I did my first event as Lighthouse Ag CEO last week (Vision Conference 2024); it should have been my second, but I did not make it to the Potato Expo in Austin due to the weather causing travel issues.
After spending almost a year away traveling and hiking, everyone wondered where I had gone and what had brought me back.
I decided to dedicate one of my articles to what brought me back.
The three founders who started Lighthouse Ag were having a conversation last summer.
Aaron Magenheim has an AgTech retailer and consulting background, helping investors and large growers.
Tal Maor has a farmer, AgTech hardware, retailer, and venture investor background, aiding investors and startups.
Aaron Hutchinson has an AgTech software background supporting global food companies and their farmers.
So, we have farmer, investor, food, consultant, retailer, and startup views represented in the conversation. First, we agreed that all sides are frustrated by the lack of success and integration in the AgTech market. So, we set off to figure out why!
Below are some of what we found unsurprising to many of you.
Finding the right AgTech is work. It takes a lot more than shows and articles. Did you know there are about as many non-VC-backed AgTech providers as VC-back companies?
There is so much work that prominent Ag industry companies have innovation teams to find AgTech. Most "innovation teams" focus more on deploying capital or working with VC investors than embedding themselves in their core business needs and innovation to become genuine change agents for their companies.
You often buy AgTech to find out it plays poorly with others. Bring in data, sure; share data, rarely; integrate with existing, legacy, or next tech purchase, hardly ever.
They sell you the product promised to fix a particular need, but you must integrate it into a more extensive solution to get value. So, you find yourself with IT person(s) who need to learn about farming or the young guy on the farm with no process training trying to put it all together. They try to assemble what you bought, but did it solve your problem, provide business value, or make new challenges?
The core problem is that outside of hiring multi-million-dollar integrators, no integrators exist in AgTech for the rest of Ag (99%).
The bottom line is that Ag folks chose this line of work not because they loved managing digital technology but because they loved working the soil, processing food, and feeding the world. But as your operations and compliance reporting grow more complex, so does technology, forcing you to spend more time finding and integrating technologies and less on your true passion and business.
My passion for technology, AG, and the promise of feeding the world while making it a better place brought me back.
We started Lighthouse Ag as your trusted partner to plan, find, and integrate AgTech solutions to solve big problems. We are the architects to assess and roadmap your needs. The general contractor that coordinates the right mix of multiple AgTech vendors and integrators for your unique needs - whether planning and installing a state-of-the-art sensor system, automating your sustainability reports, or improving crop estimations- always considers the business value and the climate.
Lighthouse Ag is here to handle all of the AgTech integration and support from pre-planting through the distribution center so that you can focus on your why and your business.
To learn more visit our website: https://Lighthouse.Ag or email us at Info@Lighthouse.ag
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