Agriculture Adapts by ClimateAi

Between 40 to 50% of our population is alive on this planet today thanks to fertilizers. However, fertilizers are also one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters and when managed poorly, can also contribute to the nutrient pollution of lakes, rivers and streams. 

This week, we sat down with Pablo Barrera Lopez, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Communications at Yara International, a leading Norwegian agribusiness and chemical company on the forefront of the sustainable and ethical production of several types of fertilizer. Lopez takes us through the history of the fertilizer industry (hint, modern fertilizers were invented at Yara), how the invention of fertilizer prevented mass hunger, and the complicated relationship of the life-saving product with climate change. Lopez also walks us through the top innovations taking place in the industry to mitigate its impact on climate including everything from renewable-energy fueled fertilizer plants and high-tech precision application tools to better farmer education.

In addition, Lopez works with the World Economic Forum, where he promotes corporate sustainability and works with global youth to help them develop talents and skills to be responsible forces for good in their communities.

For more information: https://www.yara.com/

Angela Santiago is the co-founder and CEO of the Little Potato Company, an innovative and fast growing company focused on colorful, tasty, mini-potatoes that taste delicious. We talk with Angela about the mechanics of the potato world, the obstacles climate change is creating for the industry, and what it takes to build an agriculture business from the ground up, 

This week in Agriculture Adapts

• Breeding for diversity and flavor
• Your french fries, chips, and table potatoes all come from different types of potatoes, specifically bred for their end use
• Increasing weather uncertainty, more frequent extreme events, and a potato production moving north to escape the heat
• How small changes in weather can bear significant impact on the way the crop turns out

***

website: The Little Potato Company

facebook: The Little Potato Company

*This episode is a repost

This week we sit down with Stuart Woolf, the President and CEO of Los Gatos Tomatoes, one of the largest tomato processors in the world. Stuart gives us an inside view into the science, technology, and logistical genius that enabled 3x higher yields in the processing tomato industry over the last 50 years, all while reducing labor requirements to a fraction of what they once were. 

We cover everything from decades of tomato seed breeding efforts to the 120 day, 24/7 harvesting sprint-marathon that results in 325 million lbs of tomato paste every year. If ever there was a 1 hour crash course on processing tomatoes, this may very well be it.

Stuart is also the President and CEO of Woolf farming and has served as Chairman of the California League of Food Processors, the Almond Board of California, and of the UC President’s Commission of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Stuart also currently serves on the board of the California Chamber of Commerce, the Western Growers Association, and Marone Bio Innovation.

https://www.woolffarming.com/

http://www.losgatostomato.com/ 

Over the past 10 years, there has been a mass exodus of banks in the UK pulling out of short-term lending to farmers. This has made it harder and more expensive for farmers to get the capital they need to run their business and keep producing essential crops. 

We sit down with Tim Coates, Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Oxbury Bank, the UK’s only 100% agriculture focused bank to discuss how Oxbury is revolutionizing agriculture banking and the impact this will have on farmers + agriculture sustainability throughout the country and beyond:

• The history behind the broken agriculture banking system
• How technology is enabling cost and time savings for farmers using Oxbury
• Turning savings into sequestered carbon
• Driving sustainability effortlessly and automatically at the farm-level
• Similar banking challenges are playing out in numerous countries around the world

https://www.oxbury.com/

Hey listeners, hope you all enjoyed year 1 of Agriculture Adapts as much as we did! The Ag Adapts team will be taking a short break before returning for year 2. We really appreciate everyone's support and we look forward to many exciting episodes to come! If you have any thoughts or feedback please feel free to reach out to [email protected]. See you all soon!

Since the 2008 financial crisis, agriculture has become a hotbed for investment: food consumption withstands recessions, demand is expected to double by 2050, and agriculture has largely proven to be a low volatility investment that can serve as an inflation hedge (as inflation goes up, so do ag land values)... But not everyone supports the institutionalization of ag land ownership.

We sit down with Martin Davies, President and CEO of the Westchester group, the #1 largest farmland asset manager in the world to talk about:

• how institutional ag land investing really works
• what separates an extractive investment from a sustainable one
• the implications of increasing corporate/foreign ownership of domestic ag lands.
• how climate change plays into the investment thesis.

Westchester has been a frontrunner on sustainability and continues to push the envelope on setting a positive standard for the industry. Westchester manages over 2 million acres and is a subsidiary of TIAA, a fund managing over $1 trillion in assets.

*This is a repost of a past episode

Katharine Hayhoe is one of the world's most renowned climate scientists-- she has a ted talk with over 2.5 million views, and in 2017 was named one of Fortune’s world’s greatest leaders. Katharine is a professor at Texas Tech University and has been published in over 125 peer reviewed papers, abstracts, and key reports including the National Climate Assessment. We speak with Katharine about the science, the impacts, and the psychology of climate change.

This week in Agriculture Adapts:

- Why the U.S. Military calls climate change a "threat multiplier"

- The impact of climate change on agriculture: risk, resilience, and profitability

- Faith based communication on climate change: the secret to a fruitful discussion is common ground

***

Links to topics mentioned in the episode:

• Global Weirding
• Katharine's Ted Talk
• Iowa Interfaith power and light
• Katharine's Facebook
• Katharine's Twitter

ClimateAi - Accelerating Resilience in Agriculture

The coronavirus has highlighted the importance of resilience, not just efficiency, in the long term success of agriculture supply chains. One of the most powerful tools we have to drive resilience is agricultural biodiversity... and yes, it can be done at scale.

Biodiversity is a critical sign of ecosystem health--in the rainforest or on the farm-- and has proven to be crucial for agricultural productivity, profitability, and resilience. Biodiversity has been on the decline due to a simplification of our diets, growing demand for animal feed and biofuels, and a climate that is changing faster than nature can keep up with. We sit down with food system and agriculture biodiversity expert Ann Tutwiler to explore the tangible steps we must take to systematically increase biodiversity and the outsized impact this will have on the health of our planet and the profitability of farming. 

Ann has spent the past 35 years tackling some of the most pressing issues in food and agriculture. She co-developed the U.S. govt’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future program. Ann is also the former Deputy Director General for Knowledge at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as well as the former Director General of Bioversity International.

***

References Mentioned in the episode

- UN Food Systems Summit  

- World Benchmarking Alliance (how are companies holding up against their promises)

Agriculture is faced with the critical challenge of reducing pesticide use, improving water efficiency, and building a food system that is resilient to climate change all while delivering nutritious affordable food for the masses. In this episode we dig in with Dave Chen to talk about how Equilibrium Capital is putting their $1B+ fund behind a tried and true technology to deliver on all fronts-- high-tech greenhouses.

High-tech greenhouses are extremely common across Europe. Meticulous optimization at the plant level has enabled 10 - 40x productivity increases with a laundry list of sustainability and resilience benefits. But these glass and steel mega-producers have yet to come to the U.S. en mass. Equilibrium Capital is fueling a movement that will enable a new era of precision agriculture with sights set on solving some of the industry's most pressing issues. 

***

Equilibrium Capital

Between 1982-2015, the world’s population grew from 4.5 billion to about 7.5 billion while land under agriculture remained the same. More food was produced on the same amount of land but climate change and the resultant rise in the extreme weather events pose a serious challenge to the world’s food production. Is the time now ripe for a second green revolution?

Ernst Van Den Ende, a leader in dutch agriculture innovation, explains that there is no 'silver bullet' to solve the world’s agriculture woes but a focus on a combination of technology and ecology can make agriculture more productive, efficient and sustainable.

Based in the Netherlands, Ernst Van Den Ende is a renowned plant scientist and the managing director of the Plant Sciences group at Wageningen University, one of the world’s top agriculture educational, research and technology hubs. He leads a group of nearly 1,400 agricultural scientists, various corporate partners,  and hundreds of start-ups in the agro-food domain, to tackle the most pressing challenges facing the future of food.