Agtech - So What?

What if the future of food isn't about convincing people to care more about sustainability, but rather focusing on what can improve taste? In this episode, Tenacious’ Dr. Maddie Mitchell speaks with food futurist and innovation strategist Mike Lee about the forces shaping the future of food, agriculture, and consumer behavior.  Mike has spent his career helping some of the world's largest food com...

With the surname “Kentish,” Nic carries his family’s potato growing legacy. While it's one of pride, the journey has certainly not been easy.  After returning to the family farm in South Australia, he found himself confronting one of the biggest challenges many farming families face: how to build a profitable, sustainable business in an increasingly volatile industry. In this episode, Nic Kentish...

What if one of agriculture’s most controversial “waste problems” is actually its most overlooked opportunity? Daniel Carson is an entrepreneur based in New Zealand, who wants to transform the beef industry from the ground up by directly addressing the challenge of what happens to non-replacement dairy calves. Through his startup, Miti , Daniel is building a new model that grows these calves into “...

Monsanto is one of the most influential and controversial companies in the history of global agriculture. But beyond the headlines, what can its evolution teach us about how value is created and captured in ag? As agriculture enters a new era shaped by technological advances, climate pressures, and macroeconomic uncertainty, understanding where power sits in the system and how it shifts has never...

Some of the most transformative innovation in agri-food is happening downstream of the farm, in the materials, products, and industries that agriculture ultimately feeds into. In this episode, Sarah Nolet speaks with Tina Funder, founder of Alt Leather, an Australian startup developing fully bio-based alternatives to traditional leather. Tina’s journey into agtech didn’t begin in a lab or on a far...

While agtech often celebrates breakthrough technologies that can slash costs for farmers, what if the real value of innovation lies somewhere else entirely? In this episode, Mark Trzaskoma joins Dr Madeline Mitchell to explore what agtech adoption actually looks like on the ground at Battunga Orchards, a 180-hectare orchard operating across three sites in Victoria. From mechanised harvest platform...

Co-operatives have a long and sometimes colored history in agriculture, across the Western world. What role will they play in the future of agriculture? As agriculture becomes increasingly shaped by digital technologies and artificial intelligence, the question of who owns, governs, and benefits from farm data is still unresolved. Could co-ops be the answer? In this episode, Sarah Nolet is joined...

In less than a year, NZ-based virtual fencing company Halter raised $165 million and then $220 million more, reaching a $2 billion valuation at a time when global agtech funding is down more than 70% from its peak. By any measure, that's a remarkable achievement. But what does it actually mean? In this episode, Halter founder and CEO Craig Piggott speaks with our producer and dairy owner Kirsten D...

Seven years ago, agtech in Australia was still in its infancy. There were bold predictions, a flurry of startups, and an emerging ecosystem of programs and investors to back them. So how have things panned out? In this live stage recording at the 2026 AgriFutures evokeAG event in Melbourne, Sarah Nolet is joined by Sam Duncan , founder of GXLab (formerly FarmLab and Ziltek) and Natalie Engel , a Q...

While agrifood innovation often celebrates bold founders and breakthrough technologies, what happens when the incentives of corporates, startups and investors don’t quite align? In this live recording from evokeAG in Melbourne, Sarah Nolet is joined by Brad Fruth, Director of Innovation at Beck's Hybrids , and Frank Wooten, CEO of ArkeaBio and co-founder of Vence (acquired by Merck Animal Health )...

While farmer distrust of AI remains a key adoption barrier, will farm businesses that are being set up for an AI future have a competitive advantage? Paul Windemuller is a pioneering first-generation farmer and Nuffield Scholar from Coopersville, Michigan (USA). Along with his wife Brittany,  Paul built his farm from the ground up with limited capital, relying on ingenuity, automation, and data-dr...

While there is a growing recognition of the importance of indigenous knowledge in agriculture, all too-often, First Nations people are being asked to fit in with an established model. What if we flipped the script to create food systems that are led by indigenous principles? That’s what Jacob Birch is aiming to do in reawakening a native grains industry in Australia. He’s a proud Gamilaraay man, s...

We’ve hit a tipping point for autonomy in agriculture, so how far off is fully autonomous farming? In this episode, Matthew Pryor sits down with Brett McMickell , Chief Technology Officer at Kubota North America, to unpack his view on what autonomy can deliver in agriculture and why it’s closer than many people think. Brett’s career spans spacecraft control systems and multi-vehicle autonomy. Toda...

Today's episode is a tangible example of a company in the "natural capital" space. While not traditional agtech, the Hydrowood journey hits familiar themes: building a business within nature's constraints, managing capital intensity, and the frustrating search for the right investors. Andrew Morgan watched the Pieman River in Tasmania dam in the 1970s. In 1986, Lake Pieman flooded, submerging cent...

Over the past few years, the conversation about autonomy in agtech has moved from “but, does it work?” to “how can I get started?” This is a significant shift, indicative of autonomous machinery becoming a fully commercial category in agriculture. In this episode, Matthew Pryor, Founding Partner at Tenacious Ventures , discusses his recent observations at the Gatton Agtech Showcase , in QLD, Austr...

In the race to decarbonize agriculture, the spotlight often falls on carbon sequestration, genetics, and alternative proteins. But have we overlooked something that’s right in front of us? Electricity. Mike Casey is a self-described “tech bro turned farmer” from Cromwell, New Zealand. Mike runs what’s believed to be the world’s first fully electric farm, made up of 21 electric machines, from irrig...

What happens when an agtech startup with market pull, a clear mission, and global momentum still doesn’t make it? Nikki Davey is the founder of Grown Not Flown, which helped thousands of local flower growers reach customers who wanted sustainable blooms. Nikki’s app directly addressed the problem of ‘flower miles’. In Australia and the US, a store bought bouquet is likely to be made up of flowers...

‘Bundling’ is a well-known business strategy, especially in tech, where it’s not only used to increase sales and move slow-selling products, but also to tie customers into an ecosystem (such as Apple or Microsoft). So what about all the unbundling that’s been happening in agtech recently? While historically we’ve seen seed companies offer bundled options, such as seeds, crop management, and data p...

The biggest issue facing the cotton industry isn't fast fashion or water consumption. It's that the people growing cotton have been rendered invisible. The industry fixates on fiber quality and commodity pricing while the farmers themselves– and their role in determining sustainability outcomes– get lost. Marzia Lanfranchi, founder of the global community Cotton Diaries , is a strategic consultant...

As the world’s largest agricultural economy, when China makes a move, the world pays attention. China has just unveiled an ambitious plan to accelerate its development of ag machinery by shortening its research and development cycles. So will China dominate the future of agricultural machinery, and what does this mean for dealers, farmers, and agtech companies? Lachlan Monsbourgh , Global Rural Ag...

When the agtech is not working in the field, we can be quick to search for answers in the product itself. But sometimes, the solution is not there. That’s because it’s not a technical problem, but rather a social systems challenge. Kevin Boyle is the Director of Organizational and Workforce Development at the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI). He argues that a key component of the farming and food s...

Ask any farmer what their biggest challenge is right now and most will say ‘labor’. But what if, instead of trying to get more farm workers, we focused on changing the types of jobs available on farms? That’s where robotics comes in. Unfortunately, successfully commercializing robots in agriculture has been extraordinarily difficult, especially relative to sectors like healthcare, defence and ware...

The term ‘agtech’ now encompasses so many different types of businesses and innovations, that from an investment perspective, it can look overly complex. However perhaps the opposite is true? Mark Kahn , Managing Partner of Ominvore , shares his ‘agtech-agribusinesss convergence theory’; where agtech startups eventually grow to look like a more conventional agribusiness company. He argues that if...

“Food is Medicine” is extremely popular right now, and a few facts suggest it might be more than just a trend. The U.S. alone spends something like $1.5 trillion annually on diet-related diseases, and key issues like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and other diseases are on the rise around the world. There are costly interventions available to manage many of these problems, but an increasin...

When it comes to the production of high-value food crops, California is, without question, a global leader. Plus, much of the state’s thousands of acres of farmland lies within close proximity of Silicon Valley, where high-tech tools and solutions are endemic. And yet, many California farmers are struggling to continue their work, and agtech startups are increasingly looking beyond the state for c...