MyLand Welcomes Bill Mennell as Principal of Strategy and Analysis
Soil health company MyLand has announced the addition of Bill Mennell to the company’s leadership team as Principal, Strategy and Analysis, to identify and pursue new business opportunities for MyLand’s unique Soil as a Service (SaaS) solution. Mennell began his role in May 2023.
Mennell focuses on partnership expansion, natural asset strategies, and identifying the agriculture sectors where the MyLand System® can have the greatest impact for growers and oversees the Algae, Ag Science, and Data teams, where he aims to advance MyLand’s technical expertise. He reports to Dane Hague, MyLand CEO and Co-founder,
“Bill is uniquely qualified to take MyLand forward in our growth and sustainability efforts, and his expertise will help us better serve our customers and stakeholders,” says Hague. “With his background and understanding of soil, water, climate, and agriculture’s influence on each, Bill will play a crucial role in our company’s future.”
Mennell’s contributions will further the company’s efforts to increase grower ROI from MyLand’s proprietary Soil as a Service® solution. Water savings, nutrient reduction, improved nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and credit application all drive economic returns to the farmer beyond yield improvement. His role will directly impact MyLand’s efforts to increase growers’ productivity, economic security, and profitability.
Pivot Bio Presents Abstracts on Breakthrough Technology at Research Conference
Sustainable agriculture company Pivot Bio presented abstracts on its breakthrough crop nutrition technologies at the 2023 International Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). The company’s researchers and independent scientists shared their findings across 14 abstracts, highlighting the latest pre-publication research verifying the mode of action and performance of Pivot Bio’s microbial nitrogen.
The research presented focused on Pivot Bio’s PROVEN ®40, a breakthrough product offering a microbial source of nitrogen specifically designed for corn crops. The week-long event served as a platform for sharing research studies demonstrating the efficacy of Pivot Bio’s PROVEN ® 40 in enhancing nitrogen fixation in plants during critical growth phases, maintaining yield, and reducing environmental impacts – crucial metrics in today’s agricultural landscape.
Key insights presented included research on the mechanism of action behind PROVEN® 40, revealing how two generations of synthetic biology improvements in diazotrophic N-fixation inoculants can potentially decrease reliance on synthetic N fertilizers in corn; analyses of hundreds of plant samples indicating enhanced plant nitrogen status even when synthetic N was reduced by up to 40 pounds per acre; yield stability and environmental impact reduction.
During the conference, Pivot Bio hosted over 25 researchers, graduate students, and collaborators from various universities and institutions at its state-of-the-art Product Success Center in St. Louis. Attendees engaged in in-depth discussions about the latest findings and best practices for working with PROVEN® 40, focusing on the application of microbial nitrogen and its integration into current agricultural systems.
Truterra Appoints Jamie Leifker as New President
Truterra has announced Jamie Leifker as its new president, bringing over 25 years of experience in agriculture through his track record in leadership at WinField United, Land O’Lakes, Inc.’ crop inputs and insights business, in addition to previous industry experience.
“Jamie’s career spans the spectrum of applicable experience that make him the perfect choice to help Truterra reach the next level as a leader in agricultural sustainability,” said Brett Bruggeman, Chief Operating Officer at Land O’Lakes, Inc. “His background in agronomy plus his experience working with both local ag retailers and customers is in lock step with Truterra’s mission and go-to-market approach.”
Most recently in his role as vice president of New Markets and Growth Services at WinField United, Leifker was responsible for working with ag retailers to provide risk management services, as well as downstream companies to deliver on customizable supply chain needs. Prior to that, he led the Agronomy and Product Development team delivering products and services to help retailers and farmers be more profitable, productive and sustainable. This included leadership of the WinField United Innovation Center dedicated to cutting-edge agronomic research and product development.
“As a farmer myself, I understand the challenges livestock and crop producers face and the value sustainability can bring to the agriculture industry,” said Leifker. “I look forward to channeling my experience to further Truterra’s focus on productivity and profitability.”
AgGateway’s Jeremy Wilson Could Be Wrong
Most people in the precision agriculture space know AgGateway Executive Vice President Jeremy Wilson with his more than three decades of diverse agriculture experience serving farmers including crop insurance, data collection and analysis, systems development, and field agronomy. He could arguably be called the most passionate person in the precision ag industry.
But, he could be wrong. That was the title of Wilson’s presentation at the AgGateway annual meeting this week in Nashville. “I could be wrong (but) I think we’re really struggling at large-scale, complete ag industry data interoperability,” said Wilson.
He sees that issue right now as the most important for the industry to solve. “It’s how can we capitalize on what we did 15-20 years ago on facilitating B2B communications so that processes are streamlined as much as they can be…and how do we bring that all into one system to have seamless interoperability across the ag industry.”
Listen to Jeremy’s presentation and interview below:
2023 AgGateway opening remarks Jeremy Wilson, EVP/COO 19:02
2023 AgGateway interview Jeremy Wilson, EVP/COO 7:10
AgGateway President’s Award Winners
AgGateway president and CEO Brent Kemp presented the President’s Awards at the annual meeting this week to three members of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for their work.
Evan Wallace is an electronic engineer in the Systems Engineering Group and has been engaged with AgGateway since the days of the CART project when the Food Safety Modernization Act came out. He also helped rationalize the concepts of the ‘Traceable Resource Unit’ to help arrive at the forthcoming Traceability API. Additionally, he is involved in the emerging ‘Digital Product Passport’ which illustrates a product’s sustainability, environmental and recyclability attributes.
2023 AgGateway interview, Evan Wallace, NIST 2:48
Kemp also recognized Boonserm Kulvatunyou and Hakju Oh from the National Institute of Standards & Technology for outstanding leadership and innovation, resulting in cutting-edge tool development and deployment that advances semantic interoperability in the agriculture industry.
The two researchers led a ground-breaking activity to develop a new methodology and supporting tooling called “connectCenter” (formerly “Score”), which supports the ISO 15000 part 5 Core Component Specification. While the connectCenter addresses requirements across industries, they have responded to AgGateway requests to make connectCenter a more effective tool for the agriculture industry. AgGateway has used connectCenter to develop several resources, including the ADAPT Standard, Dataset Metadata, Scale Ticket, In-Field Product Id, and Product Catalog.
AgGateway Meeting Explores AI in Ag
Brooks Hamilton has been studying artificial intelligence for over 20 years, since “before AI was cool,” and he was the keynote speaker for the opening general session at the AgGateway annual meeting this week in Nashville. His presentation was on the “Seismic Changes” the AI revolution is bringing that will “reshape the industrial fabric.”
Hamilton was thrilled to be able to speak to such an innovative group. “I’ve worked with a number of other industries where they struggle with data challenges and I’ve been especially impressed with the leadership that AgGateway has provided for this industry to go about sorting out some of those thorny issues,” he said.
Hamilton talked about how AI is here and now and companies need to be at least developing a strategy for its use, especially here in agriculture. “For growers, that is going to be related to robotics, however there are all the other operational items – when do I buy, when do I plant, operational questions, transportation, logistics – those are the areas that can be made to be more autonomous and automated,” he said.
Listen to his presentation, which you can also watch on AgGateway’s Facebook page, and an interview with Hamilton below.
2023 AgGateway opening keynote - Brooks Hamilton remarks 57:012023 AgGateway interview with Brooks Hamilton 7:33
Animal Ag News 11/13
Y-TEX® and Fort Supply Technologies™ Partner for Precision Livestock Management
Y-TEX and Fort Supply Technologies (FST) are pleased to announce a new alliance to accelerate the availability, use and acceptance of ultra-high frequency (UHF) and low frequency (LF) technologies for the livestock industry. With this alliance producers throughout the livestock supply chain will have increased access to tools to better facilitate traceability at the speed of commerce and to enable more profitable farm to fork livestock management.
Glenn Nielson, owner and President of Y-TEX Corporation said, “For nearly two decades we have observed FST pioneer livestock traceability solutions. They have a reputation of making livestock tracking work for all segments of the beef supply chain. We are excited about our new alliance and eager to provide solutions that work for our existing and new customers.”
Nephi Harvey, co-founder and President of FST said, “FST is very pleased with this alliance and the opportunities it affords FST to continue to grow and serve the needs of the livestock industry. This strategic alliance will provide both companies with the ability to positively impact our industry with advanced technology.”
Industry Ag News 11/10
