Join us for our first of five new digital broadcasts and discussion forums titled Crusonia Conversations.

But what’s in a name?

Our first Crusonia Conversation will feature Carter Williams, CEO and Managing Partner of iSelect Fund, and leading global economist, professor and author Tyler Cowen discussing how the story of this mystical plant is the perfect metaphor for the work we’re doing at the nexus of food, health, and the economy. Tyler will also be one of our keynote speakers at the rescheduled Crusonia on the Delta Forum, Sept 28-30 in Memphis, TN.

The timing could not be more relevant as we are undoubtedly getting a preview of this relationship during, and in the wake of, COVID-19. The longer-term need to focus and innovate here is undeniable.

Tyler’s recent book, Stubborn Attachments, the culmination of over 20 years of economic research, brilliantly elaborates on the metaphorical connection between the Crusonia’s growth and the transformational power of growth to create “better living standards, produce better medicines, and ensure greater autonomy, greater fulfillment, and more sources of fun.” He adds that “sustainable growth trends and the overwhelmingly positive outcomes for societies that come with it, every individual must become more concerned with the welfare of those around. So, how do we proceed?”

It starts here.

Creating sustainable economic growth while simultaneously improving global health through the innovation of, and investment in, a new and better food system is the Crusonia trifecta — and you are a part of it.

Join us on April 29 at 11am CST via Zoom to hear what Tyler and Carter have to say about the journey of modern-day Crusonians. Share your talents and perspectives on the innovation, transformation and impact possible. The link will be available to you once you’ve registered for this free 30-minute video presentation followed by live Q&A with Carter and Tyler. You will also be able to view the presentation at a later time or share it with others. All are welcome.

The post Coronavirus and the future of food and health? appeared first on Crusonia.

After considerable discussion, our leadership and board felt this would be best given the current uncertainty regarding the duration of measures to curtail travel and continue social distancing practices. And, we believe, even once these precautions are lifted, many of you will need time to focus on returning your businesses to pre-COVID-19 operations in the months ahead.

While we are delaying the live forum until the fall, stay tuned for new and exciting ways we intend to expand and deepen content and dialogue in advance of the rescheduled forum.

Of course, we will also be extending the 2020 registration window to accommodate this date change. We are also working on a “reserve now, pay later” option for those who want to ensure they have a seat at the table.

With only 350 seats available for the 2020 forum, it’s still a good idea to reserve yours as soon as possible.

If you’ve already registered and the new date does not work for you when it is announced, we will rebate your registration.

Continue to be safe everyone and we are looking forward to a fantastic Crusonia 2020 in September.

Best,

Paul Noglows
President and Executive Director
Crusonia on the Delta Inc.

The post 2020 Crusonia on the Delta Forum postponed until Fall 2020 appeared first on Crusonia.

While we await that outcome, it is interesting to consider the deeper connection between this
virus and the path to a new and better food system. We’ll leave it to the scientific community
to track COVID-19’s origin, but there are a few relevant points to remember:

1. Viruses such as COVID-19 and African Swine Flu have a significant impact on the
economics of the food system, rapidly causing fluctuations in demands and pricing with
negative impacts to already-strained economic ecosystems.
2. There is absolutely a connection between diet and immunology and we already well
know the connection to diet-related illnesses but poor nutrition, and sugar, in particular,
suppress our immune systems as well.
3. Entrepreneurs and technologists, including Ag and biotechnology, play a key role in
shaping preventative treatments and cures.

Take a look at sugar, the culprit in most of our diet downfalls. Many don’t realize that indulging
in too much sugar does more than expand the waistline. A super-double sized soda or an over-
processed sugary snack curbs immune system cells that attack bacteria and can impact these
cells for several hours after consumption. Did the sugar make you sick? No, but if you are
exposed at just the right time, it made you more susceptible. And, both bacteria and viruses
thrive on sugar as a primary source of energy.

Entrepreneurial companies like Bonumose have found ways to make plant-based, fiber sources
like Tagatose, a natural substitute to sucrose, which rivals it in taste, accessible to the mass
market. Their work is a great example of System C, a food system with the affordability and
accessibility of System A with the nutritional quality and value of System B. Making Tagatose
available broadly, along with consumer adoption, can be a strong contributing factor in
countering many of sucrose’s sins from cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes to dental
health and, yes, stronger immune systems.

Others, such as Cocoon Biotech, have developed a fibroin that is expected to yield substantial
improvements in areas such as drug or small molecule delivery that can aid in accelerating the
speed and effectiveness of treatments in human and animal health — a System C solution that
can address health. This solution can help prevent the economic impact we see as a result of
efforts in these situations to limit contact and exposure — like the current isolation efforts to
flatten COVID-19’s infectious curve.

These companies and others come together annually at Crusonia on the Delta, formerly Davos
on the Delta, to network, learn and be inspired by each other and contribute to a better,
healthier food system made possible over time. Named for a mythical plant that with care and
focus provided abundance and withered without, we must remain diligent. Crusonia on the
Delta 2020 will have no impact on COVID-19, but COVID-19, unfortunately, will likely not be the
last pandemic we face in an uber-connected society. A strong, innovative and entrepreneurial
focus on the future of food and health may make pandemics something future generations may
only experience in textbooks. Wouldn’t it be great to be a part of that?

Experts around the world are fiercely focused on taking down COVID-19. A focus on the longer
play can help make sure in the future we’re better prepared, focused on prevention, not
treatment.

More information will come as available on the status of Crusonia on the Delta 2020 soon. In the meantime, stay safe and continue to be passionate about the future of food and health.

Carter Williams, CEO, iSelect Fund & Co-Founder, Crusonia on the Delta Forum

Paul Noglows, Executive Director & President, Crusonia on the Delta Inc.; Executive Producer,
Crusonia on the Delta Forum

The post Crusonia, Food System C, and COVID-19: Is there a connection? appeared first on Crusonia.

The concept of taking a brand name and turning it into a common verb is a practice that etymologists refer to as “anthimeria,” which means a functional shift or conversion of word use. It happens sometimes when consumers latch onto a leading brand and start using it in a new way, with no mind or care about whether the company supports that use or not, and is often a reflection of the company in question’s domination of the marketplace. When there is one leading brand it is human nature to shorten its usage in common speech.

This is not a new phenomenon.

One of the earliest instances of anithimeria in U.S. popular culture dates back to the 1920s, when the word “Frigidaire” became synonymous with the then-new technology of refrigeration. Frigidaire was the company, founded in 1918 to manufacture home refrigerators, and so consumers soon adopted its name as a way to describe the strange, new devices they suddenly all had in their kitchens.

Now we just refer to this technology as the refrigerator or the fridge, but phrasing like, “put it in the Frigidaire,” was not uncommon a few generations ago.

It’s an indication of just how ground-shaking refrigeration was when it hit the market shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Based on technologies that had been developed over the course of more than a century, today’s refrigerators — self-contained electric models that include a compressor at the bottom of the unit — date back to a 1914 invention, and haven’t changed dramatically in the years since. Yes, compressors have gotten smaller, systems have become more efficient and refrigerator cabinets have evolved to fit modern lifestyles, but the box in just about every kitchen on the planet isn’t dramatically different in design from the units that first rolled off the Frigidaire assembly line nearly a century ago.

Inside the ‘cold chain’

That hasn’t stopped refrigeration from becoming one of the signature technologies of the modern era.

Every year, more than 9 million refrigerators are shipped to customers in the U.S., and nearly 100% of homes in this country have a refrigerator, according to government data. It’s the most popular home appliance. (Sometimes one isn’t even enough, as evidenced by the fact that 23% of American homes have one or more fridges in service.)

But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the industrial uses of refrigeration. Many of the products and foods we use daily — ranging from agricultural products like meats and fruits to pharmaceuticals — are produced across the global and then transported through the “cold chain,” an uninterrupted series of storage and distribution activities which maintain a specific cold temperature range.

The cold chain is a critical component of the global economy. Cooling, in its various forms, accounts for roughly 17% of all electricity consumption globally, and is growing rapidly as demand for the products that the cold chain supports skyrockets.

Between 30 and 70 terawatt hours (TWh) — equal to the energy consumption of between 2.5 and 5.8 million U.S. homes — are used annually to power cold storage warehouses. The bulk of the growth in the cold storage market is occuring in economies such as India and China — economies where the electricity sectors rely heavily on inefficient and polluting sources of power. (Asia’s power plants are 36% more polluting than U.S. power plants, and 58% more polluting than European power systems.) As a result, current refrigerant use is unsustainable. If HFC refrigerant use and leakage were to continue unabated, HFCs would account for nearly one half of total global GHG emissions by 2050.

None of this disputes the value of the cold chain system now in place, but the fact is current refrigeration methods are unsustainable. Cold storage facilities are struggling to manage rising operating costs, rigorous product safety standards, and evolving environmental regulations, all while dealing with outdated and inefficient equipment. Cold storage operators continuously look to control costs while balancing the energy-intensive requirements of perishable products with the desire to manage electricity consumption.

Besides the capital and maintenance cost of sophisticated cooling equipment, the power required to chill contents often comprises more than 25% of a cold storage facility’s operating costs.

A new approach

The time has come for a new approach to refrigeration. A new way to keep foods, pharmaceuticals and other products cold when needed, without such a heavy cost in the form of energy usage and other resources.

Enter, Rebound Technologies.

A startup based in Denver, Colo., Rebound is commercializing a freeze point suppression cooling cycle technology that targets the most critical part of the cold chain: refrigeration.

The company is testing a novel cooling technology and cold storage facilities can plug directly into their existing freezer systems, providing new controls to deploy bursts of high-capacity cooling. This new type of refrigeration cycle is 40% more efficient than incumbent processes, and is ideal for speeding-up blast freezing throughput and mitigating peak energy expenses. It offers the potential for massive energy savings and greenhouse gas mitigation, and offers more operational flexibility and better control of cooling for users.

It’s cheaper, more efficient and easier to use.

Rebound is currently targeting two potential user bases: Cold storage and food processing facilities. The technology can increase facility revenues by increasing blast freezing throughput, mitigating compressor power and avoiding peak energy expenses. It can also boost batch processes by decreasing spiral freezer temps, avoiding peak energy expenses and ensuring USDA food safety compliance.

Globally, the industrial refrigeration sector spends roughly $24 billion on refrigeration equipment annually. The number of refrigeration, air-conditioning, and heat pump systems in operation globally is 3 billion, sales of which amount to $300 billion. Of these 3 billion units, an estimated 90 million are commercial food refrigeration systems. The U.S. is home to 1,430 cold storage facilities.

By bringing more flexible, more efficient systems to this large and growing market, Rebound hopes to make a difference in not only the industry’s energy usage, but also the impact that refrigeration as a whole has on the planet.

Learn more about Rebound Technologies.

The post It’s Getting Cold in Here: Transforming Modern Refrigeration With Control and Efficiency appeared first on Crusonia.

Chris was a right hand to Michael Milken for many years. Chris, now in his 80s, still works as an investment banker. If you attended the conference in 2018 you would know Chris as the Mangalista Pig guy. 

Chris just finished reading the book “Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity,” which led him to tell me the story of the first big Milken offering. A $1B offering of junk bonds in 1982 to underwrite MCI advertising. $1B for advertising is a big number.

Put yourself in that time frame. Judge Green had just set in motion the break up of AT&T. We still had party line phones. Telcom was on copper. You had to rent your phone from AT&T. 

Signs inside the Bell System said: “There are two giant entities at work in our country, and they both have an amazing influence on our daily lives. . . one has given us radar, sonar, stereo, teletype, the transistor, hearing aids, artificial larynxes, talking movies, and the telephone. The other has given us the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, the Great Depression, the gasoline crisis, and the Watergate fiasco. Guess which one is now trying to tell the other one how to run its business?”

By the end of the 80s, AT&T wrote off  $6.8B in infrastructure as the world moved to fiber and wireless.  Cisco, Microsoft, MCI, AOL, McCaw emerged. In the 35 years since, information services have expanded 100x. Entirely new markets have formed.

I was at Van Trump’s producer conference recently. There were 1,000 farmers there wondering “How do I de-commoditize my market?”

Here is the problem… If everyone buys the newest genetics from Monsanto, it increases supply and drives down price. And for the farmers that grow a differentiated product, like organics, they still sell to the same grain elevator. 

Whether the market is a monopoly like AT&T pre-1982, or a near monopsony of ADM, Bungee, Cargill, and Dreyfus (ABCD) setting price, the answer is the same — innovation stagnates.

Innovation happens when the consumer’s voice passes back to production. 

Milken is one of the smartest investors we have ever seen.  He wrote $1B in debt because it unlocked the size of the market. When MCI started offering wireline services in different bundles, it revealed the size of the market to entrepreneurs. Milken revealed latent demand. With this information in hand, Milken led the 80s underwriting the explosion in information technology.

I would argue that the food/ag market is operating circa 1985. And that Amazon or perhaps Indigo represents a proxy for MCI. It does not matter if these two companies survive because their reshaping of the market will drive the agriculture market for the next 50 years.

We know that Americans do not eat well. We spend about $1.5T a year on food. It is carb/sugar heavy. Carbs are cheap and sugar is addictive. More addictive than cocaine.

If we are going to invest in food innovation, then how do we address the increased cost of good food and sugar addiction?

I think Milken would say: “Understand latent demand, expose it to entrepreneurs, and watch the market adapt”

The size of latent demand is at least the substitute cost we spend on poor nutrition related healthcare (Diabetes, cancer, etc) – somewhere between $500B and $1T/Year

Innovators need to make good nutrition more addictive than sugar.

The post Making It Addictive appeared first on Crusonia.

We learned the full scope of that debate on Election Day.

But the fact remains, rural America is a key part of American society and of the nation’s economy, encompassing the vast majority of our landmass as well as millions of individual people. That role looks to only increase in the coming years.

Why? Because rural America remains primarily focused on one industry: agriculture. And that industry has been getting chopped to pieces in recent years.

Worldwide, farmers are planting more corn and wheat, creating price pressure that’s driving down commodity crop prices here in this country. This will most likely become a permanent trend. Technological advances are automating the field, allowing well-funded operators to leap ahead of their competitors, leaving those unable to afford these new technologies further and further behind.

But, despite all this, there is massiveopportunity in agricultureright now as well.

Consider the possibilities.

It’s no secret that many shoppers today prefer organic products—for a variety of reasons—and are willing to pay a premium for what they consider to be a premium product. OK, but when a shopper does that, they’re left with less money in their bank account to buy a car, or a house or any of the hundreds of other purchases that we all need to make in our lives. This is particularly acute among the organic-loving Millennial generation. So acute, in fact, that the Federal government has been researching new ways to reduce the cost of organics in order to cut the price premium that consumers have been paying, seeking parity with the rest of the market.

At iSelect, we’re investing in exactly this, supporting companies that are working to drive down the cost of organics while building out powerful new ag technologies.

One example is Kultevat, a company that’s working to create an industrial product, natural rubber, using an easily grown and plentiful strain of dandelions. By delivering a high-value crop to the farmer that’s not a low-priced commodity like corn or wheat, Kultevat is opening up a new income stream to struggling farmers, allowing them to shift from sugar beet farming, let’s say, to dandelions with significant upside. This would allow them to eventually grow and sell complimentary organics alongside at lower cost.

Benson Hill Biosystems is another example. By developing new seed technologies that increase yield and reduce drought loss, they are helping farmers realize savings right out in the field, further helping to reduce costs and overhead. Cheaper, higher quality organics will be the result.

In truth, we believe that agriculture is approaching its “1980” moment.

This is something we in the venture community speak about often, this tipping point when a product goes from a niche to the mainstream seemingly overnight.

In personal computers, this happened around 1980.Prior to that year, PCs were a proprietary product, developed, branded and supported by a small list of companies. When you bought a Wang computer, you ran Wang software on it and connected it to other Wang-branded hardware. That all changed with the creation of the PC platform around 1980 that allowed software and hardware from many different makers to work together. This opened the door to an entirely new industry—universal software—and made millionaires of a new generation of entrepreneurs. Few people saw this shift coming, but Microsoft and others did and were able to make billions.

That’s where we are right now in agriculture, and the opportunity is huge.

The news recently has been focused on infrastructure spending, and overseas trade and Apple’s struggles with potential new China policies. But the real problem facing this country today is creating a more diverse, inclusive U.S. economy.

The solution won’t only be coming from the software, manufacturing or healthcare industries. In fact, the transformation of agriculture into a 21st century economic force, led by agtech companies like Benson Hill and Kultevat, is already underway.

That’s why our attention right now—and our investment capital—is on rural America.

The post Rise of Rural America: Opportunity in Agtech appeared first on Crusonia.

One of the original North American food crops, Europeans first started cultivating tomatoes with the help of Native Americans in the 17th century. As a food source for the settlers, tomatoes were healthy, plentiful and easy to grow.

Not to mention they were a tasty addition to their diet.

[Learn more about iSelect’s food & agriculture investments.]

But tomatoes have long had a problem: They ripen too quickly. On average, tomatoes that ripen on the vine can go from green and unripe to red and juicy in just a matter of days, turning the corner to “too soft” and going bad in less than a week. When planted at scale, it could often be all but impossible for the farmer to harvest all of their tomato crop in time without losing a portion to rot. This was simply reality for tomato farmers for generations.

Until the 1990s.

That’s when agriculture firm Calgene pioneered a new kind of tomato. Using genetic engineering, the company created a product that was slower to ripen, preventing it from going soft so fast while still allowing it to retain its natural colour and flavor. It was also made “more resistant to rotting by adding an antisense gene which interferes with the production of the enzyme polygalacturonase. The enzyme normally degrades pectin in the cell walls and results in the softening of fruit which makes them more susceptible to being damaged by fungal infections.”

Calgene dubbed this creation the Flavr Savr, and it was an immediate hit.

Prior to its arrival, most tomatoes were harvested while still green on the vine and artificially ripened using ethylene gas. This allowed for a longer shelf life, but took a tool on flavor and texture.

But the Flavr Savr, since it was slower to ripen, could be allowed to ripen fully on the vine before harvesting, resulting in a juicier, more flavorful tomato. It was able to command a premium price at the supermarket as a result.

Engineering the future

But there’s more to the promise of genetic engineering in food crops than just better taste and texture.

Specific traits or characteristics can be inherited from one generation to the next through the plant’s genes, and traits inserted in plants can make the plant resistant to insects, disease, drought or other elements that would negatively impact plant yield. Biotech traits can also be used to increase yield, improve taste or nutrition, or modify a number of other factors.

This matters because, feeding a growing population is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. According to the United Nations, by 2050 the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion, 34% higher than it is today. The increased market demand will make food production a top priority, increasing 50% globally and 200% in developing countries by 2030.

In developing countries, 80% of the necessary production increase needs to come from the increases in yields, largely driven by biotech crops, and only 20% from expansion of arable land.

The technology exists to significantly improve the way that biotechnology is used to deliver higher-yielding seeds to the farmers who are feeding the planet. Step one in the biotech revolution helped growers produce more food than ever before with less environmental impact, but these original technologies, now over 20 years old, can no longer keep up with the yield needs of today’s farmers, not to mention tomorrow’s.

Stepping up genetic engineering

Enter Plastomics, a St. Louis-based biotechnology startup using chloroplast genetic engineering to develop the next generation of high performing crops.

It’s platform technology provides solutions for the many current industry challenges: highly efficient trait stacking, decreased time and cost to market, more effective trait dose, simplified breeding, and elimination of outcrossing to weeds or neighboring fields. The solutions Plastomics’ technology brings results in higher yielding crops to meet the needs of the growing planet.

The company has developed a proprietary model platform to conduct genetic engineering through the chloroplast. This unique Chloroplast Transformation Technology (CTT) platform will simplify breeding, reduce seed development time and costs, increase transgene expression and simplify gene-stacking in crops. This can improve trait levels, enable simplified trait stacking, limit trait outcrossing, increase yield, and reduce go-to-market product timeline by 1-2 years. All at a lower cost.

Learn more about Plastomics.

The post Food 2.0: Genetic Engineering Our Way to the High-Performing Crops of Tomorrow appeared first on Crusonia.

It’s called the Open Agriculture Initiative(OpenAg) and it is staffed by a team of researchers that has been working since 2014 to create healthier, more engaging, and more inventive future food systems.

“We believe the precursor to a healthier and more sustainable food system will be the creation of an open-source ecosystem of technologies that enable and promote transparency, networked experimentation, education, and hyper-local production. OpenAg brings together partners from industry, government, and academia in a  research collective that’s creating collaborative tools and open technology platforms for the exploration of future food systems.”

MIT’s work has resulted in a long list of agtech innovations, including what the Media Lab calls the Personal Food Computer, a “tabletop-sized, controlled environment agriculture technology platform that uses robotic systems to control and monitor climate, energy, and plant growth inside of a specialized growing chamber.” It’s an automated tabletop greenhouse.

It has also developed the Open Phenome Project, an open-source digital library with data sets that cross link phenotypic response in plants (taste, nutrition, etc) to environmental variables, biologic variables, genetic variables and resources required in cultivation (inputs), in order to dial in particular genetic traits, and the Food Server, a shipping container farm that uses hydroponic and aeroponic technology to produce food at commercial scale. Its Tree Computer leverages the Food Computer platform to optimize climatic and nutritional conditions for tree growth and productive yield.

This is all futuristic, innovative work.

But it’s not limited to the lab. iSelect is working with many of the companies that are making agtech innovations like these a commercial reality.

Like Benson Hill Biosystems, which is leveraging cloud biology and plant genetics to unlock the full potential of farm crops, boosting yield, improving resiliency, and developing healthier foods.

Or Kultevat, which has developed a new, renewable source of natural rubbers using Russian dandelions. This is a profitable, sustainable, and environmentally-benign source that is  simultaneously supplying the biofuels industry with a critical feedstock, reducing our near-total dependence on foreign sources of rubber.

Or Agrilyst, which is working on a web-based software platform to helps indoor farmers manage their crops and use data-driven insights to make more profitable production decisions.

MIT’s OpenAg might be working on the future of agriculture, but the future is already here in many parts of the industry.

Learn more about what iSelect is doing to support the future of agriculture.

The post MIT OpenAg Is the Future of Agriculture. Here’s How We’re Helping appeared first on Crusonia.

The short answer is yes. As of 2016, there were roughly 815 million undernourished people in the world. Beyond that, several billion suffer levels of serious micronutrient malnourishment.

But the United Nations says that the world’s population is growing, on track to hit 11 billion by 2100.

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, isn’t it?

According to a recent article in Environmental Health News, it’s a little more complicated than that.

“The world’s future food production faces several potentially serious biophysical constraints. One is the availability of arable land. Most of the best land is already in production, and much of it is adjacent to urban centers (that is why human populations have tended to concentrate there).

Furthermore, much of that land is being lost to soil erosion and degradation. The addition of more than 3 billion people to the global population seems certain to tighten this constraint. A review nearly a decade ago of the prospects for feeding “just” 9 billion people in 2050 highlighted some of the enormous hurdles the world would have to overcome in just the first half of this century.

A second major constraint is likely to be declining soil quantity and quality, including erosion, depletion of many nutrients not contained in fertilizer, but also degradation of soil texture, and disruption of the soil microbiome that can be critical to crop productivity. The key nutrient phosphorus might be especially problematic, but that issue is debated.”

Read the full story.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that none of this is actually going to happen.

Yes, the food supply is being tested. And, yes, we are going to need to do more with less going forward.

But no, we aren’t going to run out of food.

I like to think of this like “peak oil.” For years we were told that eventually the world was going to run out of oil, and we’d better have a new solution to meet our energy needs figured out by then.

But innovation solved that problem for us (not once, but twice.) Today, for every barrel of oil that we pump out of the ground the equivalent of roughly two new barrels of supply are created, by tapping previously unexplored areas for production, developing new alternative energy sources and otherwise squeezing new efficiencies out of the system.

The same thing is already happening in ag.

Take indoor farming. Indoor horticulture of greens, microgreens, herbs and vine crops is roughly 170 times more productivethan outdoor fields, generating more than $2 million in revenue per acre annually versus just $500 outdoors. Indoor farmers can also control their own environments, creating ideal climatic environments to extend growing seasons and shorten the time it takes to grow a seed to harvest. Farmers in the Netherlands have been able to boost tomato yields to 5xthe next closest producer by embracing indoor farming and leveraging new agricultural efficiencies.

Or consider alternative proteins. More than half of the grain grown in the U.S. and 40 percent worldwide is currently being fed to livestockas feed, along with 95 percent of all soybean production. If the U.S. segment of that were instead fed directly to people it would feed more than 800 million annually. Insect protein is far more efficient, delivering 25x the protein per hectare versus soy protein or grain for livestock and aquaculture feed.

These kinds of solutions are coming from innovative startups.

Agrilyst is helping indoor and vertical farmers produce more yield per acre and boost the efficiency of their operations.

HerdDogg is allowing ranchers to better monitor and track their herds online in order to maintain production levels and optimize the growth cycle.

Agrible is developing real-time agronomy tools to help grow sustainable crops on the farm.

KnipBio is creating environmentally responsible fish feed alternatives for sustainable global aquaculture.

Holganix is addressing water usage, soil health, erosion, microbiome development and cost effectiveness across all of ag.

Agrible is working to improve transparency, traceability and sustainability in the industry.

Arvegenix provides a cover crop that returns carbon to the soil and generates additional revenue to the farmer.

Benson Hill Biosystems is leveraging cloud data to improve yield and boost the nutrition profile of crops.

And that’s just the beginning.

Agtech is changing the industry, and might just save our lives someday.

I’m not pessimistic about “peak food.” I’m optimistic because I will always bet on innovation to solve major global problems.

The post Food Insecurity Is the Biggest Threat to Life On Earth, Except That it Isn’t appeared first on Crusonia.

From the author of that headline in Farm Journal:

“Standing before a crowd of farmers at the 2018 Farm Journal AgTech Expo, keynote speaker Josh Henretig voiced what he believed a lot of farmers were thinking.

“Why is someone from Microsoft, the company that brought you Windows Office and Xbox standing in front of you today?” asked Henretig, senior director, artificial intelligence (AI) for earth for Microsoft.

“One of the answers, he said, is that Microsoft views the planet as the ultimate operating system and that information technology, in particular artificial intelligence, can help the company monitor, model and respond to the need to help feed the planet and address global health issues. He notes that Microsoft leaders see the company’s role in the process as “unchanged” from its core business model and can “provide the connective tissue to enable the technology ecosystem to tackle these challenges.”

The desire to provide that connective tissue is one of the reasons Microsoft established the AI for Earth Program, which was funded with $50 million and a 5-year commitment from Microsoft President Brad Smith in December 2017.”

Read the full story

It’s times like these, when a major industry player like Microsoft starts to get interested in agtech, that cause me to think… maybe we’re on to something here.

But there’s more to this than just social proof.

The truth is, we already know that agriculture is in the middle of a major disruption, driven by new technologies, that is radically changing the industry from top to bottom. Cloud computing, CRISPR, location tracking, big data and more are already here, and artificial intelligence is just part of this wave.

But it’s a particularly interesting part.

Just think about what AI could do for planting and harvesting. How efficient the farm could get when, instead of relying on a farmer’s instincts and schedule, all planning could be generated and run via AI?

Real-time water and fertilization scheduling? Check.

Adaptive harvest based on weather patterns? Check.

Crop development based on market need and pricing? Check.

It’s an exciting time to be in agtech and I’m excited to see what Microsoft and others bring to the space.

The post Microsoft is Coming for Agriculture. Is That a Good Thing? appeared first on Crusonia.