Thanks to Andrew Jason and the Grand Farm team for being great hosts in Fargo for Autonomous Nation and several related activities. They really made a full couple days out of the event – as you should if you’ve got a bunch of folks in town! Always great to see friends and make some new ones. Lots of great stuff going on in Fargo the four days I was there, highlighted by Autonomous Nation event.

I really enjoyed getting a chance to share some thoughts on specialty crop automation, including a pretty deep dive into some of the new moves that Tyler Niday and the Bonsai Robotics team is making to really get spray-as-a-service moving in earnest. The best thing about this model is it allows growers to buy results while the channel manages capital, utilization, and labor shortage risk. As discussed, weeding automation has become a successful capex category, and Carbon Robotics reached $100M in revenue last year with an ROI based on labor savings. Then Ecorobotix entered the US market, has moved 1,000 precision spray machines globally, and created the next $100M category. Now, here comes Bonsai with a services channel play that could become the next $100M category over the next few years.

Always great to see startups making progress on stage and sharing their story. Nice job Aigen and Kenny Lee. I appreciated Daniel Kirstein’s candid critique of the journey he went through at Farmwise and sharing some lessons learned for other founders. The Pyka fixed wing drone with 80-gallon payload could help get things moving in the drone spray space.

And finally, as always, the lunches and dinners just create really fun and interesting conversations. There is (as always) a lot going on in AgTech! To my friends old and new – I always enjoy the wide variety of topics we get to roll through on our trips to events. Keep them coming. Many of them create opportunities we should be able to do some real building around.

The vibe and energy at Startup Brew was impressive – anytime people are willing to get up early for networking and pitches, you know there’s some good stuff going on. The whole trip was a great experience – my first trip to Fargo and Grand Farm HQ and it did not disappoint. The Grand Farm tour from John Mann shows off the potential of what the 600 acres can become. Talk about a guy that knows a lot about agriculture, I learned a ton – thanks John! I have now been to both Grand Farm locations (Tifton GA). What an impressive company the team has built and continues to build. from what I could tell it’s just getting started! I will be back to Fargo!

And of course we are only to happy to return the favor. We are looking forward to hosting the Grand Farm team with a delegation in tow to Cali in a few weeks. Western Growers CIT, Reservoir Farms, and Plug and Play – we’ll keep you moving on your trip out west!