This week, my brain is back on ag, and this is roughly the usual “what I’m reading and why it matters. On Friday, I’ll also be releasing our Commercialization Readiness Level framework, plus an AI tool to use it more easily. There’s some heavy stuff in this week’s news, and I think addressing the immigration situation, right now, is more important than releasing our nifty new framework. I’m riffing on format this time, roughly in order of things that I’m most concerned about right now.
Immigration - there’s a lot going on here right now, so I’m breaking this into a couple of pieces:
LA and ICE and the National Guard and the Marines….
TL;DR: If you’re not aware of what’s happening in LA, come on out from under your rock, please.Why it matters: I’m not even going to get into the whole RIP Democracy thing, Trump v Newsom drama - there are plenty of folks covering that. Let’s say this executive order is totally fair game. Let’s just zoom out for a second.
Leaders and governments should protect their people.The National Guard exists to defend the US, yes, as a branch of the military, but in particular to serve and protect communities in light of disasters.
“When disaster strikes in the homeland, the National Guard stands ready to deploy and serve at a moment’s notice to protect life and property in our communities.” - directly from the National Guard’s website’s home page.
It took almost 2 weeks for 41 (?maybe?) members of the Missouri National Guard to show up for St. Louis after the E3 tornados on May 16th (STLPR.)
It is confusing that, during times of peaceful protest, frequently sufficiently contained by local police forces, the National Guard can be on the ground within 24 hours to deploy pepper spray and generally raise the temperature.
And I’ve been on the ground during protests when the National Guard rolls up (2017, Anthony Lamar Smith’s murder by Officer Jason Stockley.) (Again, that was actually a proactive, and rapid, response time to contain Black protestors relative to that for massive storms that impacted largely Black, divested neighborhoods…) It’s one of those things that I think you can look at on the news and socials and reinforce whatever your prior beliefs are. I’m a person who went into 2017 thinking that “riots” were real and that police and military actors were just doing their job to calm the “rioters.” I couldn’t have been more wrong about that. The National Guard, and now the Marines, will provoke responses from an already emotionally charged crowd. They will indiscriminately use their non-lethal weapons for intimidation and provocation. And depending what you thought yesterday, you will likely consume the media that reinforces that belief. May this be a morsel of content that at least causes you to pause and ask a question about your existing beliefs.Farms - The farm raids are starting.
Ventura CountyICE expands immigration raids into California’s agricultural heartland
This article is 3 hours old. I’m afraid for what I’ll wake up to in headlines, and, that fear is nothing compared to what so many immigrant farmworkers are feeling right now. I admire Maureen McGuire’s leadership at Farm Bureau Ventura County in unequivocally condemning the unlawful intimidation and profiling tactics that ICE is taking.Outlook Dairy Farms, NM -
Live from X: “@HSIElPaso executed a search warrant at Outlook Dairy Farms in NM & arrested 11 illegal aliens for violations of fraud & misuse of visas, permits & other documents. 1 was previously removed from the US, 9 banned from the US. LeaCountySO HSILasCruces HSI Roswell #EROElPaso #WSE”Follow up piece from Tri City Record, New Mexico
TL;DR: It’s starting to happen to farmworkers, for real.
Why it matters: I’ve been afraid to explicitly write out that this is coming, because I didn’t want to be dramatic, and I didn’t want to be right. But it’s here. There is no way for Miller to hit his deportation numbers without workplace raids, and farms are workplaces with lots of undocumented folks. This will ruin lives, livelihoods, and, if it goes far enough, it will severely impact America’s food security. Even if you don’t care about “other” people, if you care about having consistent access to apples and greens and strawberries and really just food in general, you should care about this, and you should say something and do something. (But also, I really am at a loss for what to do. Sending Hawley’s office detailed and thoughtful messages doesn’t seem to get me anywhere. I am open to ideas.)
TL;DR: Ryan has been earnestly creating space for LBGTQ+ folks in ag, and, he’s getting brutally reminded why a lot of people aren’t out in this industry.
My takeaway:
One of these comments that there are “no LBGTQ+ farmworkers” made me think of Justice, the one white person on our field crew in Oregon. I’m not 100% sure what their gender identity is - Spanish-English translations were a far bigger issue than pronouns in that particular context - so I’ll use they. They were a part of the crew and community because one of the crew leaders, a woman probably in her early 50s with a handful of children of her own, took them in as a 16 year old, when their parents kicked them out for being queer. Without her, they’d have been homeless. They were still young, I think 18ish, and honestly, they weren’t great at farm work - it was only their second season and blueberry harvest is skilled work that takes repetitions to master. They were hustling, though, and they were probably the most positive person out there, most days. LBGTQ+ people do farm work. And, given the current labor environment, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a farmer who would say no to any worker of any sexual orientation who showed up on time with a good attitude.
Ryan’s work around representation and Pride matters. There are exceedingly few spaces for LBGTQ+ folks in ag or even agtech. It’s one of those things where I think we kind of all know each other, but we really don’t talk about it much, and I think it’s because the reality is that there are too many people in this industry who would deny our right to just be who we are - exemplified by those who are throwing hate at Ryan.
I struggle a lot with how to engage in this stuff as a person who checks a couple of DEI boxes, because I don’t love identity politics, and all I really want is to be incredibly good at what I do - identity aside. I also want to always leverage whatever platform I’ve got to say something when I can. I also want to engage with folks with different political beliefs, and I am usually able to find something relatable and lovable about folks with very different beliefs. It’s all very complicated, but at the same time, it’s all very simple - people are people, and we should treat one another well.
Ryan, I see you, and I appreciate you, and I’m sorry people are being hateful. Keep up the good work.MAHA - Check out Food Fix (on MAHA and fake citations) and The Checkout (MAHA or Misdirection?) for regular, nuanced takes and dissections of the MAHA report and related stuff.
TL;DR: Everyone’s talking about MAHA’s report from May, and there are some excellent write ups on the report. I’m waiting for the recommendations to come out before getting emotionally invested in this one.
My takeaway: Check out Food Fix and The Checkout for regular, nuanced takes and dissections of the MAHA report. If you want to have a little bit of a laugh while trying to figure out what exactly “ultra-processed foods” are, give Maintenance Phase’s latest pod on "Ultra-Processed Foods” a listen. I’m trying to focus my limited energy on immigration+USDA+tariff stuff and leave the FDA/supply chain stuff to the experts, because I see more risk/opportunity for the companies that Farmhand Ventures backs on the USDA/immigration/tariff front. But gosh, it’d be great if we were operating from a consistently science-driven place on any of this MAHA reform stuff.TL;DR: Will “seedscaling,” enabled by AI, unlock a new generation of agtech co’s that more closely resemble those pre-2010 (pre VC for agtech)?
My takeaway: Despite all the US policy chaos, I’ve managed to find time for a bit of an AI bender, and to read my favorite substacks. Janette is smart and a consistent publisher, subscribe to Prime Future if you’re not already a reader. I have been on a bit of an AI bender this past week, so I’m very much thinking about AI applications to streamline operations. I definitely think VC software cycles and bubbles have broken a lot of agtech co’s, and a core part of my investment strategy is investing in capitally efficient companies. I’m watching my own operations massively increase in efficiency in real time, and I definitely think it gives Farmhand an advantage.
As I’ve been AI geeking, though, I’ve been thinking most about systems for farm operations. If you’re a grower and you want to be in the top 10% of farm operations, you’d better be using AI. I think that there’s an opportunity to use off-the-shelf AI (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Llama, etc) LLMs today to unlock previously impossible operational efficiencies and expand operational scope downstream, thus unlocking higher on-farm margins (remember, farms only get 8-14% of your food dollar…increasing that % is one of the primary unlocks for actually enabling food system change.) Most farms won’t do this, but the ones who do are going to eat everyone else’s lunch. I’ll eventually find time to write more expansively about this - if you’re a grower/shipper/packer doing cool stuff with AI, let me know, I’d love to spotlight/learn from you.
Fast learners who can convert the ability to accrue knowledge to systems are going to be better positioned, tomorrow more than now and now more than ever.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Stay tuned for our CRL framework release on Friday.
Thanks for reading,
Connie