Future of Agriculture

• [History of Agriculture] J.R. Simplot: A billion the hard way

  This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstatesJ.R. Simplot: A billion the hard way by Louie AtteberySimplot company website“During World War II, Jack Simplot’s plants produced thirty-three million pounds of dehydrated potatoes and five million pounds of dehydrated onion to fuel America’s fighting men and women. In the 1960s, he helped McDonald’s chief Ray Kroc turn the french fry into a national staple. In the 1980s, the Idaho farm boy with the eighth grade education played a major role in making the personal computer a household word. And as a new century begins, the company and the man show little sign of resting on the laurels.”That is from the book J.R. Simplot: A Billion the Hard Way by Louie Attebery which tells the incredible life story of J.R. Simplot, more commonly known as Jack Simplot. Today Simplot is a household name for those of us in agribusiness. The diversified global company has business interests in farming, ranching and cattle production, food processing, food brands, phosphate mining, fertilizer manufacturing, and other enterprises related to agriculture. But the humble beginnings it came from and the incredible evolution of the company has a lot of insights for all of us interested in the future of agriculture and is the focus of today’s history of agriculture episode. Brought to you by Case IH: Case IH designs,engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster. Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks. That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.

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  33:23
• From Commodity Producer to Innovative Brand With Mark Munger of Ocean Mist Farms

  This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstatesOcean Mist Farms: https://www.oceanmist.com/Today’s episode features Mark Munger of Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville, California in the Salinas Valley. Mark shares a story that I think is very relevant to a lot of agriculture production today, all over the world. Although they’ve grown a great business to produce consistent, high quality, affordable, safe, nutritious commodities, they still face challenges. Rising costs, regulations, competition, and consumers whose expectations for convenience have gone up dramatically. These headwinds have propelled the company in the direction of innovation, and Mark is going to share that with us today. For background, Mark Munger is the director of marketing at Ocean Mist Farms, where he has been for the last 2 ½ years. But Mark is definitely not new to the industry - he has worked in fresh produce for almost 40 years, including positions at the Produce Marketing Association, Driscoll’s, 4Earth Farms, and others. Brought to you by Case IH: Case IH designs,engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster. Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks. That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.

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  39:12
• [Spotlight] How Case IH Turns Customer Insights Into Farm Equipment

  This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstatesHello fellow ag nerds. Today’s special episode is what I like to call a spotlight. Instead of our normal format of a 40 minute long form interview, it’s just a short peak into something interesting. The topics for these spotlights are determined in collaboration with our quarterly presenting sponsor, which this quarter is Case IH. Dan Klein is the Customer Insights Lead at Case IH and CNH. Dan grew up on a farm in Southwest Wisconsin, where he stays actively involved, working with his brother on the family farm. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in Engineering Management, which have supported his 17-year career at CNH. What I wanted to know from Dan is how a company of their size is incorporating feedback from customers into the design of their machinery. They have a “built by farmers” promise, but how are they actually executing on that? Brought to you by Case IH: Case IH designs,engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster. Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks. That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.

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  14:33
• The State of the Farm Economy With David Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights

  This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstatesAgricultural Economic Insights: https://aei.ag/Today's episode features David Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights. David first appeared on the show a year ago on episode 399, which ended up being one of my most listened-to episodes of the year. Today, we discuss the current state of the ag economy, the margin squeeze that farmers are facing and where that places us on the economic cycle that commodities tend to follow. We also talk about some key ideas and mental models that David has written about for how to manage risk during this challenging time for the industry. As background, David Widmar is an agricultural economist specializing in ag trends and the farm economy. Through his research, he supports agribusinesses and farmers in their strategic and planning efforts. David’s current work can be found at Agricultural Economic Insights, aei.ag, which he co-founded with Dr. Brent Gloy in 2014. Prior to Agricultural Economic Insights, Mr. Widmar was a researcher with the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, and served as the economist for the Kansas Department of Agriculture. Brought to you by Case IH: Case IH designs,engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster. Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks. That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.

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  42:15
• The 'Smartification' of Farm Equipment With Colin Hurd of Mach

  This quarter of the Future of Agriculture podcast is made possible by Case IH: https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstatesMach: https://www.mach.io/Today’s episode features Colin Hurd who is the CEO of Mach. Colin first appeared on this show back on episode 180 in November of 2019. At that time he had just sold his previous company, Smart Ag, to Raven Industries. Colin continued working for Raven Industries until 2022, when he left and eventually helped to bring together a partnership merger to form Mach. Mach works with Original Equipment Manufacturers (otherwise known as OEMs). These are all of the companies that manufacture equipment, in our context farm equipment. Mach helps these OEMs that want to incorporate autonomy into their products. This again is part of an insight I had at the FIRA USA show, which is that there is a whole emerging industry of companies that exist to service the robotics and automation companies so that they can bring their solutions to farmers. Mach is one of those companies. Also, I’m delighted to have Colin back on the show because he offers such a rich perspective as a technologist with a really deep understanding of agriculture and an accomplished entrepreneur. Colin discusses the current landscape of ag equipment manufacturers, some of the tailwinds and headwinds in bringing more autonomous solutions to the farm, a cool case study of how Mach works with another former podcast guest GUSS Automation, whether or not he thinks Mach can be a big company, and Colin’s predictions for what the future holds for this part of the industry. Brought to you by Case IH: Case IH designs,engineers and produces cutting-edge farm equipment based on a comprehensive understanding of farmers’ needs, wants and challenges, integrating these insights into their development and manufacturing.For example, take their Model Year 25 Magnum tractor. The new Magnum is purposefully designed to answer farmers’ needs in every design and engineering choice. Improved horsepower for pulling heavier loads, faster. Bundled, integrated and ready-to-go precision tech for greater accuracy in the field. And a transmission farmers can tweak for improved control and performance in different tasks. That kind of design thinking is exactly where the future of ag is headed, and that’s why you’ll be hearing me talk to the folks at Case IH at different points throughout this quarter about what they do and how they’re working to push the ag forward.

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  40:58

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