John Finegan

Is it possible to build an AgTech company with soul and scale? My favorite part of my job with Norfolk Healthy Produce is speaking with people about our products, why we make them, and how plant bioengineering works to benefit everyone. I had a fantastic evening at the Davis Farmers Market selling tomato seedlings, discussing, listening and sharing. Thanks to Mark Anderson for covering this milestone! Sometimes, it feels like these personal, caring interactions are too small and slow to make an impact in the daunting, fast-paced world of "Big Agriculture" and "Big Food". I am learning that, in fact, these are the most valuable interactions. Listening to real people and learning their true wants and concerns is guiding us to unserved product-market niches, opening up huge opportunities to serve society in a new way. Now, our conversation is also playing out at a higher scale in mainstream retail, where Empress Purple Tomato sales and reorders are stronger than expected! We are so grateful to the marvelous growing, marketing and sales team at Red Sun Farms and their visionary Harold Paivarinta! Is it worth my time to speak openly and honestly with thousands of strangers about a #purpletomato? I believe that caring attention is the only seed that grows into sustainable scale! https://lnkd.in/g8yTrVHq

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Did you see our feature in the Sacramento Business Journal? We are sharing how Exceedient Foods, the innovation arm of Farmers' Rice Cooperative, is revolutionizing the food industry with single-source gluten-free ingredient solutions. 🌾✨ Dive into the full article to explore our commitment to shaping a future of delicious and sustainable food:https://lnkd.in/gkUarX24

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🌾📜 Impact of Trade Policies on Farming Communities 🎥 Understand the profound effects of trade policies and government-set wages on local farmers. Dive into the discussion with Jamie Clover Adams in 'Jamie Clover Adams: Policy Impact on Farming | Ep. 22' of the Ag Culture Podcast, available on all major platforms. The episode is available on all main platforms: https://lnkd.in/g85SqSwP #AgCulture #Ag #AgPodcast #Agriculture #AgriculturePodcast #Podcast #PodcastClip #Clip #Shorts #Reels #PodcastQuote #PodcastGuest #GlobalAg #TradePolicy #AgPolicies #FarmingCommunities #Farming #NewEpisode #ListenNow

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Sound Agriculture CEO Adam Litle was recently interviewed by Mark Jewell on The Intentional Agribusiness Leader podcast. If you're interested in the current agribusiness landscape, emerging trends, sustainable practices or the crucial role of leadership within the ag industry, make sure to tune in! Adam and Mark dive deep on culture-building practices, mentorship and leading with intentionality. 🎙 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gn8fABs7 #Agribusiness #Sustainability #ThriveToday

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85% is pretty good, right? Solid B. But if your distribution rate is 85% in a California almond orchard, it could be costing you $700/acre. Distribution uniformity is a critical area of focus in all irrigated crops! Check out this blog post from Tule to learn more: https://zurl.co/5bvM #irrigation #precisionirrigation #agtech #precisionag

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Within the comments of this post are some things to consider. How many hours does your work require?

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Unlock Your Potential with Ag Alert! 🚀🌱 Did you know? A recent study showed that growers are over two times more likely to take action after reading Ag Alert than other California agricultural publications. 📈 Imagine the possibilities for your business! Tap into a network of industry leaders, gain valuable insights, and accelerate your brand's growth in the agricultural sector. 🌾 Ready to explore these exciting opportunities? 🌟 Reach out to Brock Tessandori at btessandori@cfbf.com and discover California Farm Bureau's expanding digital options tailored for maximizing your impact in agriculture! *Readership Study conducted by Readex Research

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AgTech Ecosystem - thanks to the good work by Lynn Hamilton and the Cal Poly College of Agriculture Food and Environmental Science, we can now answer (at least partially) one of the questions that a lot of people in and around specialty crop agriculture have asked for a while now - how many hours of labor does it take for each acre of crops? The short answer is 360 hours per acre. How did they get there? 1) They talked to growers of the 9 crops in the graphic below to get a bottoms up analysis of how much each grower spent on two main groups of tasks - harvest and cultivation. That's a separate Excel table that I'm not showing because it's a precursor to the graphic below. 2) Then they extrapolated those per acre figures for those two task sets and modeled them out for the entire acreage count for each crop in California to get the graphic below. 3) The graphic is straightforward enough - it takes 252M hours to produce 700,000 acres of specialty crops for these 9 crop types. There's more to be done - we're working on coming up with a way to test using these hour counts and breakdown into the two task segments for similar crops (which makes the assumption that other lettuce crops are similar in hours required to romaine or iceberg, for example). Obviously talking to more growers is one of the next steps for further analysis. My key take-away is that for these 9 crops (and I think these %s are likely to stay in roughly the same ration and hour counts for other crops), 75% of the labor is harvest and 25% of the labor is cultivation. This means that if we automate a lot of cultivation tasks (planting, weeding, thinning, spraying and scouting come to mind) and some of the harvest-related tasks (optimizing harvest efficiency with pre-harvest weeding, solutions like Burro to increase crew efficiency), we can reach the 50% of labor that we are targeting by February 2031. This is important because we are still a ways off on harvest (all crops) so the other segments and solutions will have to help fill the gap on the way to 50%. And remember that many of those hours are for H-2A workers which include extra transportation and housing costs. Going forward, we will be watching the hours/acre metric and also watching the amount of automation solutions purchased to see what impact automation may be having on labor requirements and working hard to prove causation (if it can be proven - we want to make sure we're not taking credit for hours loss if acres were lost as well). So for our 2024 baseline, we're at 360 hours/acre in 2024 ... #agtech #laborrequirements #specialtycrops Damian Mason Todd Thurman Shay Myers Rob Trice Shane Thomas Rhishi P. Ben Palone

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 Preserving Family Farming in Sonoma County: The Measure J Debate As food industry professionals, you’re likely aware of the critical role family farms play in our communities. Today, I want to shed light on an important issue centered in Sonoma County, California. Measure J, which will appear on the November ballot, aims to make Sonoma County the first in the nation to outlaw so-called factory farming. While the initiative frames itself as a step toward better animal welfare, it has far-reaching implications. 1.     Economic Impact: Measure J threatens economically viable family farming. By restricting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), it could make egg and milk production unaffordable for local farmers. These operations are essential for meeting consumer demand while maintaining ethical standards. 2.     Weather Considerations: Measure J limits farms to moving animals fromopen fields to covered structures to a maximum of 45 days per year. Sonoma County experiences rainy winters, albeit not as much as Seattle or Portland. Ranchers move cattle indoors during inclement weather to ensure their comfort and health. Keeping cattle inside also prevents runoff into rivers and minimizes land damage caused by muddy fields. 3.     Local Agriculture: Having moved to Santa Rosa three years ago, I fell in love with our local agriculture scene—dairy, eggs, and wine, though possibly not in that order. Sonoma County farmers and ranchers lead the way in animal husbandry. Sonoma County egg producers were following cage-free practices before the rest of the country even heard about cage free.   4.     National Implications: Measure J’s impact extends beyond our county borders. The deep pockets behind this activist campaign are starting in Sonoma County but will push into other areas with positive signals. 5.     Take Action: Visit NoOnMeasureJ.com to learn more and sign your name in support of the “No on Measure J” effort. Talk to your company management about this issue—it’s not just about Sonoma County; it’s about preserving family farming nationwide. Let’s stand together to protect our agricultural heritage. 🌾🐄🥚

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Exciting news for the California Agriculture sector! Major players have just secured new funding to boost international exports in key industries. How will this impact you? Share your thoughts in the comments below! Read more about it in the article below #riskmitigators #agriskadvisor #californiafunding

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It's been a long time coming in the rulemaking and feedback process but with yesterday's release of the final agricultural water regulation from FDA, International Fresh Produce Association members and industry now know what's expected in #freshproduce growing operations with respect to water testing, safety measures, and more. #fruitsandvegetables #foodsafety https://lnkd.in/eJWBnZwc

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This practice is at the forefront of agricultural innovation. Read our latest blog post to learn about Regenerative Agriculture - what it is and the implications it has on climate and environmental sustainability (along with the momentum it's gaining in federal and state agriculture grants). https://lnkd.in/gn3-tcnU #regenerativeagriculture #sustainability #agriculture #grants

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As an agriculture business owner, you can expand your market share by becoming a thought leader through strategies such as hosting outreach programs, webinars, and conferences with industry experts, participating in #podcasts, attending #events and speaking engagements, and utilizing #media outlets to increase visibility. At Let's Talk Agriculture - Public Relations, we specialize in building agriculture businesses. Get in touch. hello@letstalkagriculture.com #Agriculture #Business #Agriculturebranding #Brandmanagement #Publicrelations #Thoughtleadership

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California Agriculture Stakeholders - my baseline forecast for 2052 ag acreage in California is 20,525,118. That is a drop of an additional 3.7 million acres on top of the 4.6 million we have lost between 1997 and 2022, and that is going to be a big problem for rural communities statewide. I did some analysis and a forecast of CA acreage. I have done the math. Now I will show my work. I'll include a link to the Google Doc and the tab that has the supporting data for my forecast. The methodology for the analysis was pretty simple: 1) Take the 1997-2022 data around acreage (I'm doing growers as well - just as ugly), then run a set of projections for 2027-2052 taking into account the 5 year numbers and the overall 25 year picture. 2) Do 3 sets of numbers - one that straight-lines the last 25 years onto the next, one that focuses on 3 years averages as a counter-balance and second set of data behind any outliers, and one that does the same for the last 2 years. Once I put the 3 data sets together, I averaged them to smooth out any outliers further and the average is the picture in this post. So what does this mean? 1) At a macro level, this means CA ag acreage is likely to go from 28.8M acres in 1997 to 20.5M in 2052. That 8.3M represents a 28.3% loss of CA ag acreage over 55 years. 2) Think about the areas most of my life was spent in before college and many of my days are spent in these days - Imperial Valley and Monterey County. When those areas are successful, it is because agriculture and other activities that leverage the land are successful. Taking 8.3M acres away from them and many other counties that rely on ag will be a crushing blow to hundreds of rural communities. 3) We already saw what happened during the past several decades of globalization - US factories were removed from rural communities (and suburbs and urban areas) at scale and left a desolate set of destroyed communities in their wake. You've seen the pictures of what we call the rust belt, old factories closed and towns struggling to retain businesses and residents without them. 4) As I've written before, where acreage goes, ag jobs, production jobs, and agtech jobs follow. So as this acreage goes, think asparagus at scale - all the supporting economic pieces go with it. 5) The numbers are forecast based on the last 6 USDA ag census reports. If you believe much of the regulatory cost infrastructure for CA has gotten worse and accelerated over the last 10-15 years (the last 2-3 reports - I'm raising my hand), that would suggest these numbers could get worse. We can innovate our way out of some challenges, but in the end the economic condition of hundreds of rural communities rests in CA's ability to slow down the regulatory train, maybe the biggest off farm risk CA ag has faced. I invite comments. #agriculture #ruraleconomies #regulatoryburden Norm Groot Jynel Gularte Lynn Hamilton Russ Kabaker Damian Mason Todd Thurman Tim Nuss Tyler Nuss Rob Trice

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For 24 years we've been a part of the Foodwise (formerly CUESA) Farmers' Market organization in San Francisco. In addition to providing a platform for us to sell our cheese direct to consumers every Saturday at the SF Ferry Building, we appreciate the non profit's focus on educating customers on why supporting local agriculture is so important. In advance of Earth Day '24, here is an excerpt from a recent article on regenerative farming we're proud to have been a part of. What is Regenerative Agriculture? California Farmers Share Their Values and Practices Selina Knowles, Communications Coordinator Many farmers market shoppers may be familiar with the term “organic” as a way of indicating food that is grown with ecological farming practices, in accordance with USDA organic standards. In recent years, the term “regenerative” has been rising in popularity, but many shoppers may have questions about what this term means, how it differs from organic, and how it is regulated.  For Earth Day and SF Climate Week, we asked farmers at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market to share what “regenerative” means to them, how it complements or differs from organic certification, and what regenerative practices look like on their farms. Defining Regenerative Organic As we face climate change, the biodiversity and carbon containment prioritized in regenerative practices are more essential than ever. Animal welfare looks like grass-fed, pasture-raised animals, which have access to safe shelter. Social welfare means paying farmworkers a living wage and providing safe working conditions.  The options for Regenerative Organic Alliance Approved Certifying Bodies is growing, making certification more accessible. However, small farms in particular are still grappling with the time and financial cost of taking the steps to become certified. Some opt to farm according to the regenerative ethos without third-party certification. Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company is owned and operated by the Giacominis, a third-generation ranching family. The Giacominis view regenerative farming as a holistic approach to agriculture that improves the health of the land over time. Plus, healthy pastures directly impact the flavor of their cheeses. On their pastures in Point Reyes, the family leverages on-farm nutrient cycles. They focus on rotational grazing to improve pasture quality and sequester carbon. They also use their own herd’s waste as natural fertilizers, in the form of both dry compost and liquid fertilizer, to nourish the soil.   “While we recognize the value of certification programs like Regenerative Organic Certification, our focus remains on implementing regenerative practices that benefit our farm, the environment, and our community,” says farmer Lynn Giacomini Stray. “We prioritize practical outcomes and continuous improvement over formal certification.”

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This article truly highlights many of the challenges facing California agriculture. Give it a read, and learn how the 37,000 acres of asparagus once harvested on American soil have now diminished to fewer than 3,000 acres.

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Session Feature: We look forward to learning how California dairy is mooooving the needle on methane reduction. Our expert speakers will share the latest on manure management technologies, digester development and future market opportunities for biogas, the carbon insetting and offsetting marketplace, feed additives, and more. This important conversation is happening Monday in beautiful South Lake Tahoe! #CADairy #PlanetSmartDairy #ClimateSmartDairy

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The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is working to define "regenerative #agriculture" to guide state policies and programs. It aims to make a recommendation by fall 2024. #Regenerative agriculture generally focuses on improving soil health, including various practices like integrating livestock and restoring biodiversity. Differentiating it from organic #farming is a key discussion point, with some advocating for an overlap and others highlighting their distinct goals. Economic concerns and avoiding greenwashing are central themes. A proposed tiered certification system could help farmers gradually adopt regenerative practices. The definition aims to be comprehensive, covering #environmental, economic, and social aspects, and is expected to influence agricultural policies beyond #California.

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With one in six Americans contracting food-borne illnesses annually, increasing global regulation, and consumers caring more about how ingredients are sourced and produced, we see a growing opportunity in food and agriculture traceability. At Activant, we believe that those dealing in food data and built-off platforms with the multi-directional informational flow in the areas of traceability software, real-time quality and safety detection, and forensic traceability will capture the market. Read all about today’s problems with today’s food and agriculture and potential opportunities. And if you're building in this space, reach out to us! #Foodtraceability #agtraceability #traceability https://lnkd.in/drkZxapK Aanika Adapt Ideations AgShift AgTrace Ancera Antares Vision Group(RFXCEL) Clear Labs Connecting Food FoodDocs Food Forensics Ltd FoodLogiQ Foods Connected Ltd iFoodDS Infratab iTrazo Kezzler Oritain Otrafy Procurant Provision Analytics ripe.io Scantrust SkoneLabs SourceTrace Specright SwissDeCode Trace Register Transparent Path spc TrusTrace Wholechain Wiliot Xibus Systems Yarok Microbio

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