The field of innovation: We built it so they would come. Turning agtech tools on in an Indiana crop field.

In this episode hear how an Indiana corn field is being "turned on" with technology technology tools.  24-hour data collection and sampling is helping local farmers act on the future of food and sustainability. 

Guests on this episode are, Ranveer Chandra Chief Technology Officer, Agri-Food at Microsoft. Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer at Land O'Lakes, Inc. Drew Garretson, Chief Marketing Officer at Ceres Solutions in Crawfordsville Indiana. 

Check out Rootedintomorrow.com for more stories of incredible farmers!

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Transcript

 We're, we are hiring robots now to do over 60% of our soil sampling at series solutions, and now they're, they're, they make up over 250,000 acres, um, of our soil sampling today. It's super exciting how they're now able to show that yes, connectivity, sort of that backbone, the community has it. They can do tele education, they can do telehealth, but here, let's use it in precision farming or digital agronomy in a very different way that can, that can really take us to the next level.

Tomorrow. It's never a guarantee unless we take care of today. We are a cooperative, grounded in 100 years of forward thinking ever since our beginning in 1921. It's the pursuit of a reliable food supply, a sustainable future, and vibrant communities for all of us. Rooted in the promise of a brighter future.

This is rooted in Tomorrow, the podcast by Land O'Lakes, Inc. I'm your host, Kim Olson. Join us for stories of in. Change makers and the modern entrepreneurs who work the land

technology, it's like a tropical island in the distance you can see, but it just can't quite get to. That's because you don't have a boat and there is no bridge. It's an analogy for broadband that many people in rural communities use. Your offerings are great, but how am I gonna get there? And is there a real way to use it on my farm or at my local cooperative in Perryville, Indiana, a small town of 452 people.

There's a lot happening on the innovation front. A local cooperative is putting technology to the test in a big way using soil sensors, cameras, pest monitors, all in an open field to push forward major advancements in agriculture and food production. Ranveer Chandra holds a host of titles at Microsoft, but he is currently the Chief Technology Officer for AgriFood.

Teddy Bekele is the Chief Technology Officer at Land O'Lakes, and they're my guest today. Later we'll bring on Drew Garretson. Drew lives in Indiana and is the Chief Marketing officer at Siri Solutions, a farmer's co-op where the tech is being turned on.

All right. Let's do this thing. Welcome Rand and Teddy, thank you so much for joining me. I am excited to see you both excited. It. Uh, if I look back in my records, the, um, last time we were together, it was September, 2020, right? That's right. That is correct. Oh, goodness gracious. Six months into our pandemic at that time.

I'm so glad to have you guys both back. We're going to, um, take a little bit of a walk down memory lane and, uh, talk about how we got here and what we've done since then. Um, so let's, let's dive right in. Uh, Teddy, you've been with Land O'Lakes for nearly 10 years now, right? That is correct. 2023. September, 2023 will be 10 years at Land O'Lakes.

Okay. I am, I am gonna write that down so I remember to get you, um, a little commemorative gift or something. Um, so, um, tell me, um, in those 10 years, can you talk just a little bit about how your roles and responsibilities have changed, you know, as you've, um, been witness to, uh, and driving really ag tech developments?

Absolutely Kim, and, and it's been a, it's been a wonderful 10 years, by the way. I didn't think, um, coming to Land O'Lakes and coming back to agriculture was gonna be something that I would've enjoyed as much as I have. It really has been. Truly like a coming home for me and something where it's, you know, agriculture was in my DNA and being able to do it and using all the technology that I learned over the years to put it to action was, was so wonderful.

But coming into Land O'Lakes, I, I joined the organization as the IT business liaison to Winfield United, which is our crop inputs business. And the goal there was, you know, run everything. It, uh, and by the way, one of the carrots that got me somewhat interested into the business. Was that we had the small Ag Tech efforts going on at that time and said, would you be interested in leading this effort of continuing to deploy technology and agriculture on a bigger basis?

Not just, uh, obviously running the systems that are critical for the organization, but starting to use modern tools to help farmers make better decisions, help retailers, uh, serve those farmers in a different way. Then over the years it got bigger, bigger and bigger. Uh, we started using not only some of the early remote sensing capabilities, but started adding crop modeling, machine learning, and some of the early artificial intelligence tools came into it.

And I transitioned after, quite frankly, after two years, transitioned into doing that full-time. For about three years before taking this current role as a chief technology officer, which still doing the things I started, you know, 10 years ago in a bigger way, but also expanding the relationship with Microsoft and really thinking about how we use technology not only in Winfield United.

Across all of Land O'Lakes. It's, uh, I know it's been a, um, very interesting journey. Um, Ranvir, you've had a, a similar journey. You're Chief Technology Officer of AgriFood at Microsoft now. Um, you know, we all know Microsoft for digital technology and um, but that's not all really I. I would be interested in hearing from you how, um, that technology is being used to support a safe and plentiful food, uh, supply.

Yeah, Kim, and it's great to be on this, on this podcast with Teddy and yourself. So at Microsoft we build technologies throughout the stack, you know, of, uh, office of Windows, of Azure teams, Xbox, the different products that we build. One of the things that we are. Seeing, and this is a transformation we've been going through for the last 10, 12 years, is seeing how.

These tools, as we build new capabilities such as cloud edge computing, artificial intelligence, how will they change the future of different industries? Our vision is that every entity in the food supply chain, all the way from farm input suppliers to the farmers themselves, to the logistics companies, warehouse companies, food processing companies, even the retailers, every entity could start using data and artificial intelligence to improve their efficiencies.

Not just that. If they could start sharing the data that could drive even new efficiencies for the entire food supply chain, food feed, fiber, and fuel. And that is, those are the tools that we are building at Microsoft. And collaborating closely with, uh, land O'Lakes on some of these initiatives as we help address this problem of the food supply chain.

The question you asked is how do you get to a safe and plentiful supply chain? We believe that digital technologies will play a key role. Data will play key to artificial intelligences, and that's, those are some of the tools that my team is building. That's, you know, we say it, land O'Lakes that, uh, food security is national security and, um, I know you guys believe that as well.

Um, when you talk about these digital tools, what's like the coolest one that your team has worked on? I, it is picking a favorite child, right? Well, there are many, of course chat. GPT is one that some of you might have used. Yeah. It's uh, it's really interactive AI tool and artificial intelligence in particular is transforming a lot of, uh, a lot of what we are able to do and what we thought we were able to do and.

That's, that's going to transform a lot of what we are able to do, even for agriculture and food systems of building much better precision maps, doing more accurate weather predictions, uh, being able to help with precision education. A lot of those capabilities, the underlying block of that is the data and artificial intelligence, and those are fundamental advances.

In computer science. Well, that makes me a little less afraid. I still have visions of iRobot dancing in my, in my head. So I, I wanna talk a little bit more about that, but be before we do, um, gentlemen, if you will walk down memory lane with me. Can you both kind of, uh. Tell, um, tell me and our listeners how the Microsoft and Land O'Lakes partnership came about.

I'm sure everybody listened to it back in September, 2020, but just in case we have a few new listeners cross your fingers. Um, can you tell us a little bit about the history of that? We started a while back. I mean, this relationship goes back nearly six, maybe even seven or eight years. And, and so we did, we built a couple of tools together.

I mean, we built some tools on the, on top of the Microsoft Foundation, you know, about three years ago we decided, you know, should we take this relationship to the next level? And that's what Ranvir and I covered in the podcast in September. Last year, which is really how do we work strategically together, right?

Obviously we can always use Microsoft as a core partner or supplier, but we wanna co-innovate in the space and we wanna be able not just to tackle the day-to-day issues, but also bigger, broader societal, uh, challenges that we had so that, for example, broadband being one of them. You know, whenever we wanna deploy all these acting tools, we always found that broadband was lacking, particularly in these communities where we were taking these technologies.

So how do we address broadband? The other piece was around, uh, the digitization of Land O'Lakes itself. Do we have the skillset? Are we educated enough to be able to take advantage? Some of the capabilities those Microsoft was bringing to the market. And so how do we together educate not only our workforce in the Microsoft technology, but also how do we take the resources from Microsoft that make 'em more domain experts in agriculture?

And then the third piece, building on those two things that, okay, can we continue to double down and. Build additional technologies now, now that we have the resources, maybe have the bandwidth in place or the broadband in place. Then from there, you know, can we look at developing solutions for environmental sustainability?

And our soterra platform today is actually sits on top of the Azure Farm Beats, uh, foundation, um, to everything we do. So the three pillars of work we established then was around the. Uh, rural broadband, the digitization of Land O'Lakes, and then the, this transformation a of agriculture using these novel and emerging technology.

So that was the foundation and we've, we've made some great progress and, um, checked off some really big things off the list and we continue to add to that. And now we're at a point where we're almost in, uh, relationship 2.0. How do we, how do we reenergize this relationship and how do we take these three pillars and what are the next new three pillars of our work?

Um, that's where 2023 is leading us to. Is, is that how you remember it, ranvier? That sounds pretty accurate to me. Yeah. But let's make sure. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. And, uh, I really, I remember the first visit I made to Purina first and then to the farm, close to, uh, Minnesota, where uh, Teddy and I were there.

And we started talking a lot about what could be done. What we could do, do, do more together. At that time, Microsoft did not have an industry platform and we were, early on, we were envisioning what could be done, and we really thought that bringing technology to one of the most important sectors. Could be done if we did this partnership together.

And that was the start of the partnership around the three pillars, the ones that Teddy mentioned, all the, from innovating in agriculture to advancing sustainability and also on connecting rural America. Yeah, I remember that, uh, that, um, announcement and, uh, we did a bit of a. A virtual press conference almost with Beth and, and Satya, and we were still in the throes of, uh, of pandemic and, um, it was something to be excited about and, uh, and we all were, so tell me from a, um, from a milestone perspective.

Um, I'm sure there were speed bumps along the way and mountains climbed, although I'm mixing my metaphors there, but, uh, what are, what are some of the greatest milestones that, that you each would point to? So, uh, from our standpoint, it was, uh, Microsoft's first initiative, first product in the agriculture space.

So we announced the public preview. We starting, started working with Land O'Lakes on the first part on agriculture innovation. That's when we realized that, uh, we need to know more about agriculture. So we had very frequent sinks with working with Land O'Lakes. We got a lot of feedback on what we need to do to improve the product, to make it work at scale.

And we took all that and that involved a lot of, uh. Partnership, deep, deep partnership and lots of meetings. Uh, we've made big sustainability commitments since we announced the partnership. We've also purchased, we've made the biggest, uh, carbon purchase, biggest corporate purchase of carbon. So is helping us meet wow, our sustainability goals by the members, uh, practicing the right agricultural practices, and this partnership is helping us get there.

Teddy, is there, are there, uh, additional ones that you would mention? You know, from, from a, just a pure Land O'Lakes perspective, you know, I think we've, uh, better learned how to use the Microsoft tools. So we went deeper on the Office 365. And then we also deploy some digital dairy tools, whether it's our risk management instruments that we give to our dairy producer, uh, a tool to be able to manage their cost of production or their, uh, milk pickup and uh, and payments.

They're all running on top of the, uh, Microsoft Azure Farm Beats platform. Um, rember, you mentioned the American Connection Project, um, and. I, I'm just interested, as broadband becomes more readily available across, uh, rural communities in particular, um, what do you see, and, and Rand we'll go to you first and then to Teddy, but what do you both see as the biggest opportunities for transforming agriculture in the next few years based on the fact that, um, broadband is, is becoming more readily available?

Yeah, this is, uh. Finally we are getting there, but still we have a long way to go, but we are making progress. And as broadband gets to rural areas, some of the very basic necessities like uh, remote telehealth to tele education, all of that will become real, will, will be seamless for the rural population.

Not just that, it's not just about connecting the farmer's house. The other thing that we all have been working at on through the Precision ag task force that Teddy is sharing is how do you get broadband in the middle of a farm? Not just in the, to the farmer's house. Once you do that, you could be on a teams call, video call in the middle of the farm while you are in your tractor.

You can call, consult with your advisor to talk about any problems you might be seeing in the farm. You could, uh, connect with your equipment manufacturer to remotely, uh, debug and fix the, fix the equipment. All of these scenarios could now be possible with. Broadband with broadband, brutal broadband and taking a step further, all the artificial intelligence capabilities that people talk about can now come to farming once you, once you bridge the broadband divide, because artificial intelligence to some extent is as good as your data.

I, I'm still back at, uh, teams meeting meetings in the middle of the field. Um, Teddy, what do you think? That is something that's, uh, critical. I mean, it sounds, you know, teams meeting in the middle of the field, but actually it's a very critical meeting that a farmer needs to have with an agronomist. A farmer needs to have with, uh, the insurance company or banking, right?

Because that's where you make those core decisions, uh, where you can see what's happening live, um, in, in, in the middle of a corn or soybean field. So when you think about even some of the crop modeling that I was talking about earlier, this is where we do some what ifs scenarios. Um, how do I get to this type of yield outcome of 200 bushels of corn?

Or how do I, you know, make sure, do I turn on the irrigation system or do I not? Um, knowing. You know, with droughts and everything else, it's critical, but the only way I'm gonna know that is if I know the moisture in the soil. This is now where you can put a probe in the soil, it sends you some data back, and actually you don't even have to make a decision.

Now. The system automatically can decide what's the optimal. The optimal rate, um, uh, and timing, uh, to be able to, uh, to turn these, uh, these, these, this, this machines on. Well, I, it, that kind of leads me to my next question. Another thing our organizations really have, um, in common is the emphasis on, um, innovation.

So I know we have a joint effort in partnership with one of Land O'Lakes, AG retail owners. Series solutions. I'm gonna talk to them as well in this segment. Um, we have a partnership to establish an innovation hub in Perryville, Indiana. So what are the benefits of the hub for farmers and the ag community?

Can one of you talk about that, Teddy, maybe? So, Perryville, uh, Indiana was one of the first locations where we deployed the Airband solution, and that was part of the effort of, uh, the American Connection Project on the action side. How do we, yes, we can turn on guest wifi, which we did during COVID, right?

Over 3000 locations, had that guest wifi enabled. Microsoft helped get some of the routers we needed at that time, but more on a permanent basis. You know, we started standing up these, uh, uh, towers on top of the grain silos and the fertilizer locations that a lot of these retailers had. So Siri Solutions, uh, put their hand up and said, yes in, in Perryville, Indiana, around that community.

We really do lack, uh, connectivity. So how can we help? So with the Microsoft team, we're able to go there, uh, put a tower up and then, you know, sort of propagate that signal around that community. So, uh, Siri Solutions was able to offer broadband to the residents of that community, which quite frankly, a lot of 'em are customers of series Solutions and farmers that use that.

Now that that was deployed, the next question was, okay, what can we, what can we actually do with this? Like, what are some of the interesting things? And they really jumped on the, um, the opportunity to create an innovation hub. They said, well, we really like using technology. We like using technology in, in farming, in very novel ways.

And we would love to invite startups and companies that think they have something. Really neat. That's worth trying in row crop farming. And it's been exciting to see what they've done with like soil moisture probes and nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous sensors and, uh, pest monitoring cameras. And it's super exciting how they're now able to show that yes, connectivity so that backbone, the community has it.

They can do tele education, they can do telehealth. Here, let's use it in precision farming or digital agronomy in a very different way that can, that can really take us to the next level. Yeah. This is so exciting to see this thing come to life. So, uh, back in the day we were experimenting this, this was in 20 17, 20 18, with Teddy and team in some farms in, uh, in rural.

Uh, and this was in Minnesota where we were setting up connectivity, trying to connect tractors. We showed that you could bring connectivity to a church, but this is what we were experimenting back then. This is bringing all of that to life. Once you have that hub, once you can start bringing all the data together, once you have all the platforms in place, like what Cera Solutions is doing in partnership with us, this then allows a lot of innovation to happen.

We can open it up to. The startups that, as steady mentioned, that are innovating, bringing the tech to life and not just here now they can. Now the bar is much lower for anyone else to come in and start showcasing what the form of the future would look like. So interesting. So if I'm hearing right, you're transforming the toolbox on the farm and really testing and vetting these technologies so the farmers and the agronomists don't have to, that's a good way to put it.

So much progress and, um, I, it's so fascinating to hear how far we've come. Well, thank you both so much. I, uh, what a hopeful, um, exciting forward-looking conversation. I think the future is bright and, uh, I appreciate what you both do to make that. So thanks for joining us. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Kim.

Now the perspective from Perryville Indiana with Drew Garson. Drew and the team at SIR Solutions, the local Ag Cooperative, are working directly with the farmers on technology, sustainability, and finding a better way to produce all that food that you eat.

Hi Drew. Hi. Welcome. It's so nice to see you. Virtually. See you, I guess. Yeah, same to you. Uh, let's start out today, um, by just talking about, uh, about yourself and what brought you to series and what your role is. Um, tell me the, the Drew story. Yeah. I'll give you the, the, the quick elevator, uh, version of that.

Kim and I, about 16 years in the cooperative business. I actually started my career at, sir, at one of our local locations. Um, had the opportunity to come work for Winfield United part of Land O'Lakes and, um, for, I did that for about 10 years in various different roles, all in technology in some capacity.

Um, currently I'm the Chief marketing Officer at Siri Solutions and handle all of our digital strategy, all of our marketing strategy and ag tech. Um, would be part of the responsibilities that I have here at Sir. Gosh, that's a, uh, a big job it sounds like, but a fun one. I hope it's fun. Oh yeah, absolutely.

I have a blast. Awesome. Um, tell me a little about series, if you would. Uh, what types of series of, uh, um, services does SIR provide, that kind of thing. Yeah, so we're a farmer owned, cooperative. Uh, we run about, I dunno, about 500 miles or so from southern Indiana to northern Michigan. Um, we are obviously in the agronomy business.

That's a big part of what we do. So selling inputs to farmers seed, fertilizer, crop protection, uh, precision ag services. Um, we're also, um, in the, um, in the energy business. So, uh, home heat, liquid propane, liquid fuel. Um, and also in the feed business, those are our core. Um, those are our, uh, our core business offerings today.

I would imagine with that set of, uh, services and offerings, you're pretty important to the rural communities that you serve. Is that, uh, correct. In some cases, in some of these rural communities, Kim, we may be the only business left in town. It's, you know, it's one of those transitions that we're currently going through in our rural communities in Indiana and, and in Michigan where.

Um, you know, these are the, um, you know, our, our, our business, uh, is, you know, recruiting talent from these rural communities. That's our customers. Uh, it's where they do business. Um, so finding labor has always has been a challenge recently for. Um, uh, for the cooperatives especially, uh, series and, uh, part of that's due just the decline in population of our rural communities.

So yeah, it's something that we talk a lot about. So, uh, it, would it be too dramatic to say, um, when the cooperative thrives the local rural communities thrive, or, um, is that kind of accurate or is it just me? I don't think that's, I don't think that's too dramatic at all, and I, I actually say that. Uh, you know, agriculture as a whole is so important to our rural communities.

I, I actually think that some people underestimate its importance in, in some of these rural communities. And, um, I know we talk a lot about that, um, in our, in the rural community that I live in. You know, we talk about the, the small junior college or the hospital being a real, in the schools being an important employer, but I think we underestimate the impact the agriculture can have on our, in our rural communities.

So, yeah. Um, no, I don't, I don't think that's, uh, being, uh, too provocative at all. Uh, you and and series have worked closely with us on the American Connection Project, and as, um, our listeners know, that's our, uh, our project to try and. Close the, um, digital divide. And, you know, we have now expanded that into the American Connection Project, broadband Coalition.

We have American Connection Core, we have American Connection Communities. And, um, you, you know, you, I feel like you guys have been involved with us, uh, all along the way. Um, can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah. So what we've done partnership with Land O'Lakes and, and Microsoft and a host of others is, you know, we've started to identify areas of our trade territory that we saw that was being underserved and areas that then cross-referenced.

That was spots where we actually had a vertical assets. And, and where we could actually help solve some of the problem. And, um, it's been, it's been a journey. It's been fun. It's something that we all in the rural communities, it's something that we all have to continue to think about until the job is done.

And, uh, I know, um, you know, I serve on our local, um, actually chair our local rural broadband task force to make our community a, a broadband ready community, because I believe. As we start, if we don't address the digital divide in our rural communities, um, they're gonna, you know, they're, we're gonna continue to lose population.

We're gonna continue to lose opportunities. Um, you know, we're sitting here talking about the adoption of digital technologies and, um, those only are enabled by access to rural broadband. And, and innovation as well. I know you guys have done the, uh, IO ot, um, internet of Things, uh, innovation hub. Um, tell me a little bit about that if you wouldn't mind.

We put up our first Airband project at one of our locations. It was actually, it's one of our seed hubs across our territory, and it's also our tech tech center. So it's a spot where. Um, we already have a group of people or a team of people that are deployed to solve some of these problems that are already existed, this particular location, and it actually happens.

And where is it? It's in Perryville. It's, it's kind of right on the Indiana, Illinois line, um, about, you know, in Western Indiana that that location is actually adjacent to a Winfield United Answer plot. So we were already doing some trial work and um, you know, through the Winfield United Answer Plot program and I was thinking through that one day and I'm like.

We have the, you know, a highly valuable asset by having, um, access to the internet right here at this particular location. Like, why couldn't we just turn that entire field on with wifi? Um, and then we can, instead of just testing hybrids and different types of. Nutritional products and you name it on that, the great work that the answer plot system does, we could actually test out technologies.

I was being, you know, somewhat overwhelmed with technology companies that were consistently reaching out to us, wanting to trial their products. We, we picked out some suppliers and we actually. Their accuracy and scalability, uh, through the crop year 2022. So we, we talk about how, um, technology is, uh, the greatest enabler of our time.

Um, and it, this really sounds like something. That technology enables, it's sort of the, the what that we're hoping to get to with American Connection Project. Um, and when you think about technology and, and farmers and rural community members, um, what specific technologies are you thinking about? Yeah, so I think we have to start with the problem first.

I think that's one of the most important parts of, you know, all of these different technologies that are coming to market and, um. So we looked at, well, what are some of the big problems for our owners, our customers, right? And for Siri solutions. And, um, a lot of that was around like the scalability, accuracy, speed.

How do we address the divide around the, you know, around labor? So if, like, those were the big ones that we were looking to solve for. Um, and then we started evaluating different technology tools as it relates to solving for. A labor problem, right? What, what robot can we test in the field scenario that would be doing a job of a, of a person that, you know, we're right now challenged to find those people.

So, um, you know, start with the problem first, then evaluate the ability of the tech to be accurate, and then it has to scale. You have to be able to. Do it fast. And you, a lot of times that's enabled by the connection to the internet in some capacity. Oh, fantastic. I, so if I am, um, buying food in the grocery store, am I, am I gonna be aware of or impacted by, um, this kind of technology?

I think ultimately we have got to, um, you know, continue to increase our stewardship of, of the land. I think. All of these tools allow us to make better decisions that ultimately I don't believe that the, um, consumer has to be aware of. All of the tools that we're using, they just want a safe and affordable food supply.

Yeah. All of these technologies enabled the safe and affordable food supply to be here. So, um, I, uh, you know, just like all of the tools that farmers use to be successful, um, I think, uh, they all have their place and they all have their, uh, spot Yeah. Uh, to help them, to help everybody really be more, better stewards of the land.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and what are you hearing? Um, what kind of feedback are you getting from growers? So I think they're gonna rely on a partner, uh, to help them, um, make the right decision from a tech, from a technology perspective. They're gonna lean into their trusted advisor. Um, so. They, um, you know, they, they're expecting their cooperative to be almost a filter, like first year funnel.

Like bring all the technology into one spot, filter out the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn't work, and then bring maybe trial opportunities to my farm. And I think that's what we're trying to do through what we're doing here at SIR. And Farmers are, you know, some farmers are very willing to try, you know, be early adopters of technology.

Uh, some of them are gonna say, Hey, maybe bring this to me when it's a little more, um, you know. Uh, more baked, so to speak. The, but, uh, um, I'd say all, you know, all farmers in some way are looking for a, an edge to make them more efficient. And, uh, it's our job to help them uncover what those opportunities look like.

So when you, when you do uncover the opportunities, like it, it seems, as we have with the, uh, land O'Lakes and Microsoft Partnership, what kind of benefits are you seeing both for series and for the communities you operate in? You know, I think it's gonna come down to efficiency. Um huh. Interesting. I, yeah, so I mean, that's gonna sound real business of me to say that.

Uh, but I, I really do think that, not the warmest word, drew. Yeah, I say that. I think really what it comes down to is. The efficiency, it comes down to the ability for us to do our job with less resources. We're, we're hiring robots now to do over 60% of our soil sampling at series solutions because we were struggling to find the people, um, to go, um, get those things done and, um.

And so we just, we just started outsourcing them to robots and they, and now they're, they're, they make up over 250,000 acres, um, of our soil sampling today. So, um, you know, that's just part of the, um, part of the model of, uh, just being, um, leveraging technology. To be more efficient.

This has been such a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it. Uh, drew and I, I end all of our, um, segments with a, uh, kind of a simple and and difficult question. Um, how do you see the future of agriculture? Oh wow. That is a, it's a, that's a beautiful question, Kim, and I think the answer is, um, I, I think it's very positive.

I, I really do think that there aren't, there is not another segment of people that care more about the land and the animals that they're working with than farmers. I think innovation and technology is going to continue to be a major part of the way in which we scale the safe and affordable food supply, um, in a meaningful way.

So, um, I think we're gonna have to do more with less, and we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to leverage tools like this, um, conversation to continue to tell our story. And I really appreciate Land O'Lakes and, and you cam taking the time and the effort, um, to host, um, this Rooted in Tomorrow podcast, I think because I think it does help.

Pull on the thread of the, of the consumer that is buying food at the grocery store to, um, the production side of agriculture. So, well, thank you for the kind words and thank you so much for the time. We really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Thank you for having me. You bet. Wherever you find your podcast, that's where you'll find us rooted in Tomorrow is available everywhere, except maybe the Metaverse for now.

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