Ag innovation, explained through real operators.
Future of Agriculture treats agriculture as a working industry, not a slogan. Its conversations move from beans, fertilizer, poultry and livestock, gene editing, and farm policy into the choices farmers, founders, and agribusiness leaders actually face.
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Future of Agriculture is an interview-driven show about the business, technology, policy, and people shaping modern agriculture. It treats the future of food as a practical operating question. The show’s best episodes start with something tangible: a dry bean club with 30,000 members, a fertilizer price shock, a Nebraska farmer talking to his fields through AI, or an autonomous drive for poultry and livestock. From there, the conversation widens. A niche food business becomes a case study in direct customer relationships. A fertilizer update becomes a lesson in geopolitics, just-in-time demand, crop mix decisions, and farmer risk. A gene editing episode turns pitless cherries, compact blackberries, and faster breeding cycles into a broader discussion about adoption by farmers, regulators, and consumers. The pacing is calm. The questions are usually there to clarify, translate, and push toward real-world implications rather than to compete with the guest. That makes the show unusually useful for listeners who want agricultural innovation without the sales pitch. It pays attention to founders, but also to constraints. It follows technology, but asks what it costs, who uses it, and what market or policy structure stands around it. Recent episodes cover mental models for agribusiness leaders, farm policy and agricultural exceptionalism, direct-to-consumer food brands, agrivoltaics, AI at the farm gate, autonomous livestock systems, gene editing, and agtech collaboration in California. The show also has a healthy respect for farmers as experimenters, not just end users. It notices the difference between an exciting tool and a tool that can survive a farm budget, a banker conversation, or a tough commodity cycle. For PlayNext listeners, Future of Agriculture works as a thoughtful map of where agriculture is changing and where it is still stuck.
Made for: For farmers, agribusiness leaders, agtech founders, investors, policy watchers, and food-system listeners who want practical context behind agricultural change. It also suits curious non-specialists who can handle industry detail when it is tied to clear examples.
What sets it apart: Future of Agriculture stands out by pairing optimistic curiosity with operational scrutiny. It gives founders, farmers, analysts, and policy thinkers room to explain the hard parts: adoption, economics, trust, regulation, and market timing.
This show explores the people, companies, and ideas shaping the future of the agriculture industry. Every week, Tim Hammerich talks to the farmers, founders, innovators and investors to share stories of agtech, sustainability, resiliency and the future of food. We believe innovation is an important part of the future of agriculture, and real change comes from collaboration between scientists, entrepreneurs and farmers. Lead with optimism, but also bring data! For more details on the guests featured on this show, visit the blog at www.FutureOfAgriculture.com.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Future of Agriculture makes the economics, trade-offs, and commercialization challenges behind agricultural innovation unusually concrete.
Future of Agriculture follows agricultural decisions from field economics into company strategy, public policy, and crop technology. Tim Hammerich conducts interviews through practical questions: what a choice costs, which trade-offs it creates, and what must happen before an…
A 30,000-member bean club makes your commodity-crop assumptions look a little undercooked.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how taste, story, and customer trust built Rancho Gordo's bean club.
Future of Agriculture follows how Steve Sando built Rancho Gordo around a direct-to-consumer bean club instead of the commodity system. The appeal is practical as much as romantic: a club that began with a couple people has grown to 30,000 members, with 35,000 more waiting and…
Shane Thomas makes agribusiness strategy concrete through influence erosion, focus, and the cost of choosing a direction.
Future of Agriculture uses Shane Thomas's 33 Mental Models for the Modern Agribusiness Leader as a practical way into how agribusiness leaders sort ideas in a more technological market.
A grounded look at how fertilizer volatility affects crop plans, input rates, timing, and farm economics.
Future of Agriculture turns fertilizer economics into a farm-level operating question, linking volatile supply, demand, and geopolitics to crop planning before planting.
A clear, historically grounded look at why farm policy stays stuck and why overproduction makes reform harder.
Farm policy's resistance to change gives the episode a useful spine. It looks at why a sector transformed over the past three decades still leans on direct support, including bridge assistance and ECAP payments, and connects that pattern to agricultural exceptionalism and…
Gene editing gets a practical business test, from compact blackberries to a cherry tree that fruits in 14 months.
Gene editing lands here as a practical agricultural-business story, with Dr. Tom Adams of Pairwise explaining how genome knowledge and data-heavy tools can help breeders identify genes connected to useful crop traits.
A grounded look at the long work of turning pangamia from promising tree crop into a commercial technology platform.
Terviva founder Naveen Sika frames pangamia as a possible alternative to the heavy reliance on soybeans and palm for protein, fat, fiber, food, feed, and fuel.
A grounded look at how underground data can support better input timing and a clearer farm business case.
Farm technology earns its attention here by making the root zone easier to read in real time. Bruce Moeller, AquaSpy's CEO, frames the system as a way to make below-ground decisions less reactive, using measurements of soil conditions and available nitrate while AI sorts…
Practical conversations for working agriculture.
Two farm stories a week, explained properly.
Greenhouse reality, from crops to capital.
Tim Hammerich interviews Naveen Sikka, founder of Terviva, about commercializing the pangamia tree as a new crop for bioenergy and plant-based protein.
Tim Hammerich interviews Bruce Moeller, CEO of AquaSpy, a company providing in-ground sensors to monitor soil conditions in real time.
David Doll, an almond grower and expert, discusses the challenges and opportunities in almond farming, focusing on management, economics, technology, and regenerative agriculture.
Tim Hamrich introduces a podcast episode from Corteva Agriscience's 'Agriscience Explained' series, which explores how ag innovations are developed and applied in modern farming.
Dry beans become a direct sales business.
Tim Hamrich and Shane Thomas center the episode on Shane's "33 Mental Models for the Modern Agribusiness Leader" post from Upstream Ag Insights.
Future of Agriculture uses this interview to map why urea and phosphate prices are swinging while U.S.
Zach Smith of Stock Cropper pivots from selling autonomous grazing systems to large row crop farmers to targeting backyard chicken and homestead producers.
Nebraska farmer Quentin Connealy discusses how AI, automation, and agrivoltaics are transforming his farm operations and profitability.
Jonathan Coppess, an agricultural policy professor at the University of Illinois and former Senate Agriculture Committee counsel, argues that farm policy is still "stuck" after 30 years.
Tom Adams, CEO and co-founder of Pairwise, says the company uses CRISPR, genome sequencing, and data mining to make precise plant changes that older breeding methods could only reach slowly.
A discussion about the Ag Tech Alchemy quarterly digest and the challenges and opportunities for startups in agriculture technology.
Ag economist David Widmar discusses the state of the farm economy in 2025, highlighting three big risks and strategies for navigating the current down cycle.
Colin Hurd discusses how Mach helps small and mid-sized farm equipment manufacturers integrate smart technology into their machinery.