so what? with Shane Thomas
As the new year gets underway, we’ve been thinking about the likely ups and downs ahead for the agtech world. We’ve been searching for insights in the recent announcement that FMC’s corporate venture capital division is shutting its doors, and thinking about what a trend in CVC pullbacks might…
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How business model innovation changed agtech in 2024
There’s nothing like the end of another year to have us reflecting on the recent successes in the world of agtech, and the many challenges still left to overcome. One thing that has continued to stand out to us in 2024 is the vital need for more business model innovation. There’s so much amazing...
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Shortening the long game in livestock breeding, with Gerard Davis
The history of agriculture is a history of selective breeding. Whether it’s plants or animals, humans have been choosing desirable traits and making sure those traits make it to the next generation for tens of thousands of years. The challenge of this work is, of course, the timeline....
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Rethinking who pays in irrigation agtech, with Jairo Trad
Despite its importance to both agricultural and environmental outcomes, irrigation has not been a terribly successful subsection of agtech. We have our theories about why that is (we wrote a whole report about it, The agtech adoption dilemma: Irrigation), and many others have also spotted the...
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The two faces of global ESG in ag, with Catherine Marriott
Depending on where you sit, the supremacy of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) action seems inevitable. Corporates are talking about. Investors are talking about it. Governments, regulators, and even farmers are talking about it. And yet for many of us, the questions of what exactly ESG...
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Pitch breakdown: Fractal Ag, with Ben Gordon and Shane Thomas
Farmland has long been a popular asset among investors for its steady appreciation and resistance to economic downturns. At the same time, farmland is also a challenging asset at times, especially for farmers looking to expand, given farmland comes up for sale so infrequently and is so valuable.…
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Investing in regenerative agriculture supply chains, with Calla Rose Ostrander
When it comes to leveraging capital to fund climate action in agriculture, few ideas get as much play as regenerative agriculture. The idea of production that can not only be sustained but that can actively help renew resources has captured imaginations within the sector and without, giving life…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
We tell the stories of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology to answer the question: what really is agtech and why should you care?
HOSTED BY
Sarah Nolet
CATEGORIES
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How many episodes does Agtech - So What? have?
Agtech - So What? currently has 221 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Agtech - So What? about?
We tell the stories of innovators at the intersection of agriculture and technology to answer the question: what really is agtech and why should you care?
How often does Agtech - So What? release new episodes?
Agtech - So What? publishes regularly with 221 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Agtech - So What? on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Agtech - So What??
Agtech - So What? is created and hosted by Sarah Nolet.
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