FoA 388: Agtech Reflections and Projections with David Friedberg and Louisa Burwood-Taylor

Put AI to work on your farm: https://farmwave.io/

"10 years on from Climate Corp’s $1bn acquisition, David Friedberg reflects": https://agfundernews.com/david-friedberg-reflects-10-years-on-from-climate-corp-1bn-acquisition

The Production Board: https://www.tpb.co/

Almost exactly 10 years ago, an acquisition was announced that caused many people in the technology and investment community to pay more attention to what was happening in agriculture: Monsanto was buying The Climate Corporation, which was founded by David Friedberg. 

"Climate.com became the standalone software product for farmers, and that really is kind of the reason Monsanto bought the company, and really kind of set the first big precedent for digitization of agriculture."

Today David reflects on the Climate Corp journey and the Monsanto acquisition with AgFunder’s Louisa Burwood-Taylor, and he shares his current thoughts on agtech now that a decade has passed.

"I do think that there's going to be some big opportunities for the next transformation in agriculture in multiplex precision gene editing and in metagenomics in the soil microbiome, even in breakthroughs in biologics or other platforms that can discover the next set or the next range of biologics."

David and Louisa cover everything from genomics and biologics to precision fermentation, what keeps him up at night, and where agtech is headed in the decade to come. 

"I think the world will be surprised by how much we see acceleration and advancement in productivity in ag and food systems in the next 10 years."

AgFunder’s Louisa Burwood-Taylor sits down with David Friedberg on today’s Future of Agriculture podcast.