Posts By: Walt Duflock
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USDA Ag Outlook Panel – Keeping the Automation Funnel Healthy with Economic Development Federal Grants
Last week was a great week for specialty crop automation in Washington, DC. Big thanks to Chris Purdy, the Chief Innovation Officer at USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) for setting up a panel on specialty crop labor challenges and automation and innovation opportunities for me, Western Growers Senior Director of Automation and Commercialization Ben Palone, and Reservoir Farms Founder and…
AgTech Ecosystem – Thoughts from Homecoming Week, err, Tulare World Ag Expo!
Well friends, it is Homecoming Week here in Tulare as much of the agriculture and AgTech community gathers for World Ag Expo to show off products, talk shop, catch up with old friends and make some new ones. Here were my thoughts from a WG Innovation Newsletter article written before heading to Tulare. And now that I have been at the show all day on Tuesday and Wednesday, I’ve got a few…
Here comes Tulare – Homecoming Week 2026!
Well friends, it is Homecoming Week – no, not for your favorite high school or college football team (that was in the fall for those who don’t go!), but for the agriculture and agtech community to gather in Tulare for World Ag Expo. It is the first big west coast ag event of the year, and it is fair to call it homecoming week because everyone from the ag industry now and for the past couple…
$3B in Agtech Automation Could Create 6,000–7,000 Jobs Over Five Years
I’ve been looking into what venture capital funding levels will look like in the next five years (2026-2030) and how much of an impact we can expect to get from automation investment on job creation. This has implications as we look for alternative (i.e. non-VC) funding sources because economic development is often a rationale that can help secure many public sources of funding, including…
2025 Automation Spending Analysis
Automation is now a late-stage capital sink that is gaining share of agrifoodtech spending as virtually every other category implodes. Here are some of the key findings as I dug through the 2025 data to see what’s likely coming in 2026 for automation based on AgFunderNews data from the last 10 years. 1) There are some structural insights and some definite phases in the automation segment.…