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> Tech is a poor fit for agriculture. Dirt is cheap, relatively speaking. Ag is much more than farming, and farming is much more than dirt. Ag is very much re

> Tech is a poor fit for agriculture. Dirt is cheap, relatively speaking. Ag is much more than farming, and farming is much more than dirt. Ag is very much ready - past ready - for disruption. The biggest blocker there is that "traditional" SV startups can't make a dent; their business models don't suit it well. Farmers - even mega-corporate ones - are cautious. It's a mature market with low margins, so they aren't going to make a capital investment in what they see as unproven technology. To succeed in agtech you pretty much have to exude the opposite vibe that startup founders usually have.

nradov 2y ago
Farmers aren't cautious. They'll all quickly jump on something like a new hybrid seed variety if it increases yields. This isn't a "vibe" issue.
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whartung 2y ago
Little anecdote sort of along this line. Early 80's, in college, we had the Cyber mainframe, and PDP 11/70. The Cyber was used for computer classes (comps sci [Fortran, Pascal], infosystems [COBOL]), engineering classes (SPICE, Aeronautical Engr had some Fortran IV stuff the had to slog through), statistics runs (SPSS - lot of the sciences used that)), the school had some back office software running on it (you noticed during registration, the machine was noticeably loaded). PDP was used mostly for introduction CS classes, and it had a public game account (very nice Star Trek program on that one). Outside of a TERAK and a Textronix 4050 series computer in the Math lab, there were no real microcomputers on campus, no "public" ones used for teaching. The first micro computer lab on campus, was in the Agriculture school. They had a full lab with 9 Apple ][ computers, all running, I guess, a sophisticated software package for computing feed and what not. We were there to play Wizardry, of course, my good friend was the lab tech. But it was just interesting how the Ag school was a pioneer in the personal computing space at an, ostensibly, school known for its science and engineering programs (though it was also know for its Ag and Architecture schools).
grumple 2y ago
Why do you think ag needs disruption? Ag has had the latest tech applied to it since the dawn of civilization. Any tech you can think of is already being used there.

nradov 2y ago

Farmers aren't cautious. They'll all quickly jump on something like a new hybrid seed variety if it increases yields. This isn't a "vibe" issue.

deleted 2y ago
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whartung 2y ago

Little anecdote sort of along this line. Early 80's, in college, we had the Cyber mainframe, and PDP 11/70. The Cyber was used for computer classes (comps sci [Fortran, Pascal], infosystems [COBOL]), engineering classes (SPICE, Aeronautical Engr had some Fortran IV stuff the had to slog through), statistics runs (SPSS - lot of the sciences used that)), the school had some back office software running on it (you noticed during registration, the machine was noticeably loaded). PDP was used mostly for introduction CS classes, and it had a public game account (very nice Star Trek program on that one). Outside of a TERAK and a Textronix 4050 series computer in the Math lab, there were no real microcomputers on campus, no "public" ones used for teaching. The first micro computer lab on campus, was in the Agriculture school. They had a full lab with 9 Apple ][ computers, all running, I guess, a sophisticated software package for computing feed and what not. We were there to play Wizardry, of course, my good friend was the lab tech. But it was just interesting how the Ag school was a pioneer in the personal computing space at an, ostensibly, school known for its science and engineering programs (though it was also know for its Ag and Architecture schools).

grumple 2y ago

Why do you think ag needs disruption? Ag has had the latest tech applied to it since the dawn of civilization. Any tech you can think of is already being used there.