"Don't allow yourself to have excuses is one of the biggest things in building a business or in your life in general." —Aaron Magenheim
Agtech has been used as a buzzword a lot lately as the farm industry moves to digitalization. But there's more to this than just growing food with the latest technology and equipment. Advanced technologies can also be used by farmers to gain an edge when it comes to attracting customers and building relationships with them over time.
Aaron Magenheim, an agtech veteran, has been helping farmers and entrepreneurs around the globe leverage this arena. Along with his co-founder and partners, Aaron built Agtech Insight and Growers Insight as a consulting platform to help agribusinesses, food companies, and investors navigate the evolving food industry with less risk and more profitability.
Listen in as Justine and her co-host Lisa Johnson as they interview Aaron on what agtech means and how it impacts the food industry, the importance of traceability, how blockchain can be integrated in the food space, how to be culturally competent, benefits and challenges of having a startup accelerator, and the three factors that can help you build a market.
Meet Lisa:
Lisa Johnson is a leader in food loss and waste - focused on agricultural production. She is a seasoned horticulturist with a broad range of experience in local, organic, sustainable, conventional and biotech food and agriculture. Lisa’s research has aimed to understand the loss of edible vegetables. Understanding constraints from the growers’ perspective has been critical: always encouraging people to incorporate more growers' voices in their work. Lisa is fortunate to be able to work with some of the most forward-thinking specialty crop growers in the country, as well as non-profits, governments, start-ups, industry and the academy.
Meet Aaron:
Aaron is an entrepreneur working globally across the Agriculture and technology nexis specializing in Go-to- Market strategies; farm operation innovation planning; and advising corporates, investors, governments, NGOs, and startups through successful AgTech integrations and best farming practices across the supply chain. Aaron has been a co-founder of AgTech startups in both hardware and software development with global operation as well as has become a leader in the AgTech movement and speaks to groups around the world.
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Episode Highlights:
01:16 Finding Global Opportunities in Agtech
07:43 Defining Agtech
11:31 Blockchain in the Food Chain
14:09 The Importance of Product Traceability
18:57 Looking at the Picture
22:09 Execute and Achieve Results
27:25 All in the Attitude
33:02 No Excuses
37:48 Building a Market in Agtech
40:08 Benefits and Challenges of Startup Accelerators