Welcome to Modern Agriculture!
Now in its third year, the AgTech Innovation Competition presented by Farm Credit Services of America (FCSAmerica), hosted four agtech start-ups who pitched their solutions to a crowd of Iowa Power Farming Show attendees.
Krista McDonlad, chief strategy officer of FCSAmerica explains, “We believe that if we can get producers and industry leaders and people who are interested in ag innovation together, that really positive things are going to happen for the future of our industry.”
The competing agtech startups for 2020:
AgButler won the People’s Choice Award and took home $5,000.
Founders: Kevin and Jamie Johanson
Headquarters: Missouri
Website: https://agbutlerapp.org/
Background: AgButler identifies as a “gig economy” platform to connect employers with job-seekers in rural areas. The platform’s features allow employers to post job opportunities, search for laborers by ratings, work experience, and availability. Job seekers can search for postings within a specific geographic area and receive payment through the app. AgButler hopes to boost financial security for rural communities.
Founders: Carl Lippert and Ryan Robichaud
Website: https://feedsforless.com/
Headquarters: Wisconsin
Background: FEEDX is an online marketplace to buy, sell, and make informed feed decisions. FEEDX founders saw an opportunity to eliminate the guesswork of changing markets and to create efficiencies for price quotes and feed comparisons. Their platform provides nutrition data, financing, logistics, communication, and data-sharing for those buying and selling feed.
Founders: Kellee James and Chris Duesing
Headquarters: Maryland
Website: https://mercaris.com/
Background: Mercaris provides market data, analytics, and an online trading platform. They have a data set of cash market prices for organic and non-GMO row-crop commodities and a data visualization platform to analyze the information. Data service is the largest part of the Mercaris’ business, providing reports on cash prices, acreage, yield, supply and demand estimates, farmland valuation, etc. In addition to data service, Mercaris provides a trading platform where you can buy and sell physical contracts that result in the delivery of the grain or dairy commodity.
Sentinel won the Grand Prize of $20,000, awarded by a panel of judges.
Headquarters: Iowa
Founder: BJ Brugman
Background: Sentinel eliminates one of the most manual, menial tasks related to inventory management in the swine industry: counting pigs. Sentinel also alleviates inaccurate and untimely reporting of critical barn-level information that is directly associated with animal well-being through the use of artificial intelligence and computer vision technology. They are creating a “smart barn” with connected sensors and cameras to collect data from feed bins, manure pit sensors, temperature sensors, and water flow meters.