354. TerraForce’s Mike Jacob on farmer-led innovation, solving for the labor gap + jobs to be done

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Agbioscience

This weekly podcast dives into the agbioscience sector, where agriculture, life sciences innovation and cutting-edge technology converge. Agbioscience is an in-depth conversation with leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs across food, animal health. pl...

The Economic Policy Institute estimates there are 2.4 million employees in U.S. agriculture and Purdue finds that 40% of new ag jobs go unfilled. One entrepreneur is turning to computer vision, artificial intelligence and robotics – maybe a little autonomy – to try to address these challenges facing farmers. Mike Jacob, founder and CEO of TerraForce, joins to talk farmer-led innovation, solving for the labor gap and jobs to be done. We get into:   The overview of the farm labor market, its challenges and where TerraForce specifically focuses right now in the specialty melon crop market  What challenges face melon producers when it comes to harvest  How Mike sees this new era of AI and computer vision shaping precision in agbioscience innovation  What TerraForce does, solving labor challenges and how they plan to tackle a real problem facing farmers  Mike gets into seeing his first melon harvest, identifying the problem to be solved and innovating from there  The criticality of melons – yes melons – to make an impact on his community as an entrepreneur  Where the TerraForce product sits today and how regional producers are the critical testbed to the company’s success  TerraForce’s recent fundraise and what it will enable them to do  Mike’s take on the ag’s jobs to be done: ag becoming less optimized and finding ways to become more resilient to big changes