Cleaning Up Manure Lagoons!- E42

Really great to chat with Karen Schuett, co-founder and CEO of Livestock Water Recycling (LWR), a company cleaning up manure lagoons and reducing the climate footprint of farms! We discussed the multiple pivots along the way, why manure lagoons have such a massive impact on climate, their approach to working with farmers, the importance of good data to their technology, why agtech is so exciting right now and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/lwr

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

Karen is also a new member of Canada’s Clean 50 list! https://clean50.com/honourees/karen-schuett/ 

Regenerative Practices and Climate Goals – E41

Fantastic podcast with Cees Jan Hollander, Global Farming Expertise Manager at Danone! We discussed how companies like Danone can best reach climate goals, the central role that regenerative farming practices play in decarbonization, how best to approach measuring impact, his thoughts on engaging farmers with new practices, how dairy is changing with the rise of alternative milks and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/hollander

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

#startup #cleantech

#MapMyApple – E39

It was a true pleasure to chat with David Blazevski, co-founder and CEO of Fresh Agriculture Technologies, a company that uses data science to predict when crops like apples are at risk of disease!  We discussed the various ways of building trust with farmers and agronomists, how a research project with Cornel was a game changer, the climate impact of their product, the different go to market strategies they explored, what comes next after apples, building a company in Serbia and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

#startup #cleantech

Healthy and Happy Bees – E38

It was a true pleasure to chat with Fiona Edwards Murphy, co-founder and CEO of ApisProtect, a company using advanced sensors and data science to keep beehives healthy and productive! We discussed what colony collapse disorder is and why helping prevent is so important, the impact bees have on food and agriculture, the importance of getting a startup’s technology team in front of users (even if it means bee stings!), the state of sensor and data science technology today, building a company in Ireland and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/apisprotect

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

#startup #cleantech

Making the complex, simple! -E37

Fantastic podcast with Dmitry Dementiev, co-founder of GeoPard Agriculture, a company simplifying precision farming with data rich maps! We discussed how a weekly basketball game was key to their founding story, what it like to go through a startup acquisition, how their product helps farmers understand their farms better, the relationship between sustainability and agronomy and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/geopard

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

#startup #cleantech

Satellites and API farmers! – E36

Really great to speak with Robert Schmitt, co-founder and CEO of Vultus, a company working to eliminate waste in farming with satellite based recommendations! We discussed how they pivoted away from being a drone startup to focus on satellites, why now is such a great time to access satellite data, their approach to building APIs, the timelines it takes to get traction in agtech, the tradeoffs of grant vs venture funding and much more!

https://carbotnic.com/vultus

Download Podcast Here: https://plinkhq.com/i/1518148418

#startup #cleantech

#WeSeeInsects – E33

Fascinating conversation with Frederik Taarnhøj cofounder of FaunaPhotonics, a startup with advanced insect monitoring technology for agriculture. We discussed the importance of paternity leave to the early days of FaunaPhotonics, how they developed their early sensor prototypes, what they learned working with farmers on trials, the positive sustainability impacts their technology has on farming, why Denmark is a fascinating country for agtech startups and much more!

Weeding Robots – E32

Great to chat with Martijn Lukaart founder of Odd.Bot a startup that builds autonomous robots (a weeding robot!) for farms. We discussed how a EU directive coupled with a hackathon drove the initial decision to start Odd.Bot, why they chose carrots as their first use case, the incredible time and labor savings their robot can generate, how they are able to couple data science with in-world robotics, how they think about the future of agtech and more! 

Smart Farm Irrigation – E31

Great to chat with Cosmo Pepe co-founder of Soonapse, a company whose products make farming more efficient with a particular focus on smart irrigation. We discussed how they combine data from multiple sources to give recommendations on when to irrigate to the farmer,  the challenge of balancing software and hardware in agtech, their go-to-market strategy, what it is like building a company in Italy and more!

Sustainable Food Communication – E28

Two great guests on the podcast this week in Ryan Slabaugh and Sarah Day Levesque of Acres USA, North America’s oldest publisher on production-scale organic and sustainable farming. We discussed how to better communicate the importance of soil health for sustainable farming, the lessons regenerative agriculture can learn from organic farming, soil carbon sequestration markets, how to better engage conventional farmers on sustainability, the agtech landscape and more!