Briefly describe your work with agtech and explain what motivates you to invest your time in this work.

My career focus is on helping farmers better utilize natural resources to drive farm and global food system sustainability. Technology is a key driver in supporting more sustainable agriculture. I have experience across the product development chain from research, startups experience, delivering technology to farmers and using technology on-farm.

Briefly explain any commitments to sustainability that you or your organization bring to your work on agtech innovation. Be as specific as possible regarding what kinds of social and environmental impacts you aim to produce, and the relevant strategies you are pursuing.

EDF is focused on using science, markets, policy and partnerships to solve environmental challenges, specifically climate change. Our climate smart agriculture work seeks to support farmer-centered approaches to transitioning global agriculture systems to both reduce GHG emissions from farming systems and help farmers adopt more resiliency in their management choices. A key aspect of our work is ensuring that solutions fit within systems, consider environmental justice and ensure a just transition for all farmers. Our agriculture methane work has a specific goal of reducing methane from agricultural sources 30% by 2030.

Briefly describe the way(s) in which you assess/measure social and environmental impact in your work on agtech innovation.

Key aspects of consideration include:
1) Scope of emissions reductions or adaptations feasible and breadth of applicability and adoption potential across farming systems.
2) Potential impacts on the local environment and feasible solutions/tools to address those impacts.
3) Ability to finance solutions (ie business case).

Our research and this workshop aim to investigate tensions between the demands/imperatives of the tech-finance industry and the demands/imperatives of social-environmental problem solving. Please comment on this problem frame in general, and in relation to specific examples from your own experience.

In my mind, the conflict comes down to:
The tech/finance industry is profit driven (ie the classic VCs seek a 10X return). Ag tech solutions are dependent upon farmers to adopt them. Many social-environmental solutions fail to provide (adequate) value to farmers (or communicate value) and as result, the technology cannot achieve the adoption rates needed to provide the returns required by investors.

To investigate the tensions suggested above, we rely on the concept of “mission drift”. We understand mission drift as a tendency for social and environmental impact commitments of individuals and organizations to leak out over time due to pressures and opportunities to expand revenue, valuation and capital gains. Our project aims to investigate mission drift applied to entrepreneurial ventures as well as to organizations dedicated to supporting innovation. Please comment on this thesis in general, and in relation to specific things you have experienced where possible. To the extent you find this thesis useful, what strategies can you identify to defend against mission drift?

My first thought when I read this statement is that it’s inverted. My perception is that entrepreneurial ventures should seek first to provide value to customers [farmers or ag companies] (improved revenues, reduced costs, solving management painpoints). “Mission Drift” would be attempting to focus on attributes that are beyond the scope of this focus. For example, if a given platform can be used to either drive immediate improved yields or support long-term carbon sequestration, the current model would say focusing on development of the yield option is the correct approach and long-term carbon sequestration would be mission drift until after the yield module is developed.

Please share something you would like to take away from the workshop.

Finding non-standard investment models that could help encourage development of sustainability ag-tech would be an interesting take-away.