Ask HN: Agriculture startups doing interesting work?

https://www.sprowtlabs.com/

To achieve malting (the germination and kilning of barley etc) on a small scale.

https://artemisag.com/ — Artemis (previously Agrilyst) won TechCrunch Disrupt SF a few years ago, and is building a management platform for enterprise-scale indoor farms.

https://farmtogether.com/ — FarmTogether is a platform that allows anyone to invest in US farmland

(Source: I was an early employee at Artemis, and a friend from high school is a cofounder of FarmTogether)

* Granular

* Farmer's Business Network

* Inari

* Pattern Ag

* Solum

* Arable Labs

Elemental Excelerator looks like it has about 10 ag startups: https://elementalexcelerator.com/companies/

Established players are like sledge hammers. They are successful if they are hard working and have some competitive edge (could be labour cost, could be local knowledge, could be profit reinvestment, could be rights to varieties).

Farmers are the most efficient managers you'll ever find. They don't need management, so IMHO any startup that tries a "smart farm" is underestimating the intelligence of the farm managers.

The sweet spot is immediate deliverables in terms of cost saving or other forms of optimisation. In the time of my grandfather, the profit margin was 50% and a flip of the coin whether you'll actually get anything to the market. Today it is The retailers are the real money spinners; if you want to make your money at the primary level you better like the social aspect of farming as well.

Don't misunderstand, there is plenty tech, but it is probably more important whether you are willing to work on a Sunday. Take from it what you will; my opinions tend to somewhat unique (in this regard). For example, don't waste your time with "organic farming". It's a marketing term and actually not very descriptive (vs. "organic chemistry"). Sure, you could make money, but in marketing.

The toughest problems are pretty damn interesting though and are basically going to cross polinate with the most cutting edge climate change research.