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5 Takeaways from the California AgTech Roundtable

Trends and outtakes from a recent meeting on sensor management, regulatory reporting innovation, the near future of the UC agriculture researcher and why agriculture tech venture capital is tightening, writes Techwire agriculture and food technology blogger Bob Gore.

The AgTech Roundtable, made up of growers, researchers and regulator market-makers, recently convened again high above Capitol Mall for an insightful conversation of some urgency.

Here are trends and outtakes on sensor management, regulatory reporting innovation, the near future of the UC agriculture researcher and why agriculture tech venture capital is tightening.

1. "Data vendors should focus on regulators,” said David Bunn, director of the California Department of Conservation and former UC Davis researcher. One focus, he said, is to develop parameters for sensor placement to enable consistent, standard measurement of field data to management inputs such as water, fertilizer, pesticide.

“[Sensor] placement is a problem,” he said, “and there are no average data.”

On the regulatory end, he recommended state departments adopt a requirement for developers to “demonstrate a certain level of performance” for their products before their customers can use the products for regulatory compliance.

2. Bunn advocated establishing “a data stream to four or five state agencies” to enable reporting, transparency and cost reduction. Those four or five agencies could include the State Water Resources Control Board, Department of Water Resources, Department of Pesticide Regulation, and the departments of Food and Agriculture and Conservation, which also manages agriculture land preservation.

The UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) is a longtime global leader in pure agriculture and biotech research … much to the teeth-gritting dismay of California’s farmers.

Farmers want applied field research in the most immediate sense.  It’s why their trade associations (almonds, tomatoes — every crop has a trade association) most often fund researchers at state universities and not UCs, because they are more effective and efficient.

But listen to Gabe Youtsey, the new ANR chief innovation officer, who tells you ANR and Cooperative Extension are morphing into “a trusted source … a better leader in applied technology … a statewide ecosystem of agriculture innovation.”

3. For agriculture tech developers, this means follow ANR more closely, and watch the websites for leads and trends.

One ANR aspiration, Youtsey said “in our glorious jumbled landscape” is to provide “the middle layer in major agriculture tech infrastructure,” becoming “the data broker in agriculture aggregating compliance information.”

That is an unprecedented concept. Pay attention — the UC system, as a federal land grant agriculture university, has significant resources at least on par with major multinationals.

Agriculture tech developers need venture capital to pursue regulatory compliance and UC research build-outs.

4. But agriculture tech VC is no longer growing. Seana Day, Mixing Bowl Hub VP, delivered sobering news for you and her new Agriculture Tech Roundtable colleagues.

“Agriculture tech VC was down 30 percent year-over-year in 2016. We’re in a real Series A crunch,” she said.

“The current incubator environment” of some 90 firms in the U.S. “is not sustainable,” Day explained, noting “a chasm of understanding” between developers and investors. “The ROI in agriculture tech is longer than the usual IT investment — investors need to be educated to be patient  there needs to be more interaction.”

Her final bit of advice you might heed:

5. "Don’t chase a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Bob Gore writes the AgTech column for Techwire. Follow him on Twitter at @robertjgore.