Dr. Jeremy Williams is the Vice President of Biotechnology and Agricultural Productivity Innovations at Monsanto, one of the largest modern agricultural companies in the world that develops products and tools to help farmers grow more crops and make use of resources more efficiently. His responsibilities include leading the chemistry and trait research teams that assist farmers to succeed through innovative means such as artificial intelligence. His ultimate goal is to create a discovery pipeline that streamlines projects that affect agricultural development into commercialization.

Jeremy joins me today to discuss the future of agriculture and how artificial intelligence and machine learning can impact the agriculture industry. He describes the concept of artificial intelligence, its current applications, and why he believes these technologies can create new job opportunities throughout the agriculture industry. He also explains the difference between machine learning and deep learning, how artificial intelligence can improve productivity and sustainability within the industry and shares his perspective on the future of the agriculture industry.

 “Over time, there’s going to be increasing desires from society to have agriculture be even more sustainable. The development of automation, the use of data science, is going to help us meet those demands from society.” – Dr. Jeremy Williams

This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:

• How he ended up working with Monsanto and his responsibilities.
• What is artificial intelligence and how is it used in the ag industry?
• The difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning.
• Applications of artificial intelligence on the farm.
• How machine learning can impact the ability to discover new crop protection chemistries.
• How artificial intelligence can help discover new insect control traits for expression in plants.
• How humans and artificial intelligence can work together.
• The impact that artificial intelligence and machine learning can have on future job opportunities in the agriculture industry.
• How the Bayer-Monsanto acquisition can impact agriculture innovation.
• Advice for new ag-tech entrepreneurs.
• His predictions for the future of the ag industry.

Dr. Jeremy Williams’ Tips for New Ag-Tech Entrepreneurs:

1. The quality of your team is very important.
2. Remember: You don’t know everything as an organization. Be externally focused. Partner aggressively. Use the leverage of a much bigger ecosystem than you can build yourself with your organization.
3. The ability to fail, learn, and recover is critical.
4. Be patient, but also be persistent and tenacious.

Connect with Dr. Jeremy Williams:

• Monsanto
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Check Out Our Sponsor for the “Sustainability at Scale” Series

Have you ever heard of Marrone’s BIO WITH BITE? Marrone Bio Innovation offers crop pest protection for the modern organic and conventional production systems. To make sure every grower using their products realize the best possible return on investment, Marrone invests time and resources to thoroughly test and demonstrate the efficacy of those new state of the art products. With serious trial data to back it up! You can see more and connect directly with Marrone by visiting them at www.marronebio.com

Marrone is very proud to support The Future Of Agriculture blog series on sustainability in agriculture with Tim Hammerich.

We Are a Part of a Bigger Family! 

The Future of Agriculture Podcast is now part of the Farm and Rural Ag Network. Listen to more ag-related podcasts by subscribing on iTunes or on the Farm and Rural Ag Network Website today. 

Share the Ag-Love! 

Thanks for joining us on the Future of Agriculture Podcast – your spot for valuable information, content, and interviews with industry leaders throughout the agricultural space! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes and leave your honest feedback. Don’t forget to share it with your friends on your favorite social media spots! 

Learn more about AgGrad by visiting: 

Future of Agriculture Website

AgGrad Website

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Aldyen Donnelly is the Director of Carbon Economic at Nori, a startup company dedicated to creating trust and transparency while lowering transaction costs throughout the carbon trading industry. Her mission is to reward carbon sequestering farmers with blockchain-backed carbon credit certificates. Nori is a blockchain-enabled platform allowing users to trace where carbon dioxide is sequestered and is currently the world’s only carbon dioxide sequestration marketplace.

Aldyen joins me to share the mission behind Nori and how it can help both the environment and farmers. She shares how she became inspired to help the world reduce its carbon emissions, where carbon emissions are primarily derived, and the company’s business strategy to help reverse this problem. She also explains the role of blockchain with regards to transparency in their platform and how farmers can benefit from regenerative and carbon sequestering practices.

“When we create a market that is transparent, a whole bunch of ideas about how to do this will come up that have never entered our mind yet.” - Aldyen Donnelly

This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:

• Where greenhouse gases are primarily stored.
• How soon can we reduce the greenhouse gases to 350 ppm?
• The theory behind Cap and Trade and why it’s not an optimal strategy to address the greenhouse gas emission issues.
• The true value of one carbon certificate.
• Why California is a special case when it comes to emissions certificates.
• How Nori works and how it utilizes blockchain.
• Who are the buyers of the carbon certificates?
• How regenerative practices allows farmers to generate marketable carbon credits, even during natural disasters.
• Causes of the downward pressure on the price of carbon certificates.
• How funding U.S. farmers to sequester carbon can offset transport and gas plant emissions.

Aldyen Donnelly’s Key Takeaways:

• When most people are buying a certificate in the state of California market for $15, they think it’s costing $15 to reduce one ton of CO2, but if a certificate is really only worth 25% of a ton, they’re actually paying $60 a ton.
• Every cap and trade pollution market has crashed and burned within seven years.
• If we fund U.S. farmers to sequester carbon at top price, they can offset all of the U.S. transportation emissions and all of the gas plant emissions.

Connect with Aldyen Donnelly:

• Nori
• Twitter

Check Out Our Sponsor for the “Sustainability at Scale” Series

Have you ever heard of Marrone’s BIO WITH BITE? Marrone Bio Innovation offers crop pest protection for the modern organic and conventional production systems. To make sure every grower using their products realize the best possible return on investment, Marrone invests time and resources to thoroughly test and demonstrate the efficacy of those new state of the art products. With serious trial data to back it up! You can see more and connect directly with Marrone by visiting them at www.marronebio.com

Marrone is very proud to support The Future Of Agriculture blog series on sustainability in agriculture with Tim Hammerich.

We Are a Part of a Bigger Family! 

The Future of Agriculture Podcast is now part of the Farm and Rural Ag Network. Listen to more ag-related podcasts by subscribing on iTunes or on the Farm and Rural Ag Network Website today. 

Share the Ag-Love! 

Thanks for joining us on the Future of Agriculture Podcast – your spot for valuable information, content, and interviews with industry leaders throughout the agricultural space! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes and leave your honest feedback. Don’t forget to share it with your friends on your favorite social media spots! 

Learn more about AgGrad by visiting: 

Future of Agriculture Website

AgGrad Website

AgGrad on Twitter 
AgGrad on Facebook 
AgGrad on LinkedIn 
AgGrad on Instagram 

Del Ficke and Graham Christensen own farms that advocate a practice called Regenerative Agriculture. This practice sequesters a massive portion of CO2 in the soil and even in forests. Del is the owner of Ficke Cattle Company, a family run farm and livestock operation with a history dating back to 1860. Graham is the Founder of GC Resolve, an environmental consulting company based in Nebraska that specializes in grassroots community development, education, and mobilization.

Del and Graham join me today to discuss the practice of Regenerative Agriculture and what they have done to implement it in their farms. They share how they learned about regenerative practices and their success stories and explain why this type of practice is based on what’s already been done before, but long forgotten due to mass production. They also share examples of how regenerative ag can benefit farmers financially.

“We don't need to get bigger; we just need to get smarter on this and work with nature.” - Del Ficke

This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast:

• How they began working in the ag industry.
• Their farms before and after they embarked on their journey to regenerative ag.
• How they're able to earn more despite having smaller farms.
• The first step in moving towards regenerative ag.
• Common concerns towards regenerative agriculture.
• How they trained their banker to be comfortable with the regenerative agriculture approach.
• How regenerative practices revitalize rural communities.

Resources Mentioned:

• Episode 098: Evidence-Based Agriculture and Defining Sustainability with Marc Brazeau of Food and Farm Discussion Lab

Del Ficke and Graham Christensen’s Key Takeaways:

• It's helpful when you have other farms doing regenerative ag successfully. It makes you realize this type of farming does work.
• You can try to run a farm at 90% efficiency, but there's always something you can't eliminate.

Connect with Del Ficke:

• Ficke Cattle

Connect with Graham Christensen:

• GC Resolve

• Regenerate Nebraska Facebook

Check Out Our Sponsor for the “Sustainability at Scale” Series

Have you ever heard of Marrone’s BIO WITH BITE? Marrone Bio Innovation offers crop pest protection for the modern organic and conventional production systems. To make sure every grower using their products realize the best possible return on investment, Marrone invests time and resources to thoroughly test and demonstrate the efficacy of those new state of the art products. With serious trial data to back it up! You can see more and connect directly with Marrone by visiting them at www.marronebio.com

Marrone is very proud to support The Future Of Agriculture blog series on sustainability in agriculture with Tim Hammerich.

We Are a Part of a Bigger Family! 

The Future of Agriculture Podcast is now part of the Farm and Rural Ag Network. Listen to more ag-related podcasts by subscribing on iTunes or on the Farm and Rural Ag Network Website today. 

Share the Ag-Love! 

Thanks for joining us on the Future of Agriculture Podcast – your spot for valuable information, content, and interviews with industry leaders throughout the agricultural space! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes and leave your honest feedback. Don’t forget to share it with your friends on your favorite social media spots! 

Learn more about AgGrad by visiting: 

Future of Agriculture Website

AgGrad Website

AgGrad on Twitter 
AgGrad on Facebook 
AgGrad on LinkedIn 
AgGrad on Instagram 

Michael Gilbert is the Founder and CEO of Semios, a Canadian company that helps farmers manage their pest problems using onsite sensing, big data, and predictive analytics solutions. He has over twenty years of experience in the field of biotech research and development. Before founding Semios, Michael held positions with federal research institutions, large multinationals, medium-sized public companies, and startups.

Today, Michael joins me to share the goal of Semios and how they plan to contribute to sustainability. He explains the driving idea behind Semios, the technologies they apply in their business, and the many problems they help farmers solve. He also explains why pesticides can eventually stop working and the different applications farmers can use based on the data gathered from sensors.

“You need to have more data to understand why things are occurring and how to best manage it.” - Michael Gilbert

 
This Week on The Future of Agriculture Podcast: 

• How Semios helps farmers find solutions to pest problems.
• How producers previously managed pest issues before using sensors.
• How Semios analyzes pests.
• How to incorporate machine learning in the agriculture industry.
• The four V’s of Big Data.
• The benefits of IoT and Machine Learning technology.
• His background and how he stumbled upon the pest problems farmers face.
• How farmers can apply the data gathered by sensors.
• How their technology can aid sustainability throughout the agriculture industry.
• Problems they hope to solve in the future.

Michael Gilbert’s Words of Wisdom:

• Having a bad year has nothing to do with luck. Our job is to understand what made the risk occur.

Connect with Michael Gilbert:

• Semios

Check Out Our Sponsor for the “Sustainability at Scale” Series

Have you ever heard of Marrone’s BIO WITH BITE? Marrone Bio Innovation offers crop pest protection for the modern organic and conventional production systems. To make sure every grower using their products realize the best possible return on investment, Marrone invests time and resources to thoroughly test and demonstrate the efficacy of those new state of the art products. With serious trial data to back it up! You can see more and connect directly with Marrone by visiting them at www.marronebio.com

Marrone is very proud to support The Future Of Agriculture blog series on sustainability in agriculture with Tim Hammerich.

We Are a Part of a Bigger Family! 

The Future of Agriculture Podcast is now part of the Farm and Rural Ag Network. Listen to more ag-related podcasts by subscribing on iTunes or on the Farm and Rural Ag Network Website today. 

Share the Ag-Love! 

Thanks for joining us on the Future of Agriculture Podcast – your spot for valuable information, content, and interviews with industry leaders throughout the agricultural space! If you enjoyed this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes and leave your honest feedback. Don’t forget to share it with your friends on your favorite social media spots! 

Learn more about AgGrad by visiting: 

Future of Agriculture Website

AgGrad Website

AgGrad on Twitter 
AgGrad on Facebook 
AgGrad on LinkedIn 
AgGrad on Instagram