The Modern Acre

This is the second episode in a 4-part series sponsored by AgFunder!

Sofia Elizondo is the co-founder and COO at Brightseed. She has an impressive background in CPG, pharmaceutical, and technology companies. Sofia co-founded Brightseed focusing on improving the nutrition in our food. The team has developed a computational search engine, Forager, which can identify plant compounds that can be instrumental in returning nutrition to food. We learn more about the company, their partnership with AgFunder, and where they are in the product development. Tune in!

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This is the first episode in a 4-part series sponsored by AgFunder!

Michael Dean is the founding partner of AgFunder, which is a venture capital firm whose mission is to invest in technology that will rapidly transform our food and agriculture system. AgFunder has built it's investing platform on top of it's best-in-class news publications, which has become the go-to hub for the latest on food and agri-tech investment.

Michael is an entrepreneur and investor with a background in agriculture, finance and law. On this episode, we discuss how Michael and his co-founder, Rob, started AgFunder and their approach to growing the business. Michael also shares his perspective on the industry, including the M&A activity, which you won't want to miss!

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Nick Halla is the Senior Vice President, International at Impossible Foods and was also the company's first employee. Nick has grown within the company as it has scaled into restaurants, food service, and now retail. Impossible Foods is a plant-based meat company that is committed to products that look, feel, and taste like animal meat, but with less environmental impact. Tune in to learn about this innovative area of alternative agriculture!

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Nike Neal is the founder and CEO of DecisionNext. DecisionNext helps companies improve their market performance through machine learning and prescriptive analytics. Mike talks with us about founding the company and how it has scaled over time, including the focus on agricultural commodities. Tune in and learn more!

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Finally The Modern Acre podcast discusses hemp and CBD! The introduction of the new Farm Bill opened the floodgates to a new business opportunity. This week we talk with the founder of Nikkal Farms, Paul Clift, who talks all things hemp and CBD. He farms 7 acres of industrial hemp and is currently focusing on launching a retail line of CBD products. Learn more about his approach to this fast-paced industry on this episode!

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2018 Forbes Ag Tech Episode

We had the pleasure of participating in the 5th annual Forbes AgTech Summit this year in Salinas, California. To learn more about what we learned at the show, sign up for Acre Insights.

Aerobotics focuses on early pest and disease detection enabled by drone imagery and artificial intelligence. We talked with Aerobotics Chief Commerical Officer, Andrew Burdock, who is working to scale up their U.S. operation. Andrew talks more about the origins of the company, how they were successful in South Africa, and how they are approaching entering a new market. This episode is jam packed, don't miss it!

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Molly Toot is the Director of Sustainability at Land O'Lakes SUSTAIN. Land O'Lakes SUSTAIN is a leading conservation solutions provider, advancing and connecting stewardship efforts throughout the food system with scale – from farmers to ag retailers to partners like food companies. Molly talks about her background in the industry and how SUSTAIN originated as a merger with Land O'Lakes and United Suppliers. We get into all things sustainability and learn more about how SUSTAIN is pushing the industry forward.

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Interested in direct-to-consumer business? We are re-airing one of our most popular episodes to-date featuring the Farmer's Dog.

Brett Podolskyjoins The Modern Acre podcast to talk about how he helped create The Farmer's Dog, a dog food company focused on using real, fresh food and delivering customized servings to their customers. Brett shares the vision behind the company and why using real food is so important to the brand. While the company is not directly involved in a agriculture at the farm level, there is SO much insight from building a direct-to-consumer business, cutting out middlemen, focus on high quality food, marketing, and more! Let us know what you think!

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Want to learn more about our plans for The Modern Acre? For the first time, we sit on the other side of the mic and join The Farm Traveler Podcast for an interview! The host, Trevor Williams, asks us about how The Modern Acre started and what our vision for it is. We also discuss our take on the industry. We really appreciated the opportunity to be on The Farm Traveler Podcast and share a little more with the community!

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This week we are talking regenerative agriculture with Sara Harper, founder and CEO of Grounded Growth. Sara discusses her career on Capitol Hill working to implement policy change within agriculture and how that led her to the private sector to continue the effort. Grounded Growth is a network that enables, supports and grows business-enhancing relationships between food companies and farmers who are expanding regenerative agriculture. Tune in to learn more about this popular topic and how Sara has scaled her business!

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