AgTech Nexus’ Post

Interested in delving deeper into corporate performance in the agriculture sector? Explore valuable insights in our Food and Agriculture Benchmark Insights Report! Our current food system is failing millions globally, and food systems remain the primary transgressors of planetary boundaries. As a major industry, food and agriculture companies must be accountable for positive contributions to healthy, sustainable, and inclusive food systems. However, the World Benchmarking Alliance’s 2023 Food and Agriculture shows that company performance is severely lagging behind the level of action required to transform global food systems. While we see companies improving on topics such as regenerative agriculture, setting scope 3 emission targets, or preventing forced labour, most companies lack tangible action supported by target setting and reporting progress. This insights report delves into our key findings in more detail and provides insights into the results and trends of the companies assessed. It also provides recommendation on how companies should assess their impacts and make decisions that will contribute to healthy, sustainable and just food systems. Read here: https://lnkd.in/dqzrGkAM 

This week, we had the opportunity to chat with Venky Ramachandran, an independent agri-tech researcher and consultant, and the brains behind the popular Agribusiness Matters newsletter. Venky shares his insights on the state of the Indian farmer today, how the ecosystem needs to come together to address the issues plaguing agriculture, and more about his life in and outside of work. Check out the full interview below! This is the first edition of our new monthly series, Essmart's 11 Questions.

What new technologies are shaping the future of #food and #agriculture – and how can they build a more resilient food system? Our CEO Todd Rands, alongside other industry leaders, talked about this and more during a panel discussion at last week’s World Agri-Tech summit in San Francisco. Dive deeper into key insights from the panel by checking out our blog post below! Special thanks to all the panelists and attendees for their valuable contributions towards advancing #innovation in #agritech. #WorldAgriTech #FoodTech

🌟 Harnessing the Power of Pro-Ams in Agriculture 🌟 This week, my discussions have been deeply focused on the economics of agriculture. Although I’m not quite ready to delve into that topic yet, a recurring theme in my conversations has been the remarkable impact of Pro-Ams in agricultural innovation. In the landscape of agricultural innovation, Pro-Ams—our professional amateurs—play a crucial yet often overlooked role. This diverse group includes small-scale farmers, enthusiastic recent graduates, and engaged consumers. A while back, I had the pleasure of hosting a masterclass on food and agriculture innovation. As I introduced myself with the iconic line, “I am Wambui Njau and this is my master class,” I took a moment to highlight how each of us is an integral part of the food systems, whether we realize it or not. Food is a universal necessity with no substitutes, making us all participants in the food value chain. Given this role, it is essential that we actively engage in improving our food systems. Pro-Ams, despite their lack of formal titles, bring invaluable insights and hands-on experience that drive transformative change. Their deep understanding of local challenges equips them to shape the future of our food systems in impactful ways. Looking ahead, I’m excited to host a roundtable discussion with some of my classmates on "The Politics of Food and Agriculture: Big Corporations 'Supporting' Pro-Ams Innovations." I look forward to exploring this dynamic topic and sharing the insights with you all. Here is to celebrating the ingenuity of and finding ways to support Pro-Ams. Their contributions are key to cultivating a more resilient and innovative future for agriculture. 🌱🚀 #ProAms #AgriculturalInnovation #FoodSystems #Masterclass #Sustainability #FoodSecurity #Innovation

Coeus Institute's GERA, autonomously identified one of the most impactful News of the day under 'Agriculture Disruption' category. GERA's Innovative Rating algorithm RATED this event ("California farmers enjoy pistachio boom, with much of it headed to China") with a score of 1324.8. GERA's patented rating algorithm automatically identifies critical events, categorizes /classifies them, finds root-causes, discovers correlations, and predicts future events.

https://lnkd.in/dt6aFG_G Israeli startup PoLoPo is using molecular farming (creating useful proteins inside plants) to get potatoes to cultivate egg white protein – planting, growing and harvesting the modified vegetables as usual, before extracting the protein and turning it into powder for use in commercial food production. And according to the startup, it could help the issue of food security as the world gets hotter and more populated. The company creates ovalbumin (the main protein in egg white) from open source sequencing and using its new proprietary SuperAA platform, inserts it into the potato, PoLoPo co-founder and CEO Maya Sapir-Mir tells NoCamels. “One of the most important things for us is that the plant itself grows normally,” Sapir-Mir says. “I believe that eventually we will need more effective ways to produce our food,” Sapir-Mir concludes, “and this is one way to do that.” #molecularfarming #agriculturetech #agtech #foodsecurity #israelinnovation #israelitech #potatoes #cultivatedprotein #eggwhiteprotein #ovalbumin https://lnkd.in/dt6aFG_G

New research from the La Trobe Institute for Agriculture and Food has identified ways to create more consistent seed growth across a season, ensuring bigger harvest yields for crop growers.    The findings, published in Nature Plants, identified what every cell does during seed germination.     “We used a new labelling system to separate all the cells from a seed then measured the individual function of every one of them,” explains lead researcher, Dr Lim Chee Liew. “We did this while seeds were first germinating so that we could see what cells do when they first become active.”    Seeds are the most valuable resource in food production, providing 70 per cent of global food resources. The lifecycle of most crops begins at germination, but this can happen different times, leading to a variation in yield from less mature crops versus their more established counterparts. “This cutting-edge technology shows us which cells we can manipulate to ensure seeds germinate together – or even delay their growth to a certain time,” Dr Lim Chee Liew says.      “This discovery will help us to develop practical solutions to ensure germination happens at the right time – and uniformly.” Read more: https://bit.ly/47kkT00    #LaTrobeAgricultuerBiomedicineAndEnvironment #LISAF #LaTrobeUniversity  

Dear Friends, I´m very happy to announce the publication of the Springer book “Optimization Under Uncertainty in Sustainable Agriculture and Agrifood Industry”, which I had the honor to edit with my dear friends Lluis Pla and Victor Albornoz. The chapters of this book deal with agricultural decision problems involving big companies or big challenges. They are complex problems of considerable size that develop innovative OR methods to solve them. To point out some of the different methodologies deployed in the book and adapted to particular agricultural decision problems, we can observe: Routing, transportation, risk management, evolutionary algorithms, and stochastic optimization. Applications include farming areas like wine or grain transportation, fresh produce planning, crop rotation, waste valorization, pesticide application, and cold storage management in the fruit supply chain. You can see the book and chapters here:https://lnkd.in/eKCp8S-A Buy it at Amazon: https://a.co/d/9t7yqzk

Let’s examine recent research in the Kiwi berry industry to see how we can apply cutting-edge tech to achieve real, measurable results in quality control and efficiency. Understanding ripeness and quality in produce can be tricky—especially for fruits like kiwiberries, which don’t give many visual cues. But new research using Near Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy has made it possible to predict fruit quality in real-time, without ever cutting into a berry. Imagine reducing waste, saving time, and making better harvest decisions all with one handheld device. Using the F-750 Produce Quality Meter, researchers developed storage-specific models that accurately measure the Soluble Solids Concentration (SSC) of ‘Geneva 3’ kiwiberries. Whether berries are fresh from the vine or have been in cold storage, this NIR device can assess ripeness and quality instantly—offering growers and distributors valuable insights for timing, quality control, and sorting without damaging a single fruit. Why should you care? Because NIR tech isn’t just for kiwiberries. The more you understand about how these nondestructive, real-time tools work, the better you can make informed decisions across all areas of agriculture. Follow along for more updates on tools and insights to help you streamline processes, reduce waste, and enhance quality control across your operation.

“It’s a balance of all of this to really meet the sustainability that we need” 🌍 Hear from Mercedes Groba (EIT Food) sharing her views on the priorities for food and agriculture R&D in this short video captured during the final webinar of our Global Challenge campaign 🌾 Interested in learning more? Download our R&D trends report for exclusive insights in sustainable agriculture, crop science, and alternative proteins: https://lnkd.in/gDa7BC7K #global challenges #agtech #cropscience #sustainablefood #aginnovation