Ready to make some money, ag/food techies?
First, you’ll notice the addition of “food” to our agtech practice. Farmers grow food. It makes sense (and dollars) to extend where possible and profitable an agtech product to food processors and food makers.
Second, add a new concept, “audit fatigue.” You read it here first, remember, so we’re partners on the IP, right? Right? Well … actually I found the term in last week’s Ag Alert, buried on page 15 in a story headlined:
“Buyers Seek Sustainability Documentation From Farms”
(But you never read Ag Alert, do you?)
Third, let’s understand this opportunity and challenge to integrative solutions.
It begins with something called the Leafy Greens Marketing Order, which was created by row crop farmers in the past decade to implement best practices in response to the sometimes-fatal food safety problems in row crops.
Major food buyers, such as Costco, Sysco and Walmart, were concurrently requiring growers to sign guarantees that their crops meet certain standards.
At about the same time, organic farming organizations were certifying organic goods after farmers met a surprisingly complex set of standards.
The California Association of Winegrape Growers crafted a sustainable practices manual. Others followed.
I was the governor’s natural resources adviser through all of this.
Recently, another layer emerged. This week, “big food” announced a coalition to launch a label that tells your smartphone who grew the crop, where and how.
The new U.S. Food Safety Management Act is beginning to take effect.
State regulators are installing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act; new pesticide regulations; more air quality rules; and soon, ecosystem credit certification.
Many audits ensue. More audits are adding up. Audits for regulatory compliance, for food safety practices, for sustainable practices, for organically grown products and many more.
Hence, audit fatigue.
And the immediate, unfilled need to auto-populate all those forms, to automate the forms so each is acceptable to private and public end-users.
In this era of transparency, consumers want access too.
The whole niche of audits, reporting and compliance is exploding.
If you’re a skeptic about the viability of agtech’s integrated audit reporting and compliance, check out the corporations driving the sustainability: https://www.sustainabilityconsortium.org
