Agriculture-focused startups target either specialty crops or row crops. But what about his 28% of land in the United States that is pasture? Is that 600 million acres of land worth getting for him?That’s the question Enriched Ag aims to answer with its grazing and carbon insights platform.
In late 2022, the startup announced a $9 million seed round of funding led by Radical Ventures and Future Ventures. Grazing-focused startups have teams with resumes from Apple, Google, Yahoo, Intel, and more. But if you dig into the management team, you’ll also meet veterans of the livestock industry.
Billy Cook, Vice President of Producer Relations, said: “Thus, finding ways or opportunities to bring real technology into the sector will not only be an opportunity to improve the efficiency and production of beef companies, but perhaps position producers for future opportunities for new revenue streams. It’s also an opportunity. This is fascinating. To me.”
A novice to start-ups, Cook has extensive experience in the livestock industry. He served his Noble Foundation for his 25 years as Senior Vice President and Director of Agriculture. He’s not the only “cow herder” on his Enriched Ag leadership his team. Mike Comp was also affiliated with the Nobile Foundation and worked at the Conservation Technical Information Center.
When Cook first spoke with Enriched Ag founder and former Yahoo Chief Technology Officer Ash Munshi, the conversation focused on leveraging technology to solve agricultural problems, Cook said. says. “There are a lot of problems to solve here,” Cook told Munshi.
bring technology to the ranch
Yield measurement, disease detection with smart vision systems, and the introduction of precision technology into crop maintenance are all tools for caring for specialty and row crops. But what is Meadow Opportunity?
“Ranch owners have an urgent need to optimize their practices to address the changing climate realities while organizing long-term strategic business initiatives towards resilience and future value capture,” said Munshi. there is a need,” he said.
The key is to bring data-driven insights to improve decision-making for ranchers today, while partnering with Enriched Ag to monitor, manage and monetize the ecosystem to generate new revenue for the future. is.
Cook says the challenge he faced was that animal husbandry’s margins were too thin to accommodate many technological ideas. Enriched Ag’s purpose is to bring new data insights to this business sector and help ranchers understand how their decisions affect their climate footprint and how they can leverage it for the future. It makes you think, he explains.
Grassland is a natural carbon sink, but the amount captured must be measurable. Running cattle on cover crop land can increase organic matter and build soil structure. But what are the economic benefits? Enriched Ag will focus on obtaining data from these systems to quantify these values.
Data capture
Enriched Ag leverages science and data using public sources. Cook said the company is taking satellite data and using machine learning to look at a range of information, including mass production of feed, and analyze various plant information such as greenness and feed health and quality. .
“We can now learn something from anywhere in the United States, which is a pretty good trick in itself. But the real value comes when you start working with producers,” says Cook. increase.
Cook visited every operation, collected soil samples, learned about the operations, and placed sensors in the field to create more local, ranch-level predictive models. That on-site work helps Enriched Ag’s technical team better understand the complexity of a given range and improve decision-making.
“I think ranch spaces are underrepresented in terms of their potential climate impact,” says Cook. With better use of data collection and interpretation and management impact, he adds: He can validate different stories than producers in the field. ”
For more information on Enriched Ag, visit enriched.ag.