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If you happen to be a human being, chances are you need to eat in order to survive. Agriculture is as crucial an industry to the maintenance of modern society as any other – and with a growing population and threats from climate change, finding new ways to produce more food is more important than ever. So why is it that investment into innovative agricultural technology has been so weak in recent years relative to other sectors?
My guest today is PJ Amini, senior director of venture investments in agriculture at Leaps by Bayer, the investment arm of German pharmaceutical and biotech company Bayer.
Amini talks about how investment in the space has been in decline over recent years after having previously seen a sharp rise that was driven by a wide variety of investors dipping their toe in, before later retreating when faced with its realities. Seasonality, difficulty with technology uptake and entrenched market incumbents are just a few of the barriers that startups face when trying to make it big in agtech.
But there is much reason to be hopeful – the tech that is out there is incredibly exciting. Everything from new ways to genetically modify crops to make them more resilient and have higher yields, to the new wave of epigenetic technology, which will allow people to choose the best parts of a crop to be expressed without being labelled as GMO, because it’s technically not.
AI and automation are also making inroads into farms, whether that’s with helping small farmers tend to their fields, cover large areas with the help of drone technology, or finding new chemical compositions to improve the soil.
It is expected, perhaps in the next couple of years, we’ll start seeing a few more of those startups win big, and perhaps even get to that coveted unicorn status.
Electricity companies back startups that can squeeze more power through the grid.