Jonathan Coppess Research Page: https://ace.illinois.edu/directory/jwcoppes

"The Fault Lines of Farm Policy" book

"Between Soil and Society" book

Today’s episode explores an important area of agriculture that I probably don’t talk enough about on this show: ag policy. I wanted to bring Dr. Jonathan Coppess on the program to ask fundamental questions like:

1. Is ag policy working?
2. Is the Farm Bill still relevant?
3. What has changed in ag policy and what needs to change?

As you’ll hear we dive into this and a whole lot more. For some quick background:

Jonathan Coppess is the Gardner Associate Professor of Agricultural Policy in the Department of Agricultural & Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The author of two books on the legislative history and political development of farm policy (THE FAULT LINES OF FARM POLICY, and BETWEEN SOIL AND SOCIETY), he is a member of the farmdoc project and a frequent contributor to farmdoc daily.

Jonathan previously served as Chief Counsel for the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, as well as on a temporary, part-time basis as a special counsel. Prior to his service on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, Jonathan served as the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency at USDA and Legislative Assistant to Senator Ben Nelson. Jonathan grew up on his family’s farm in Western Ohio.

Pairwise: https://www.pairwise.com/

FoA 412: 'Biological' Is Not A Category (it's the future of agriculture)

I’m excited to share today’s episode with you. I’ve wanted to get Tom Adams back on the show ever since I had the chance to interview him at World Agritech a couple of years ago. That interview was included on episode 412 of this podcast titled “Biological is not a Category”.

The work Pairwise is doing is mind boggling to me. Using CRISPR and the latest in gene editing tools, they have built a platform to enable plant breeders to make very precise changes to the genome of a plant to give farmers and consumers more of what they want.

Now this is different from genetic modification or GMOs because they are not inserting foreign genes into the plant. In fact, they are doing the exact same thing that plant breeders have done for over a century, they are just able to do it in an extremely precise way.

On another podcast that I host, Agriscience Explained, Corteva’s Reza Rasoulpour explained natural breeding as wanting to change one word in a book by just combining all of the pages of two different books and hoping that word changes. Versus gene editing just going in and changing that one word in the book. I thought that was a good comparison.

So Tom and his team are bringing this technology to agriculture by working with seed companies and other partners in a variety of use cases, many of which we’ll discuss today. A little background on Tom:

Dr. Tom Adams co-founded Pairwise and serves as Chief Executive Officer. Tom has over 25 years of leadership experience heading up biotechnology for global companies, serving most recently as Vice President of Global Biotechnology at Monsanto where he led the team developing a broad range of innovative products. Tom wanted to realize the possibilities of CRISPR and gene editing in plants, and co-founded Pairwise to realize this potential in a mission-based environment. Formerly a faculty member at Texas A&M University, Tom holds a PhD in microbiology and plant science from Michigan State University and a BS in botany and plant pathology from Oregon State University.

Tom and I talk about Pairwise’s continued work in this area, some of the cool developments that are under way, some of their strategic decisions like going the partnership route rather than being the seed company themselves, a little bit more about how the technology works, how this changes the game and who captures the value.

Rodale Institute: https://rodaleinstitute.org/

"History of the Rodale Institute" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nxSYYUMJ6F8

Today we’re talking to Dr. Andrew Smith of the Rodale Institute. I originally wanted to bring Andrew onto the show to talk about the history of the Rodale Institute and it’s contribution to agricultural research. Rodale Institute is a nonprofit growing the organic movement through rigorous, solutions-based research, farmer training, and consumer education. But I ended up focusing more on questions related to tillage, organic claims and realities, and what they’re learning from their long term farming systems trials.

Wootzano: https://www.wootzano.com/

Atif Syed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/syedatif/

Via Atif's LinkedIn post

"I never thought I’d have to write this.

Wootzano, the British robotics company I built from nothing, is at risk of being shut down not because of commercial failure, but because of a procedural trap.

Yesterday, after a petition by Innovate UK Loans Limited (UKRI), the Court issued an order that instantly froze Wootzano’s bank accounts.

That created an impossible situation:

In Scotland, a company cannot speak in court without a solicitor.

A solicitor must lodge our appeal.

But with accounts frozen, we cannot pay a solicitor."

And if we don’t file the appeal by 28 November, liquidation becomes final.

A functioning deep-tech company can be silenced without ever being heard.

This is not how innovation should die.

Wootzano took an £838k Innovate UK Innovation Loan, a government lender, in 2022, a product marketed as patient, flexible capital for high-growth innovators. Flexibility is even built into the contract.

But when our funded subsystem didn’t reach commercialisation, no flexibility was offered, and the matter went straight down the standard debt route.

If this can happen to us, it can happen to any of the 240+ UK companies on this loan programme.

Wootzano is:

🇬🇧 The only British ag-robotics company for post-harvest to ship commercial robots to Japan and various other countries

🤖 Active in 6 countries

🔧 Supporting UK engineers, suppliers, and farmers

📈 Delivering £537m+ worth of contracts

🌍 Representing Britain on global trade missions

💡 Backed by diverse shareholders, from farmers to technologists, who believed the UK could lead in robotics

Losing this to a procedural freeze, not a business failure, will destroy trust in British deep-tech nationally and internationally.

We need to get a solicitor initially to file the appeal before the deadline.

Appeal deadline: 28 November

Every hour matters

Even a share of this post helps.

I have spent years building this with an extraordinary team.

I am not giving up, but right now, the company is legally unable to act without help.

If you believe in fairness, due process, and protecting UK innovation, please support or share this widely.

AquaSpy: https://aquaspy.com/

On the show today is Bruce Moeller, before buying AquaSpy in 2009 Bruce was already a serial entrepreneur, a former president of a publicly traded company, and an author of two books. He successfully grew and exited Culture Works and Drive Cam, which was an early dash cam company. He decided to apply the idea they used at Drive Cam to use technology to capture what hadn’t been easily recorded previously, to agriculture. Specifically in-situ monitoring of soil conditions around a plant’s roots.

So Bruce and his team bought AquaSpy, a company out of Adelaide, Australia in 2009, so really early in this part of agtech, and they’ve been operating it ever since. Bruce is not from an ag background, but as you’ll hear he looked at this as more of a feature than a bug.

To describe AquaSpy, Bruce uses the analogy of the ecosystem of the rhizosphere, this area of soil around the roots of having it’s own weather. And AquaSpy being a tool to check the weather down there, which has all sorts of applications, especially with their latest feature, which allows them to also measure in-situ nitrogen in real time.

We talk about how AquaSpy is approaching their technology and the problems it solves for farmers, and we talk about how AI is enabling them to move in a more predictive direction with the data they’re collecting.

Five Questions About The Ag Robotics Revolution (FIRA 2024 Reflections)

The Next Great Ag Equipment Brand will be Autonomy-First with Charlie Andersen of Burro

Autonomous Sprayers with Gary Thompson of GUSS

Making Spot Spray Technology Accessible With Jaisimha Rao of Niqo Robotics

The Path To Superhuman Farming with Curtis Garner and Brent Shedd of Verdant Robotics

Category Design with Dan Schultz

THE BIG REGRESSION (by Jason Fried on X)

I attended FIRA USA a few months ago, which is a great event focused on agricultural robots and autonomous solutions. Like I did last year, I wanted to share some reflections on the current state of the ag robotics sector.

Today you'll hear from AgTonomy CEO Tim Bucher and Ecorobotix CEO Dominique Mégret on today’s episode about how autonomy in agriculture is much more than a way to reduce labor needs. It’s about re-thinking what it means to farm better.

And while these solutions are finding their footing, we’re still a long way from widespread adoption. We talk about both the opportunities and the challenges of ag robotics and automation on this episode!

Podcast episodes featured:

1. Where Will Demand Come From? | Damian Mason Podcast
2. Will China’s cheaper tractors disrupt ag equipment? With Lachlan Monsbourgh | Agtech - So What?
3. Reducing Weeds and Pests with Regenerative Mulching Systems with Erwin Westers | The Regenerative Agriculture Podcast
4. Field Intelligence: Elliott Grant on AI in Agriculture | Fresh Takes on Tech
5. Ag's Efficiency Preoccupation Problem with Andrew Hoelscher of Farm Strategy | The PaceSetter Podcast
6. Rethinking Food and Ag Investments - The Quiet Trends Reshaping The Industry | The Modern Acre
7. Genetic Progress Made Simple: Feed Intake, IVF, and AI Tools for Cattle | Farm4Profit

For the third year in a row, I contacted the hosts of seven different ag podcasts to see if they would identify one of their episodes from this past year that they think is most indicative of where the agriculture industry is headed in the future.

Once again, they all came through and I’m excited to share clips with you from these seven podcasters. Some of the themes are similar to last year like genetics and AI. Which I think is a good sign. If the themes changed every year it would probably be an indication that were wrong. Haha. But there are new themes that I think you will definitely find interesting. Themes we will be discussing today include the struggling farm economy, the growth of foreign agriculture equipment, the rise of systems-based thinking and regenerative approaches on farm, where artificial intelligence is making an impact in agtech, Food as health and what that means for agriculture and how genetics is changing the game in cattle and really every area of agriculture.

Other Episodes Referenced:

1. Where is Agriculture Headed in 2025 and Beyond? Insights from 7 Different Ag Podcasts
2. FoA 395: Where is Agriculture Headed? Insights From Six Different Ag Podcasts
3. Trade Wars and the Farm Economy With Bill Ridley
4. How China is Changing Global Ag Trade With Ian Lahiffe
5. Tractor Wars with Rhishi Pethe
6. AI For Regenerative Agriculture With John Kempf
7. Going All-In on Customers and AI WIth Devon Wright of Lumo
8. Better Food For More People With Clayton Mooney of Clayton Farms
9. Business Model Innovation in Cattle Feeding With Kee Jim

FieldLark AI: https://fieldlark.ai/

Advancing Eco Agriculture: https://advancingecoag.com/

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast: https://advancingecoag.com/podcasts/

FoA 386: Challenging Assumptions About Regenerative Agriculture With John Kempf

Today we’re joined by John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture. John first joined me on the podcast two years ago for episode 386 titled “Challenging Assumptions About Regenerative Agriculture”. That episode was widely shared and provided me with a ton of interesting feedback. So I was eager to bring John back on especially to discuss this new AI regenerative agronomist tool they’ve launched which is called FieldLark AI. As I hoped, John and I also get somewhat philosophical about technology use and ethics, and we talk about a separate but similar project he has taken on of building a digital clone of his knowledge and expertise. We talk about what that process looked like and how he’s using Digital Clone John in his daily life. And you agronomy nerds definitely will want to stick around to the end because we talk about some fascinating insights about nitrogen that John and the AEA team have been helping their customers take advantage of. 

First though, let me read some background here about John because I think it’s fascinating and it really informs his perspective and his focus with AEA. 

John Kempf is an entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host, leading crop health consultant, and designer of innovative soil and plant management systems. He founded Advancing Eco Agriculture in 2006 and serves as Chief Vision Officer and Executive Board Chairman.

In the early 2000s, Amish farmer John Kempf was on a quest to save his family’s fruit and vegetable farm in Northeast Ohio. After years of intensive pesticide use, pest and disease pressure was unmanageable and unaffected by continued chemical applications. This resulted in an almost total loss three years in a row. 

After years of extensive agronomic research, first-hand growing experience, and close mentorship John found new crop management methods. The practices he discovered and the products he created were the beginnings of Advancing Eco Agriculture.

Burro website: https://burro.ai/

FoA 271: Ag Robotics Roundtable: https://futureofagriculture.com/episode/foa-271-ag-robotics-roundtable

I’m really excited to share today’s episode with you. Charlie Andersen is one of the most impressive and intelligent founders that I’ve had the chance to speak with. I can remember being blown away with him when he was a part of our Ag Robotics Roundtable which became episode 271 of this podcast clear back in 2021. 

Charlie co-founded Burro in 2017 and today they have over 600 systems running in the field, which is arguably the largest fleet of mobile robots running in an outdoor agricultural setting today. If you’ve never seen a Burro before, think about like a flat bed cart, for lack of better term. They are 5hp to 20hp autonomous vehicles that go up to 6.5 mph in speed. They can tow, haul things, mow, spray, and patrol all autonomously. They even can be used with a docking station to recharge themselves to run continuously. They are very cool, and uniquely designed to augment human labor rather than trying to fully replace it. 

Charlie grew up on a working fruit and vegetable farm and says he was obsessed with machinery as a kid. He went on to get an MBA at Harvard Business School and he founded Burro after working for CNH, where he reported to the head of the North American operating unit and worked on special projects across sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, and autonomy M&A.

Today’s episode is another installment in our Tech-Enabled Advisor series. The idea here is to better understand agtech through the lens of the BUYER and USER of that technology rather than just the entrepreneurs or investors behind it. I’ve received some super positive feedback about the return of this series. By talking to the buyers rather than the sellers of the tech, we got an unfiltered introduction to the technology and more importantly got to see HOW its used and the VALUE that it provides. 

To do this, I partner with a company and together we invite one of their customers onto the show. The catch is that they’re not allowed to script these individuals or dictate what to say or edit it after it is recorded - it has to be real and unfiltered. 

So today’s episode featuring Todd Kirwan of Apex Precision Agriculture is produced in partnership with AgWorld. 

And I’m really excited to be partnering with them again, as they were a part of the last time I did this tech-enabled advisor series. But for anyone who might not be familiar, Agworld has been operating since 2009, developed by and for growers & agronomists, and is independently owned. The Agworld ecosystem digitally connects growers with their staff, agronomist, contactor, ag retailer and anyone else that is involved in the farming process. The tool is set up to enable collaboration in the digital farming process, so farmers can maximise financial and crop performance. With Agworld you can plan your crop, mitigate your risks, and improve your profitability. And you’re going to get a great illustration of what that looks like on the ground and in practice in today’s episode with Todd Kirwan. 

Todd and I discuss what types of cultural changes need to happen in a farming operation to get the most out of technology, where things go wrong in the attempts to get the most value out of farm data, why he believes the challenging farm economy makes tools like AgWorld even more critical and some of the changes he sees happening in the future of agriculture. 

A little background on Todd: 

Todd Kirwan is the founder of Apex Precision Agriculture, a consultancy focused on helping growers and agribusinesses transform their operational data into their most profitable asset.

With over 25 years in large-scale production agriculture, his career has been dedicated to bridging the gap between field-level agronomy and high-level financial strategy. Over that time, he’s seen the industry from every angle, from moving pipe on the family farm to directing operations for a multi-state farming enterprise. 

Through his experiences in farm management, he recognized a critical need for a partner who understands not just the data, but the human dynamics of implementing change. And that led him to starting Apex Precision Agriculture. 

Todd grew up working in his family’s farming operation and then started his own custom applicator business. That led him into farm management and leadership for a rapidly expanding farming company called Lance Funk Farms. He then stayed on after Lance Funk sold to AgReserves, which is the agricultural company owned by the LDS church. It was that time at Lance Funk Farms, when they were hyper focused on growth that Todd really embraced how technology can improve a farming operation.