Last Thursday in San Juan Bautista, there was a great set of field demos for specialty crop automation hosted by Jennifer Clarke and the Leafy Greens Research Board along with support from Mark Mason from Naturipe and Tony and Daniel Alameda from Top Flavor Farms. This was a really good demo day for several reasons.

Attendance was 1.5 – 2x last year’s event. Attendance is important because having the right crowd there convinces the startups and sponsors that the event justifies their time and money to show up and demo. As I have mentioned before, a lot of events are struggling to retain an audience at last year’s size, and several are losing audience year over year. In many cases, this is because the core audience of growers comes to fewer shows than they used to (legitimate reasons – not as much advancement year-over-year as there used to be and grower margins face compression so the desire to cut shows and travel and expense budgets is real) and that then results in startups getting disappointed because their primary target audience at shows – the growers – is shrinking and in some cases buying far less AgTech.

Lots of white pickups were parked next to fields. This is always a good sign. The white pickup truck is still the unofficial vehicle uniform for many growers and grower operations team members. It’s also a great vehicle choice for startups because growers do pay attention to what you’re driving when you’re selling stuff to them. A white pickup truck will never hurt you and usually helps (there’s some folks who have strong feelings about pickup truck brands, but again far more good than bad comes from driving one around growers, and it’s usually a good idea if it’s not spotless and in fact probably has a decent amount of dirt on it which suggests regular field visits). Startups should always do a truck count at events to help gauge the audience, pro tip for newer startup founders and event teams.

International visitors stopped by. There were 50 visitors from a Brazilian delegation and 20 Hungarian farmers. Obviously, this was a bit of a windfall because the event team was not planning on a busload full of Brazilians coming to San Juan Batista, but it’s worth noting that the Brazilians came to the event in part because the startups they wanted to see were going to be at the event so why not come and see all of the startups in one place in half a day instead of having to drive (potentially) all over the Valley to see them in demo mode on different ranches. Full credit to the event team (and I think Jennifer Clarke gets most of the credit here) for realizing the Brazilians were in town and going to visit startups that were already at the event. From there it was a pretty easy call to get them integrated into the event in a positive way for all.

Startups were there talking about new solutions in a way that stressed solving real farmer problems, not just throwing out cool buzzwords. For example, Bonsai (via their acquisition of Farm-NG) has now turned the Amiga Max platform into an autonomous mobility platform that can be used like a small tractor for multiple applications (or grower use cases). At San Juan Batista, they were showing off a base Amiga Max unit with a spray configuration for strawberries that can be purchased as a single integrated unit. There will be other use cases with similar integrated unit options over time. Farm-NG and Burro are both gaining traction in the small tractor format and both talk use cases for growers. This is as compared to feeds, speeds, and buzzwords – jargon which routinely mean nothing to growers (they don’t care how fast it goes or if it’s “AI-enabled” (whatever that means). They care about the net impact on their economics and where it will save them money and whether the savings are capex or opex).

Multiple growers commented to me that “the same companies are always at these events” suggesting that they would like to see more new startups. Admittedly a tough ask in an environment where VC has dropped 70% in 4 years and appears poised to stay at the new level of $15-17B a year for venture capital instead of the $54B and $32B we got in 2021 and 2022 respectively. But then the next thing they said (or at least within 5-10 minutes) would be something to the effect that it’s good to see them continue to come out because it means the product is continuing to improve and that they are likely listening to growers while continuing to build improvements on the product roadmap. For my money, a good mix of established and newer startups is great because growers get to see some of the companies they are likely considering buying from and some companies they do not know much about yet (but are hoping to join the other group in a couple of years). In AgTech, getting through a couple of years of event cycles while continuing to improve product and listen to growers is a great recipe for success.

In short, well done to Jennifer and the extended team that put the event together. Having been to the last couple, I think this one was the best LGRB event yet with a bigger crowd, lots of white pickup trucks, international visitors (nice windfall), marketing messages focused on solutions and grower economics, and increasing familiarity with some startups that have now been in market for a couple of years and consistently show up at these events to talk with growers and show off their latest offerings.