To listen to our entire conversation with Jack, click on the player.

Tom:              Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it? That's the question addressed by Jack Bobo, senior vice president and chief communications officer for Intrexon, a synthetic biology company focused on food, energy and health. And we thank you for being with us, Jack.

Jack:               Thank you.

Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it?

Tom:              So, “Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it?” That's a heavy and somewhat ominous question. Let's begin with the destructive nature of agriculture. What do you see?

Jack:               Well, in many ways, there's nothing we do that has a bigger, more negative impact on the planet than agriculture. And yet, there's nothing more critical for our daily survival. The challenge that we have is how to minimize those negatives and grow the benefits.

                        In terms of land, 40% of all the land on Earth is already devoted to agriculture, and that's a huge amount. The amount of crop land is the size of South America; the amount of pasture land, the size of Africa. So that is a really, really big footprint. If we were talking about water, well, 70% of all the freshwater we consume goes to agriculture. So, again, a huge demand on the planet. We can talk about greenhouse gases and all the other things.

Tom:              We hear an awful lot about the "rising billions," the rise of the middle-class in Asia, in India, in those areas of the world, meaning more demand, which means the need for more capacity.

Jack:               Yeah, so on one hand, we're going from 7 to 9 billion people, and so that's adding a couple billion more people. But perhaps even more important than that is the fact that their incomes are increasing, and so it's not that they're just more mouths to feed, but they're people that want more protein and better nutrition and better products. All of that means that we're not just going to need 30% more food, but we'll need 60% to as much as 100% more food in many places.

Tom:              So that's just going to put more pressure on those resources.

Jack:               Absolutely true.

Tom:              Well, let's flip the coin. What can save the planet?

Jack:               Well, one thing that can save the planet is innovation and new technologies. Because we need to produce all of that new food using the same amount of land or less, the same amount of water or less. We need to do everything better tomorrow than we're doing it today. But our rivers and lakes are already running dry, and so it's a huge challenge. But the only way we will ever be able to do it is to have science and technology help us to solve these problems. We need to get to 2050 without screwing up the planet and sustainably feed those 9 billion people.

                 Far from the farm: Consumers care more, know less

Tom:              As food shoppers, consumers, have we become disconnected from the origins of what we're eating and feeding our families?

Jack:               Absolutely, and it's inevitable. If you go back 200 years, pretty much everybody was a farmer or engaged in farming or knew a farmer, and today, it's 1% of the population is involved in farming, and most of us, it's a very distant activity. It's not really surprising that people are less aware of what goes into our food system today.

Tom:              Innovation versus Change. Do people revere one, loathe the other?

Jack:               Yeah. Well, I do like to say that people love innovation almost as much as they despise change. And there's nothing that they despise change in more than in the food they eat because food is what brings us together as family, as friends. It brings us together around the table. When you mess with my food, in many ways you're messing with my family, and people just don't like it.

Disrupting the discussion about food

Tom:              We're in an era of disruption. In fact, the theme of the conference is "Disrupting the Disruptors." What are the consequences of not being able to roll with those changes?

Jack:               I have a lot of confidence in the science and technology that we will in fact be able to address these challenges, if given the opportunity to do so.

                        What I was really talking about is disrupting how we communicate about food and agriculture, and that's really the challenge that we all have: figuring out how do we bridge the divide between those who think we should produce food the way we did a hundred years ago and those that think we need to produce food more intensively, because they all have something to contribute to this conversation.

Tom:              What about the emerging technologies that are bringing data to the platform and data that could be accessible, even all the way down the food chain to the consumer?

Jack:               Well, I like to say big data reveal small differences, and this is a really exciting aspect.

                        Imagine if you're an organic farmer today. For the last 50 years, you’ve probably been planting something called cover crops, which you plant in between growing seasons to maintain the soil and add maybe some more nutrients back into the soil. You've been doing it because you believed in your heart it was the right thing to do. Well, today, big data allows us to tell what's the return on my investment of planting a cover crop? And for the first time, a lot of big conventional farmers are planting cover crops because big data told them, yes, in fact, you get a return on your investment. That's just an example of how organic practices become mainstream practices as a result of this data.

Tom:              On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the best, how would you rate the public's level of trust in the food industry today?

Jack:               Well, it's certainly not very high. And that's really unfortunate. Because the only way we're going to save the planet is if the food companies are part of the solution. And there's no way we can do it without them. And if we make them the bad guy, if we make them the villain in the story, why are they going to work with us to try to solve these problems? Why are they going to care what the consumers think if the consumer just thinks that they're out to somehow undermine them?

                        The reality is that we need to gain the trust. It's not the consumers' fault. As a food company, you need to be trustworthy in order for people to trust you. That's something that is earned. It's not something that's given.

Tom:              What have you observed the industry doing that, if you were given the opportunity to change it and to improve it so that it became more credible, “it” being the industry, you would make that change?

Jack:               Well, I mean one of the things I worry about is food fads. There's always a new fad coming along — a new superfood or a new diet or other things. And food companies tend to just jump in, and that's because the marketing guys are saying, "Hey, everybody wants gluten-free. We need to produce a gluten-free product." Even if the company itself doesn't believe that product is going to benefit the consumer.

                        So you can actually find gluten-free water now, and you can find non-GMO water. Well, as far as I know, there's never ever been any water that's had gluten in it or was GMO. They're really selling a concept to the consumer, and consumers no longer understand. What is gluten? Most people don't even know. Unless you have celiac disease, you probably don't need to be avoiding gluten at all. And yet, when people go to the grocery store and they choose between two products, one is gluten-free and the other isn't, they think that contributes to their health. And the company knows it does not contribute to their health, and yet, they're willing to take that premium.

                        I really think that when consumers have a false belief, it's more often in the interest of industry to cater to the belief than to try to eradicate it. And that's really short-term thinking. The companies that are going to be around a hundred years from now are those who are in it with the consumer, not out to get the consumer.

Tom:              What, in your estimation, is the best, most effective way to deliver important, complex information to the public?

Jack:               It's an interesting question, because, in fact, in many ways, science doesn't matter. If people don't trust you, science doesn't matter. And if people do trust you, science doesn't matter. Because if you trust me, you don't need to see my science; and if you don't trust me, you don't care to see my science. So it's really about building that relationship, and that's a long-term relationship.

                        Information follows trust. It can't precede it.

Tom:              Here's a question for the times. It kind of has little to do with what we've talked about so far, but you're a communicator and I'd like to get your opinion on how we go about, in these times, engaging people who have different opinions about things.

Jack:               I think we need to start with ways of connecting with people. Where are our shared values?

                        It doesn't really matter where you are on the political spectrum or on the food spectrum, you probably worry about the negative impacts of agriculture, you care about the future of our planet, you want people to be healthier and better fed, and so there are a lot of things that we have in common. The question is how we get there. The only way that we're going to figure it out is by talking to each other, not talking at each other. Ultimately, what will determine whether or not agriculture can save the planet is, do we have a conversation that allows us to make those choices?

Tom:              Back to the food industry, are there any particular trends that you have your eyes on these days?

Jack:               Well, one of the exciting ones that my company is involved in relates to something called the Arctic Apple. It's a non-browning, genetically engineered apple. I'm hoping that it will actually change the nature of the conversation around GMOs. Because what we haven't had up until now is a product that people choose because it's a GMO. Once you choose a product because it's a GMO, you're not really going to think very much about soybeans and corn and other things like that. And people often say, "It's just an apple," but the apple is the third most wasted food item in the United States.

Tom:               Really?

Jack:               It's an important one. And the great thing about our apple is, if you're a grower of apples, you have less finger bruising and loss. If you're a shipper, less bruising and loss. If you're a retailer, less bruising and loss. And if you're a consumer, your kids will eat the apple slices that you put in their lunch bags.

Tom:              Well, I have to ask. Apples are really good, why do we waste them so much?

Jack:               Well, we don't really have a choice. When apples are bruised, they're not going to fit the quality demands to go to the store. I've talked to some people and they'll say, "I still eat bruised apples." And that's fine, but do you buy bruised apples? You're not intentionally going out there and looking for them. And so it just undermines the quality, and at the end of the day, the apples that have slight bruising are going to get tossed.

Tom:              So what about your work, Jack? What do you enjoy the most?

Jack:               Well, I'm passionate about trying to figure out how are we going to solve this huge problem that we all face, and do it in a way that actually makes everybody better. I'm hopeful that we have some of the tools. Now we just have to find the right dialogue that allows us to get there.

Tom:              Jack Bobo, senior vice president and chief communications officer for Intrexon. We thank you for joining us, Jack.

Jack:               Thank you.

Jack Bobo presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Lisa, click on the player.
 

Tom:                           As founder and CEO of futurethink, Lisa Bodell has transformed teams within organizations like Google, Novartis, Accenture, HBO, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Merck, Fidelity, even the U.S. Navy.

Best-selling author of “Kill the Company,” her latest is “Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters,” which is what we will do right now.                                    

Thanks for joining us, Lisa.

Lisa:                            Oh, thanks for having me.

Tom:                           And do we humans have this tendency to complicate everything?

Lisa:                            We definitely have a tendency to complicate things. And one of the things that was interesting to me about doing the research in this book was that so much of the complexity that exists is self-imposed and unproductive, but most of it has actually been put on us unintentionally.

                                    We create the beast that we become a slave to all the time. And a lot of that is driven by risk and fear and power and control, and that’s what drives us to want to have just one more metric to be safe; one more KPI; one more report, just to triple-check things; one more meeting to make another person help us with that decision, versus a lot more reliance on our gut, and we need to get back to that balance.
 

Clear away the clutter
 

Tom:                           You offer guidance on how to eliminate the mundane or the unnecessary from the daily routine and free up more time for work that matters. What are some key ways to clear away all that clutter?

Lisa:                            Oh, my gosh, I wish we had more time. The good news is that there are so many things that you can do that are very easy, and I’ll tell you a few of my favorites.

                                    One of the things that you can do for yourself or with your team is you can kill stupid rules. A lot of things that we put in place had a purpose at one point, but they may have outlived their time. Things changed. We don’t spend enough time going back and reviewing our work practices and the rules we put in place to see if they’re relevant anymore.

                                    So, what we do is we get people in the room and we say to them: “If you could kill any two rules to help you be more productive at work or be more innovative, what would you kill and why?” And what’s interesting is, that most people, they come up with rules, but most of the things they come up with are tools. They are cultural assumptions, they’re annoyances, they are those reports and meetings and e-mails. So, killing a stupid rule is great because it gets you in the process of subtraction, but also it gives people permission to eliminate. That’s one.

                                    Another thing is to look for redundancies in your work or the things that you do that are duplicate. Do things less frequently. Some people have meetings for an hour just because that’s the default on their Outlook calendar.

                                    We teach people a practice we call NNTR, and what this does is it helps clear (your) inbox. A lot of times, people get clogs in their inbox by people that are just responding with “thanks,” “got it,” you know, pleasantries, and those become annoyances. NNTR is called “no need to respond.” And when you put that in your subject line, people know that this is just an FYI e-mail, don’t feel the pressure to respond and, in fact, don’t respond, because I don’t want it in my inbox.   
 

Tom:                           I’m going to thank you for that, right now.

Lisa:                            [Laughs]

Making simplicity practical

Tom:                           I found on your website, futurethink.com, a simplification toolkit, which seems to carry forward the ideas that you were just talking about. Tell us about that?

Lisa:                            One of the things I really like to do is not just talk about a theory, but really about practice. This is kind of the Midwesterner in me. I really like the practical “get things done.” 

                                    When I wrote this book, I decided I didn’t just want to talk about why simplicity is important. I have a full chapter dedicated to tools people can do right away.

                                    We created a whole toolkit that people could actually use with facilitation instructions and worksheets with their own teams to really make it stick because simplicity can’t become a habit if we don’t change behaviors and the tactics that drive them.

                                    So, the idea of the toolkit was: “Don’t take my word for it, try it, use it; one of these will help you get to the work that matters.”

Tom:                           And that can be downloaded straight from your site?

Lisa:                            It can be. It’s actually available on the site for purchase. They also have it on Amazon. So, if you get the book, you can get the toolkit, and it’s the perfect marriage.

Tom:                           What sorts of complexities do you most often encounter when you begin looking into a client’s structure, their culture, their problems?

Lisa:                            Well, you know, it’s interesting because when you ask people what complexities really hold them back, here’s what they’ll say: regulation. We’ll regulate it, so we have regulatory complexities. Well, there are people that are regulated that operate with simplicity more than others, so that can’t be the only thing.

                                    And then, they start to talk about organizational complexities. Those are the things you put in place to manage, right? Regulation like new structures or charts reporting things. But, those aren’t really the culprits, it’s two other things you don’t expect. It’s tactical, everyday complexities that really bother people; the things you put in place to manage the organization. So, it’s PowerPoints, it’s meetings, it’s e-mails, it’s decision-making. Those are the things that really bother people.

                                    The habits are driven by very human things. It’s human behavior that drives these risks, fear, power and control. So, if we really acknowledge the fact that we’re operating from a place of fear, of power, etc., if we get comfortable with doing less, we’re subtracting; we’re saying no. A lot of those tactical complexities — one more resource, one more PowerPoint, one more meeting — they’ll start to fall away and people will have more time in their hands.

Success from simplification

Tom:                           Is there a particular outstanding outcome after you’ve taken a company through the process of simplifying?

Lisa:                            Yes. Yeah. People have more time. That’s really what it is to do meaningful work. So, it’s interesting when you ask people what they want, they say they want to do more meaningful work — and I’ll get to that in a second; they don’t know what that is. That’s the problem. They have a bunch of stuff, they just need to learn how to clear it out.

                                    Teaching people how to clear out the non-meaningful work is really the most important thing because that’s what sucks up their time. When I look at a company and I figure what is the most important metric that I measure success by, a lot of people say it’s creating a culture of innovation. “The more innovative we are, the better off we must be.”  That’s not it. The metric I want to really move the needle on is the ability to get things done because my saying is, “If you get the work right, you get the culture right.” So, if I give you the right work and we don’t focus on mundane stuff but more meaningful things, you’re focusing on the right stuff, then you can get things done. That’s where real culture happens. That’s meaningful.

Don’t complicate simplicity

Tom:                           Is achieving simplicity a complex endeavor?

Lisa:                            It can be. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. I think it can start on the individual level, and that’s the good news, which is, you have a lot of things you can do with your sphere of influence, your sphere of control. You can say no to meetings. You can look at your own work and figure out what’s redundant. You can spend less time on e-mail throughout the day and you can bunch them. You can communicate with more clarity, versus jargon. So, there are things you can do.

                                    There are also more structural things that can be put into place like cut-the-crap committees that are in charge of looking at things and eradicating complexity. I guess my key takeaway is: It doesn’t have to be complex.When people start to look at redoing the organization and re-managing IT systems, I think they’re going about it at too high a level and making it much more than it needs to be to start.

Tom:                           What kinds of complications that are ripe for simplification have you encountered in highly regulated businesses?

Lisa:                            The interesting thing is, regulated businesses, when it comes down to it, aside from the regulation part, are not that much different than other industries because the things that drive people crazy are the day-to-day complexities.

                                    So, what are some of the things I’ve seen? Let me take Merck for an example. They have a simplification team in Canada, and they had so many things that were complex much like, frankly, a lot of other industries.

                                    What they decided was that they needed to tackle simplifying meetings. So they focused on one thing and they created a code of conduct for how meetings were going to be run and everyone had to adhere to those simplified behaviors. There had to be a decision maker, there had to be less than an hour. They couldn’t be repeated unless everybody agreed to it. You know you can’t have those zombie meetings. There had to be an agenda.

                                    All these kinds of behaviors that everybody started to adhere to caused people to use their time better and use the time they got back in more meaningful work. Focus on one thing. Agree to behaviors. Give yourself more time.

Is digital technology the savior of simplicity or the blockade?

Tom:                           Is digital technology aiding and abetting simplicity, or the opposite?
 

Lisa:                            [Laughs] The answer is “yes.” The problem with technology is, you ask people if it’s helped or hindered, and the answer is “yes.” Technology has helped us get more things done and many things more easily. Kickstarter lets us get funding more easily. Airbnb, we can get, you know, access to a hotel room more easily. Uber, you get a car more easily. So, technology can be a great thing. Unfortunately, we don’t know when to stop, and the problem with human nature is, just because you can does not mean you should. And so, that’s where it kind of goes over the edge where, you know, you want one more metric, you want one more report because it’s just so easy to generate.

                                    And so, we spend all these times drowning in mundane internal tasks, versus relying a little less on those things so you can focus on what’s important, the external customer-facing stuff.

Simplicity skepticism

Tom:                           What are some typical pushbacks, resistance to change and simplify, even if it is in the best interests of the client?

Lisa:                            Well, it’s interesting. How I would answer this question is, I don’t get a lot of pushback in terms of people wanting simplicity. In fact, it’s the best question I could ask people and get the answer I want. You know, “Who would like more simplicity in their lives?” Everyone raises their hand, and they’re so excited about it. What I get instead is skepticism. They don’t really believe that they’re allowed to make it happen, that their bosses will let it happen, that they’re able to do it, and there’s a few reasons why. We are conditioned around more. We are valued, we are awarded for doing more, not less, so it seems almost counterintuitive. A lot of our bosses operate out of risk, fear, power, control, so that’s why they put these things on us. And, a lot of it is, I’ll get down to habit, because I tell people that they — they need to just try not doing something. 

                                     You know, “What if I didn’t?” is a great question to ask because you think you’re in a groove, but you may be in a rut, and it’s very hard to tell the difference and to try and change one behavior and stop doing something.

Tom:                           I wonder if a lot of people are like this. I find that in my case, I’m a morning person.

Lisa:                            Yeah.

Tom:                           I get a day’s worth of work done in the morning.

Lisa:                            Me, too.

Tom:                           Yet if you are employed somewhere where you must clock in and put in your eight or nine hours. You feel guilty if you’re not applying nose to grindstone all eight or nine hours.

Lisa:                            So, here is the difference, right? It’s that simplicity is a time versus value equation. I want to get people off the time and get to the value. So, simplicity is not about time management. I’m sure you — just like you just said — you are really good at getting stuff done. You can look at a to-do list, and you can check things off. I get great satisfaction from doing that. I admit to people that I’m the person that, after I got stuff done — just for that satisfaction — I will create my to-do list and then check all the things on it that I already did because it makes me feel so good. But, it’s not about getting things done on your to-do list; it’s about what should have been on that to-do list in the first place. And that’s the habit we have to get into, which is not “How much am I getting done?” but “Am I doing the right things?”

Tom:                           Well, it’s very obvious, Lisa, that you enjoy this work, but what would you say you enjoy most?

Lisa:                            Oh, my gosh, I’ll try to focus on one thing. I get a lot of satisfaction in showing people how to get their time back, how to do more meaningful things. So, what that says to me is, people come to work to do meaningful things, and they are drowning in mundane work. And if I can teach them one or two simple things that can make them more fulfilled at work or frankly have more time at home with their kids, I will feel like I’ve done a good job.

Tom:                           Lisa Bodell is founder and CEO of futurethink, and we thank you for being with us.

Lisa:                            Thank you for having me.

Lisa Bodell presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

The world seemed convinced that 2016 was the worst year in history, a theme that media outlets from The New York Times (“2016: Worst. Year. Ever?”) to The New Yorker (“The Worst Year Ever, Until Next Year”) featured profusely at the end of the year. John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” even blew up a giant “2016” during his season finale.

When we take a closer look at the overwhelmingly negative stories filling the news — from war and disease to poverty and inequality — it’s not hard to understand why we feel so pessimistic about where the world is heading, because it’s all we seem to hear.

Peter Diamandis, however, couldn’t disagree with this paradigm more, pointing out that the technology currently in the hands of billions of individuals today illustrates a power that only countries and governments possessed 20 years ago.

“I want to give you a view of the world that impassions me,” Diamandis, founder of the XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder of Singularity University, said at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). “It’s clear that the world is getting better at an extraordinary rate.”

What’s the key thing driving this lightning-fast change? Exponential technology.

Below are the five exponential trends that Diamandis says will change the world (and you).

1. The world is going linear

While humans have evolved to think and live in a local and linear fashion, putting one foot in front of the other in measured, baby steps, Diamandis said that today the world is global and exponential.

“Things are changing year to year, not century to decade,” he explained. “This can be disruptive stress or a disruptive opportunity, depending on your point of view.”

He pointed to the example of Facebook buying Instagram in 2012, the same year that Kodak, ignoring the digital photography trend, went bankrupt. Technologies are doubling in power every year, giving rise to increasingly powerful exponential technology. In fact, the rate of disruption is so fast today that the average life of the company has dropped to 15 years.

“The question is, as you’re starting companies and solving problems: Are you basing these on exponential trends?” asked Diamandis.

The technologies that are evolving today and changing the world are riding Moore’s Law, he said. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on circuits had doubled every year since they were invented. This trend is continuing and can be applied to all technology. In fact, it’s right on schedule and is enabling us to innovate and make progress at increasingly faster rates. 
 

2. 6Ds of exponentials

Diamandis described the way that exponential technology follows Moore’s Law and explodes onto the scene, much as apps such as Snapchat have done in recent years, in six steps, or the “6Ds of exponentials.”

He explained the first three steps in the following way:

 “In the early days of digitization, that growth is rather deceptive,” he said. “But all of a sudden, 30 doublings later, it’s a billion times better, and it becomes disruptive.”

After the initial three steps, technology reaches the last three critical steps:

• Demonetized. Think Uber and Airbnb, which don’t have to create products from scratch.
• Dematerialized: Technology that once filled entire rooms can now fit into your pocket, such as iPhones.
• Democratized: Demonetization and dematerialization enable you to offer your products to billions of people around the world.

Importantly, Diamandis noted that by 2022, 3 billion new consumers will be online and consuming those products, representing tens of trillions of dollars flowing into the global economy. They will buy technologies that continue to connect the entire planet digitally via ventures such as Google’s Project Loon, further increasing the rate of exponential technology.
 

3. An explosion of sensors and networks

A key element driving exponential technology to new heights includes the sensors and networks connecting people, places and things globally, from drones and satellites to the smartwatch on your wrist, taking images and collecting data on everything imaginable. This connectivity is propelling us from a period of time when we’ve virtually been “blind” to one in which we have an unlimited supply of information.

“This, for me, blows my mind,” said Diamandis. “It means that these sensors will allow us to know anything we want, anytime, anywhere.”

Furthermore, this technology is experiencing massive price reductions. Huge sensors that were millions of dollars in the 1960s are only $1 today and are molecular in size. This trend is showing no signs of slowing down, and Diamandis predicts that soon we’ll all be proud owners of such tech, such as augmented reality glasses we simply can’t live without.
 

4. Exponential technology will transform every industry

Faster, cheaper computing power is leading to unexpected consequences, Diamandis said, in which technologies such as robotics, 3D applications, virtual reality and artificial intelligence are combining to produce even more groundbreaking products. This is causing a paradigm shift in which every industry will soon be revolutionized by more efficient technology, such as self-driving cars and Watson, an artificial intelligence (AI) program that won an episode of “Jeopardy!” in 2011.

Some skeptics are worried about the negative consequences these new technologies might have.

“I’m not worried about AI as ‘The Terminator,’” said Diamandis. “I’m worried that AI is going to transform job markets. It’s the rate of change that we need to deal with.”

5. Moonshot thinking

The last, and arguably most important, of Diamandis’ five exponential trends is “moonshot thinking,” or thinking about how you can impact more than a billion people with a single venture.

The phrase, coined by Google, is the idea that today, any one of us can think about achieving 10 times more growth while the rest of the world is only focused on growing by 10 percent. Diamandis said that this requires a shift in mindset, since we have been trained to accomplish 10 percent more by merely working hard.

“When you ask yourself to go 10 times bigger, it forces you to think in a radically different fashion,” he said. “It forces you to throw out all that you’ve done before.”

He said that, personally, he focuses on “What’s the moonshot?” at the beginning of all of his new ventures, such as Human Longevity Inc., which aims to make being 100 years old the new 60 years old.

“I think, ‘OK, this is impossible; now let’s figure out how to make it happen,’” said Diamandis.

The news may continue to beat us down with up-to-the-minute, anxiety-inducing doom and gloom, but by using exponential technology, we can take matters into our own hands to change the world for the better.

“We’re living in the most exciting time in human history, a time when you as an individual have access to more capital, more computational power than experts in any time, ever,” said Diamandis. “You can solve any problem you put your mind to, and, ultimately, it’s the power of your passion and your mind that’s the most powerful thing on the planet today.”

“It turns out that in agriculture, we have some big problems we’re trying to solve, and we have some people with technologies that could really help us,” explained Aidan Connolly, chief innovation officer at Alltech. “But we really have to help them to help us.”

With the population steadily rising, it is important to find sustainable ways to nourish the masses. At ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), 10 ready-for-market companies took the stage by telling a crowd of 4,000 potential investors and business partners what their plans are to disrupt the industry.

How can these companies change the way we farm and the way we eat?

Agrilyst: Determined to help indoor farmers save money and increase yields through data collection, Agrilyst aims to be an at-home digital agronomist pushing farmers to achieve year-round revenue.

AgriWebb: Optimizing farm efficiency and looking to solve a $25 billion issue in agriculture, AgriWebb supports farmers by tracking their data and accreditation needs.

 “I wanted to solve real problems for real people,” Kevin Baum, co-founder and CEO of AgriWebb, told the crowd.

Alesca Life: As a company that allows commercial-scale farming anywhere, Alesca Life saves water, promotes urban farming and meets the demand of fresh produce and organic food. Because farms are available in a shipping container, Alesca Life CEO Stuart Oda said that his company provides “local food production by anyone, anywhere.”

eFishery: Overfeeding at shrimp and fish farms is a big issue in aquaculture, especially when 80% of the total cost at farms is feed. eFishery senses a fish’s appetite, adjusts the amount of feed needed and automatically distributes it to reduce a farmer’s cost by up to 21%.

Greengage: When light can affect a chicken’s physiology, behavior and productivity, farmers should look to Greengage for a solution. Their LED lights that can last 60,000 hours can reduce mortality rates, increase yields and lead to more productive chickens.

Hargol FoodTech: As the world’s first commercial grasshopper farm, Hargol FoodTech is disrupting the industry by proposing a new, sustainable grasshopper protein. With 72% protein, essential amino acids and a neutral taste, it has the potential to become a power protein player in providing solutions to our world’s future food crisis.

MagGrow: An astounding 70% of what is sprayed does not reach the target crop, and as the CEO of MagGrow, Gary Wickham, said, “It’s waste,” particularly when 80% of the world’s available water is being used for agriculture.  By using a magnetic spraying system, MagGrow disrupts the status quo by reducing water drift by over 80%. It is “truly using less to grow more, and that’s what the world needs,” explained Wickham.

Moocall: Using calving sensors to measure contractions, Moocall can predict when a cow is going into labor. This innovative device will text and email a farmer an hour before the cow gives birth, marginalizing the $2 billion loss farmers experience per year due to cow and calf death during birth.

SkySquirrel: Utilizing the disruptive technology of drones, SkySquirrel has created a technology used for monitoring crop health. This invention can save the wine industry $15 billion per year by detecting diseases in the vineyard.

Tevatronic: “What do you think will happen with a system that will decide for you?” Oleg Koral, Tevatronics CEO, asked the crowd. The company, which is revolutionizing the future of irrigation, has developed an autonomous system that knows when to start and stop irrigation on crops so they receive just the right amount of water at the right time.

The culmination of a 15-week program called The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, the 10 companies (which were chosen out of almost 200 applicants) have been provided with mentorship and new industry connections. They also received over €300,000 in software perks from Google, Amazon and Softlayer.

“Since starting The Pearse Lyons Accelerator 100 days ago, we have doubled our revenue,” Agrilyst CEO Allison Kopf enthusiastically told the crowd.

Connolly, one of the mentors of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program, gave future and current entrepreneurs a piece of advice before ending the session.

“You have to be passionate about what you do, but the focus is absolutely critical,” he said. “The business is not going to come to you; you have to go and find the business.”

One thing is clear: with disruptive ideas from around the world and a growing interest by investors in agriculture, a sustainable future seems more possible than ever before.

“In many ways, there’s nothing we do that has a bigger, more negative impact on the planet than agriculture, and yet, there’s nothing more critical for our daily survival,” said Jack Bobo. “The challenge we have is how to maintain and grow the benefits while reducing all those negatives.”

Bobo, chief communications officer at Intrexon, is very optimistic about the ability of scientific and technological advances in agriculture to reduce those negative impacts even as the population surpasses 9 billion.

Agriculture’s impact on land and water

Currently, agriculture takes up about 40% of the Earth’s land area. The total amount of cropland is roughly equivalent to the landmass of South America. Pasture takes up about the same area as Africa.

As agriculture demands more land, the inevitable result is deforestation, with agriculture and deforestation combined responsible for 25% of our greenhouse gas production.

Agriculture’s water consumption is an even more serious problem. Nearly 70% of the Earth’s freshwater is used for agriculture. Lakes across the world are being depleted, and the Colorado River no longer flows to the ocean. Some of our most important aquifers are being drawn down past the point of recovery.

Ag-tech: Savior of a hungry, malnourished and growing world?

With so many resources going to agriculture, how is it possible that people still go to bed hungry?

According to Bobo, 9 million people die from hunger and malnutrition each year, far more than any other cause. That means that 25,000 people die each day from hunger and malnutrition. And we will need to produce 60% to 100% more food by 2050.

So, why is Jack Bobo optimistic? Because agricultural technology has made incredible improvements in the last few decades.

We are producing more food with fewer resources than ever before. Bobo compared corn production inputs per bushel for 1980 and 2011.  The improvement was striking:

• 40% less land
• 60% less erosion
• 50% less water
• 40% less energy
• 35% fewer greenhouse gases

It seems the ability to produce more food with fewer resources should make everyone optimistic about the future of agriculture. Clearly, that isn’t the case. According to Bobo, “consumers have never cared more, nor known less, how their food was produced.”

Farmers make up roughly 2% of the U.S. population. Consequently, very few people even know a farmer today, and they have very little knowledge of how their food is actually grown.

“If people don’t understand your industry, then it’s up to you to change that,” said Bobo.

Some food companies actually compound the problem by using outdated imagery of very small farms to market their products. Or, some will market to misperceptions because it is more in their interest to cater to that belief than to eradicate it.

Distrust of agricultural science and technology can result in regulations that will make it difficult to meet the challenge of feeding 9 billion by 2050.

It’s important, according to Bobo,  that scientists work to gain people’s trust by telling their stories and explaining why they do what they do instead of just presenting the science.

“If people don’t trust you, the science doesn’t matter,” said Bobo.

Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech, took the stage with an enthusiastic smile — a smile that was clearly concealing an exciting secret. Luckily for the 4,000 attendees in the audience, ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17) was just beginning, and the secrets of how to be a disruptor were about to be revealed.

The theme of the conference, “Disrupt the Disruptors,” is about changing the status quo and shaking up the industry by developing and embracing products and ideas that save time and money, improve efficiency and are user friendly.

Aidan Connolly, chief innovation officer and vice president of corporate accounts at Alltech, emphasized the importance of agriculture embracing new, disruptive technologies on-farm.

“If you don’t embrace disruption, you’ll go out of business,” he explained.

Welcoming disruption becomes synonymous with welcoming the future, and the future of agriculture features more efficient farming, faster results and money saved.

Connolly detailed the eight technologies that have the power to transform agriculture through disruptive innovation:

1. 3D printing
2. Robots
3. Drones
4. Sensors
5. Artificial intelligence
6. Augmented reality
7. Virtual reality
8. Blockchain

“Innovation is key to disrupt an industry,” said Connolly.

While it is important for businesses to accept disruption, what does it take for them to achieve disruption in a competitive, ever-expanding market?

Dr. Lyons made his message very clear: “Mainstream companies sell products; great companies sell dreams.” 

To be a disruptor in its industry, a company must sell not only what they are interested in producing, but what the consumer wants; it is a two-way street.

“Being a disruptor is about having the dreams of your people aligned with yours, and your dreams aligned with theirs because, ultimately,” said Dr. Lyons, “they’re the ones who count.”

In addition to realizing dreams through disruption, he explained that these dreams and ideas are not enough — companies must also have ideals. Laying out the roadmap for successful disruption, Dr. Lyons explained the non-negotiable ideals of Alltech:

1. Remaining a privately owned company
2. Reinvesting time and money into our companies, products and employees
3. Speed: Don’t get it right, get it going
4. Having fun

By starting with a dream, innovators and entrepreneurs can begin their journey of disruption. Disruption, after all, begins with just ONE great idea.

“Sometimes you think that to change the world, you need to do the impossible,” said George Blankenship. “I look at it differently. It’s not impossible  —  it just hasn’t been done yet.”

In April 2017, Tesla bypassed General Motors to become the most valuable carmaker in the U.S. Although it only held the top spot briefly, this tech-savvy, boundary-pushing company is not only turning the automotive industry on its head; its innovation is also causing far-reaching disruptions in fields like energy storage, which is critical to the future of renewable energy.

How did a seemingly fringe enterprise blow by some of the most iconic carmakers?
 

According to Blankenship, former executive at Apple Computer, Tesla Motors and GAP Inc., who spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), it is absolutely critical to assume that someone is going to redefine your industry.
 

“Whoever does is going to hold the world in the palm of their hand,” he said.
 

The disruptive tactic that Blankenship employed at Apple and Tesla focused heavily on giving customers something they couldn’t live without, before they even knew they wanted it. The clearest example is our modern dependence on smartphones, not for the phone itself, but for the wealth of apps that allow us to lead more efficient lives.
 

The key, Blankenship said, is to create a long-term customer relationship.
 

“What can you do that will keep customers wanting to come back again and again?” he asked.
 

Apple now has one of the most loyal communities of customers in the world. Blankenship said the three most important things a company can do to ensure long-term customer relationships include:

1. Letting people know they are important.
2. Letting people know they will be taken care of.
3. Letting people know that you will be available to help them.

Blankenship first executed this strategy at Apple by transforming the company’s brick and mortar stores from simple retail sites to engaging venues where customers could connect directly with a product. They also became the home of the Genius Bar, where customers could stop by to ask for advice about the Apple products they already owned (and purchase even more once they were on-site).
 

Now that greater connectivity and the internet are making it more convenient to learn about products and order them online, the physical stores themselves should be the place where experts make a difference by giving customers time, attention and an experience.
 

Today, this is exactly the stratagem that Tesla is employing. It is redefining the car buying experience by becoming the first car manufacture to put the brand into shopping malls, where families are visiting, taking selfies with their children inside the cars and, of course, asking how soon they can buy the latest model.
 

“You will know if your store is successful and you’re doing a great job if everybody leaves smiling,” explained Blankenship.
 

To excel, Blankenship said it is vital to cultivate a disruptive mindset by doing the following five things:

1. Simplify: Focus only on what’s important.
2. Courage: Don’t listen to outsiders.
3. Alignment: Demonstrate conviction.
4. Celebrate: Successes and failures.
5. First step: Take it!

“So, who in this room is ready to close their eyes, envision the possible opportunities of the next 10 years, and then make a difference that will change your industry forever?” asked Blankenship. “Somebody is going to do it. The only question is: Will it be you?”

Tom:                Technological innovations have the ability to transform every link in the food chain, from seed to fork. We're joined by the author of those words, Alltech's chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly, to talk about disruption and the accelerating pace of change. Thank you for being with us.

Aidan:             Thank you.

Tom:                “Disrupting the Disruptors” is the theme of this conference. Sounds a little bit like chaos, or are we interpreting that too literally?

Aidan:             Well, you have to remember that although Alltech has become a very large organization employing over 5,000 people, we're still led by an entrepreneur. We're still led by the man, Dr. Pearse Lyons, who created and started the company, and he very much enjoys disrupting things. If you work for Alltech, you would know that. So the conference reflects the fact that he sees the world changing tremendously and that conventional thinking is not going to solve the problems that we are facing. We need to think differently about how we confront those issues, and if we do so, in the right way, we'd profit from our solutions.

What is disruption?

Tom:                That word, “disruption,” is becoming something of a buzzword, and the originator of the theory has complained that the term is frequently used loosely to invoke the concept of innovation in support of whatever it is that person wishes to do. What, in your view, defines meaningful disruption?

Aidan:             Well, it is something that you hear a lot of discussion about, and, obviously, you hear people from universities, people, academics, talking about it. But practically, I feel that innovation is all about doing the same thing better, whereas disruption is about doing things that make the way we do it today obsolete, and that obsolescence of the old ways of doing things is overused as a phrase, there's no question about it. We do hear people talking about things that are fairly conventional and how they're going to disrupt them, but we've seen huge disruption in all markets in the last three to five years. We think of the Uber model disrupting the way that we get moved from place to place, we think of the Netflix way of disrupting the model of how we get our movies, and you look at businesses that are really struggling to cope with the level of disruption of the scene, in particular, in our area, areas such as the food business, grocery stores, shopping malls that are empty, et cetera. So the level of disruption that we're seeing just requires us all in business to think differently about what we do and to really prepare for that business is not going to be the same as — it's not going to be as usual.

Tom:                The pace of disruption today seems to have really accelerated. Won't something soon come along and disrupt your disruptor?

Aidan:             Of course. And sometimes you feel disruption is like being on a conveyor belt. You're walking along, and just about the point that you get to one spot, you have to keep on walking because, if not, you start being pulled back. So there is no question that the level of change in society no longer allows you to come up with a new business model or idea and expect to get away with maintaining that for 10 or 15 years. You have to be on a continuous disruptive innovation pathway.

                        What I would say is that this perhaps is not as different as we think. We did for 200,000 years maintain pretty much a hunter-gatherer existence. We started farming about 10,000 years ago. That led to the development of cities and civilization and the time to think and innovation and art and all of the creative stuff that we're doing today. We have to assume that although we're seeing acceleration, which seemed mind-boggling in the last 10 years, that's going to continue. It might even accelerate.

Investing in disruptive ideas

Tom:                Do investors in disruptive technologies or innovations need an iron stomach? Do they need to be pretty tolerant of risks?

Aidan:             I think a lot of people use the phrase “I'm looking to invest in a unicorn, I'm looking for the unicorn, and I'm trying to figure out what a unicorn is.” But, of course, the unicorn, in their language, is this one business opportunity that you invest $10,000, $100,000 and magically, over a number of years, with the insight that they have to create businesses worth $100 million or $1 billion. The reality is, there are very few of those out there, and, of course, they are well-reported in the newspapers and in the media because that is what people are excited by.

                        I think if I'm an investor, I have to assume, as we always do, that we're going to have some successes, we're going to have some failures and we're going to have a loss in the middle.

                        And make sure that you maintain a portfolio approach to how you invest. So would I invest $10,000 in one project, or would it be better investing $1,000 in 10? I would feel the 10 is always the better way to go.

                        Yes, there are people out there with unique insights into where the future of the world is going to go, but the vast majority of us are not that lucky. And as such, we have to embrace what we see as the opportunities but also be prepared to spread our risk.

                 Digital technologies that will transform how we farm

Tom:                 In a recent article, you identified eight disruptive digital technologies with the power to transform agriculture. Which technologies made that list?

Aidan:             I hope I can remember all eight now off the top of my mind, but I remember we have hardware solutions, such as drones and robots, sensors. We have the software applications of virtual reality, enhanced reality, artificial intelligence. Of course, we think a lot about the internet of things, bringing all of these together. From my perspective, all of these have tremendous opportunities to change the way in which business is done — all types of business — but the gap between where we are today and where we could be in food and agriculture is even larger.

                        So, from that perspective, I think that the gains can be much greater. You take a technology such as blockchain, which most of your listeners probably will not know what blockchain is. It's a little bit like bitcoin to allow you to have transparency in a system where you don't actually know who manufactures, who transforms or changes it, who packages it and who delivers it. The food system is a classic example of that. But you need that transparency to make sure that if there's a food scare, if there's a requirement for going back and finding where something bad happened, you can do so.

                        So blockchain is another transformation of technology. But, from my perspective, all of these eight areas all can transform food and agriculture. Some of them are closer to being implemented. For example, robots we already see being used on farms to help milk cows, sensors to detect the water content of soils so we can irrigate better. But then others, maybe like virtual reality, are further away, will require larger investments, and as of yet, we're looking to the future, not looking at today.

Tom:                Among them, is there one or are there some that you find really compelling?

Aidan:             I think people talk a lot about the internet of things, and that clearly is the central point of all of this. As in feedback from devices from the information you're collecting, bringing that back  to your systems, to your computers and being able to analyze and understand what you're seeing.

                        But fundamentally, I think artificial intelligence is the one I would go for. That is the one that I think is the most transformative, the most disruptive and the one I'm most excited by.

How should businesses deal with digital disruption?

Tom:                Borrowing from a question that you've raised, given that artificial intelligence, or AI, has the potential to revolutionize many areas of a company's operations, including their decision-making processes and their budgeting abilities, how best for an organization to invest in and leverage AI?

Aidan:             That's a really good question, and obviously I posed it myself in the article we published on alltech.com and on my LinkedIn page. I think you have to be extremely hard-nosed about really understanding what the technology is and who's behind it. And, of course, for most of us, we don't feel comfortable asking some of these writing algorithms or mathematical formulae, "Now, how do I use this? What does it do?" But it has the ability to transform life and transform, in particular, work life. So we really have to dig into it, and the classic questions exist of “What is it going to do for me and for my business, my customers? How is this going to help me make more efficient or better or do so at a lower cost?” Examples of where it's being used today, that's clearly something that is very, very important. So while I wouldn't necessarily focus on existing sales, I'd like to look at existing uses and applications.

                        I think, while a lot of us feel very uncomfortable with trying to understand technology, I don't see any aspect of business today which will not be affected by it. So I think it's kind of important for us all to read as much as we can, research these areas. There are tremendous articles online on the internet that you can read. And obviously, don't rely on one. Read many of them. But I've also recently formed a kitchen cabinet of friends who I know I can call on who have the time and the interest to understand this better than me, who can give me very good advice as to whether, from an Alltech perspective and/or my customers' perspective, whether something being promoted actually has the ability to deliver what it says it can deliver.

How innovators and tech entrepreneurs deal with failure

Tom:                How important is it to the technological entrepreneur, the innovator, to accept risk and even accept the possibility of failure going into it?

Aidan:             It's absolutely essential. So if you think of the types of companies I've seen in my short space looking at this since the creation of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, it's surprising to me how many things can happen that you just can't predict. You can have somebody sadly fall ill. In one case, I saw somebody who's in his 40s die of a cancer that we did not know when he was setting up his business, so obviously, he could never have. We've seen situations where anchor customers go out of business, the customer that you're most reliant upon.

                        So you have to accept that when you're talking about 10 or 100 or 1,000 companies, a certain percentage of them will have things happen to them which are just not predictable. And back to my suggestion of taking a portfolio approach to how you invest or how you select, obviously you can do your best to find the companies you think are likely to succeed. But if you try picking a single company, I think you're always taking a risk, a very large risk that your investment strategy will not be successful.

Tom:                And if it's not successful, if failure turns out to be the outcome, what should happen then? What should you do with that?

Aidan:             Well, ideally, it should be money that you can afford to lose. I mean, that's the essence. For yourself, personally, or for your company, you shouldn't be overextended into something.

                        I met a company last week who have twice invested in technology that they were told would transform the way their factory worked. They, in one case, invested $600,000, the next case $300,000, and both times the software failed to deliver on its promise. So they're down $1 million. If they couldn't afford the $1 million, they shouldn't have invested it. It is clear they believed that if they succeed, this will put them at a tremendous competitive advantage over everybody else in their business, but at the same time, you have to understand many of these technologies don't succeed.

Bringing it back to the kitchen table: How will ag disruption impact the consumer?

Tom:                How does this ongoing disruption in the agriculture sector affect the average consumer's kitchen table?

Aidan:             It could affect it in many, many ways. The most obvious, which was surprising to me, was to see a 3D printer printing food. If you think that's hard to believe, just imagine a cake being produced where the machine is just moving in circles and it's basically using food ingredients to print out the cake and create it perfectly. So will that be capable of producing burgers and fries in the future? I'm not sure about that, but why not? That 3D food printer today is about $3,000. So, maybe expensive, but starting to sound like it's within the realm for people who wish to do that. I could imagine the same thing clearly for drinks, maybe being even easier when drinks are so deconstructed.

                        If I think about what it could do from the point of view of traceability, I see McDonald's having a virtual reality farm visit. So if you are the type of person who wants to go to McDonald's — and this is being held in England — and you want to see where their food is being produced, their potatoes, their beef, their tomatoes, you can actually put on the goggles and you can visit their farm virtually without ever having to leave the store.

                        And if you think in terms of what's happening in traceability of food, I mentioned blockchain earlier. This is very important as well for places like China. But Walmart having used blockchain in China is bringing it back to the United States and implementing it here to make for better traceability. When there is any sort of issue with packaging, maybe even food safety, they know exactly where in the chain the problem occurred and how to solve that problem quickly.

                        So I see these will basically, I believe, hopefully help to continue to make food more affordable, make food safer. I'd like to think it will add flavor to food and allow consumers to do what they said they want, which is to understand more where their food comes from.

Tom:                Alltech Chief Innovation Officer Aidan Connolly, thank you so much.

Aidan Connolly spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17).To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

In today’s world, competition in the marketplace is significantly greater than it was 50 years ago. Damien McLoughlin, Anthony C. Cunningham Professor of Marketing at the University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, opened up the final plenary session of ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference by discussing a strategy for differentiation.

“What is it that you can do to make your competition irrelevant?” asked McLoughlin. “What is it that you can do to make competition less significant in your competitive and business life?”

The theme of McLoughlin’s talk pivoted off these questions. He gave many reasons why he believes competition is more intense right now, but the most important factor is the advance in technology.

“Today, all of the power is with the buyer,” said McLoughlin.

He said places like China, the Philippines, Vietnam and other competitors of the U.S “have access to ideas from the old world and they are applying those at new markets in the new world.”

“They’re pushing competitive activity in a way that we haven’t experienced before,” he explained. “These first three forces (Technology, globalization, demographic change), of course, are all beyond the control of any person in this room… However, there is one other force, which is impacting our ability to affect competition; that’s the strategic or strategy choice.”

McLoughlin then explored the “red ocean” and “blue ocean” strategies that define businesses.
 

Red ocean strategy
 

A prime example of a “red ocean” business is the soda industry. McLoughlin said that when you see soda in a grocery store, everything is priced the same and looks exactly alike.

“When their competitor takes action, they copy it straight away,” he said, illustrating one of the signs of a red ocean.

He believes this strategy consists of companies that compete in existing market spaces, beat the competition, exploit existing demand, make the value-cost trade-off and align the firm’s activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost.

According to one of McLoughlin’s slides, the “red ocean” is the death of a firm.
 

Blue ocean strategy
 

McLoughlin used Southwest Airlines as an example of a “blue ocean” business. 

“They smashed the rules of competitive engagement, created large uncontested new markets, simultaneously pursued value and low cost,” he said.

The outcome of this strategy was that Southwest Airline is now the number one airline in the U.S, with an 18.5 percent market share in 2016.

A blue ocean strategy is the exact opposite of the red ocean strategy. You will know you have a blue ocean company if you, “create uncontested market spaces, make the competition irrelevant, create and capture new demand, break the idea of value-cost trade-off, align the whole system of a firm’s activity in pursuit of differentiation and low cost,” said McLoughlin.

“It’s a tall task,” he said.

McLoughlin says that the main core principle of blue ocean strategy is value innovation. “What I mean by that is, we find ways to reduce our cost,” he said.

The craft beer industry, Ocado (an online supermarket in the United Kingdom) and Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, are also successful utilizers of blue ocean strategies.

McLoughlin asked the audience two questions:
 

1.Do you dare to be different?

2.Are you willing to invest the strategic thinking time needed to create blue oceans?

He said four tools are needed for a blue ocean strategy within a company:

1. The strategy canvas.
2. The four actions framework.
3. Find new customers by looking for non-customers.
4. Price corridor of the masses - Price to encourage as many people as possible to buy the product.

Our species is experiencing a technological inflection point, according to David Hunt, co-founder of Cainthus.

“Science fiction is becoming science fact,” he said.

In just the last few years, we have landed the rover Curiosity on Mars, discovered the Higgs boson particle and discovered gravitational waves. Hunt, a self-proclaimed science fiction fan, seemed especially impressed by the harpooning of a comet in 2015.

Technological advances on the farm

Hunt has worked for years on some amazing, but slightly more down-to-earth than comet capture, technologies. He and his twin brother co-founded Cainthus, a company dedicated to digitizing agriculture. He described some of the company’s projects in breakout discussions on dairy and the future of farming at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference.  

Facial recognition for cows

The audience got a glimpse into a few fascinating technologies, some of which are here now and others that are right around the corner. Digital cameras are at the core of many of these advancements. Cainthus has developed facial recognition software for dairy farms that can memorize the face of a cow in six seconds and monitor the activity of an entire herd without wearable tracking devices. They are creating algorithms that will allow their software to alert a farmer when cows show early signs of lameness or when they fight over the best feed. When cows fight, it typically disrupts the entire herd and interrupts them from feeding for up to two hours, which certainly has an impact on milk production.

Scouting fields with drones

Drones are being adopted at a rapid rate on the farm, and Hunt talked about both the potential and the limitations of their use. Self-flying drones are already very successful for monitoring crop growth. Hunt looks forward to a day when farms are photographed twice a day. He warned farmers not to accept any offers from companies offering to fly drones over their farm manually. The cost is prohibitive and would not allow frequent enough flyovers to be beneficial. Current drones are disruptive for use in animal agriculture and will not be fully effective until they are small enough to go unnoticed by animals or can fly high enough that they won’t be seen.

The future of agricultural robotics

Robots will have an enormous impact on agriculture in the next several years. Hunt showed a video of two dog-like robots walking side by side. One was large and clumsy looking, the 2010 model. The other was sleek and graceful and was released just four years later.

“Imagine what they will look like by 2050,” said Hunt.

The significance of robotics for agriculture is huge. Robotic harvesters could allow farming to return to polyculture, the practice of growing multiple crops side by side in the same field. Planting and harvesting with combines has allowed farmers to feed an ever-growing population by ramping up production, but it is dependent on monoculture planting. Polyculture is closer to the natural ecosystem, and proponents say that it results in better soil health and easier pest management.

Digitizing agricultural decisions

Digitizing agriculture will allow farmers to make decisions based on data rather than emotion or hype. Hunt stressed the importance of this, emphasizing the need to base decisions on what is happening on your own farm and not anecdotal evidence from another farm, even the one next door.

“Just because a product works incredibly well on your neighbor’s field doesn’t mean that it will work well on your field,” said Hunt. “If we have precision management observing what things work, what works, what does not work, on a meter-by-meter basis and a plant-by-plant basis, there is no emotion, there is no hype. There’s just good decisions and maximization of productivity.”

In closing, Hunt offered a challenge.

“We have an opportunity today to use the tools that are here to create a utopia by 2050,” said Hunt. “We also have the tools available today to have this planet being a desert by 2050. The choices we make today are going to determine which one we leave behind for our children.”

David Hunt was a presenter at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks from ONE will be made available on the Alltech Idea Lab by mid-June 2016. For access, click on the button below.