Hi from St. Louis,
I'm finally home for a bit after a few weeks of travel! But also, I'm getting severe fire warning alerts...because there are wildfires outside of St. Louis, Missouri right now? We also got hit with tornadoes last week. They didn't really hit the city proper, where I live, but Florissant was in the direct line of the tornado and is cleaning up. Meanwhile, our government is giving the EPA a haircut with Musk’s chainsaw....what a time to be alive.
In response to feedback last week to “make it longer,” I’m trying an experiment of make-it-weekly. So, expect something on the front end of next week, and the next week, and the next week! If and when the news cycle slows down, or my life speeds up, so, too, will this newsletter.
Can 'America First' Succeed if We Abandon Agricultural Innovation?
TL;DR: The answer to the question posed above is: not really.
Why it matters: I found this post from Emily Bass at Breakthrough Institute to be a clear-headed overview of the impact of the 2nd Trump administration's policy decisions so far (as of Mar 12 writing). She summarizes "why this matters" well:
The long-term consequences of funding and staffing cuts are clear. When agricultural research funding dries up, farmers lose access to innovations that improve yields, resilience, and profitability. Universities may be able to mitigate some of the impact by finding new private or philanthropic funding sources if federal grants stay frozen. But, the White House and USDA's actions in the coming weeks will be consequential for the U.S. research enterprise: Will they take an inconsistent approach to U.S.-led innovation that leaves agriculture behind, allowing vital research institutions to wither? Or will they strengthen these institutions, and U.S. agricultural competitiveness in the process?
World-Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy by Catherine Bracy
Heads up, this is an entire book. It's a good audio-read if you find yourself with a 14-hour drive (me this past weekend) or 11-hour flight (Micki, who we can all thank for this rec!) coming up. I think I'd have crushed it in a weekend even without the long drive. It's well written and compelling and the exact right length.
TL;DR: The VC flywheel is causing big societal problems (see social media, gig work, rent-to-own...) and it's not helping most startups. Bracy details some of these problems, then shares clear alternative case studies and recommendations for actions that specific players can take to solve them.
Why it matters: This book articulates, better than I usually do, why we're building Farmhand Ventures as an investment firm. I think that it pretty clearly articulates the importance of alternative investment models and debunks the myth that power law is the only possible way to return a fund at satisfactory multiples. I'm one of the many emerging, small fund managers trying to expand the menu of and access to risk capital, so this book is speaking my language. We're not building Farmhand Ventures to be just another VC. We're building it to make farmwork better. I actually learned something about an agrifoodtech company in this book, too, which was unexpected.
SAFER AG – Risk Assessment, Data, Design Standards, and Regulation: Needs and Recommendations
TL;DR: As you might have surmised from the title, this is an academic whitepaper compiling recommendations of 45 experts who convened at the University of Illinois 2022 SAFER AG Workshop. Safety for Emerging Robotics and Autonomous aGriculture (SAFER AG) is an intramural project supported by USDA NIFA.
Why it matters: This is one of two pre-reads (see #3) for an upcoming CalOSHA Autonomous Agricultural Tractors Advisory Committee Meeting. I think more people should read this and understand what's going on. Having participated in workshops like the UofI SAFER AG one, I have some skepticism about how actionable and practical some of the recommendations that this paper makes truly are. That said, the general observations around gaps and opportunities to solve these gaps are consistent with what I'm seeing.
Basically, we've got a chicken or egg problem - equipment companies don't have enough data to share with regulators because they aren't allowed to operate to collect that data, but regulators are afraid to let them operate without the data...enter the loop of no-decision outcomes that we find ourselves in right now. I tend to think that standards are the answer here, and we'll need to create a standards body to ensure farmworker safety and ensure that the next generation of equipment is high enough performance and quality for farmers to trust. Definitely reach out to me if you're working on this - I think it's an interesting business opportunity.
TL;DR: California Section § 3441, Title 8 section (b) states that "All self-propelled equipment shall, when under its own power and in motion, have an operator stationed at the vehicular controls." A petition to update this title (which was written in 1977) was submitted in Dec 2021 (by Monarch Tractor), then reviewed and rejected in 2023 in a 4 to 3 vote. There have been earlier attempts at petitioning, too, all of which have failed. As a consequence, unsupervised autonomous farm vehicles are illegal in the state of California as of this writing. That probably needs to change, and this paper makes some recommendations on how it might.
Why it matters: Tractors flip over more than you'd think, and when a tractor flips over on a person, it's very bad for that person. Tractor drivers are expensive. Labor is scarce. Certain tasks, like pesticide application, are dangerous for humans to be directly involved in, and technology enables us to redesign those tasks to be safer, cheaper, and better for everyone.
At the same time, farmworkers value their jobs. Behavior change is incredibly difficult. Technology companies notoriously discount the negative side effects that their "world changing" product has on "normal" people. These are all legitimate truths that are quite difficult for regulators and constituents to negotiate. I'm excited that Cal/OSHA has finally set up a diverse advisory board to try to tackle this issue, and I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to reach a productive outcome here. It really matters for the future of farming in California, and it really matters for the livelihoods of farmworkers, farmers, and agtech founders.
Larry Fink is stressed about deportation's "severe impact on the agricultural sector"
TL;DR: To balance the book rec, I figured I'd better share something short. This is just a clip of Larry Fink expressing his concern about rapid deportation having negative impacts on ag and construction sectors.
Why it matters: The CEO of BlackRock is a pretty legit dude - maybe the current administration will listen to him? I'm not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers!
Cheers,
Connie