Shownotes
Have you ever wondered how the world of technology collides with the world of agriculture? Prepare to be spellbound as we sit down with Robin Vincent, the tech-savvy CEO and CINNO of Canobi Technologies. Robin takes us through his fascinating journey, from his early fascination with technology and his evolution from infrastructure architect to CEO. He paints a vivid picture of his personal project to reduce the mortality rate of stingrays and seahorses, a venture that guided him towards the creation of Canobi.
The conversation takes a deep dive as we explore the company’s growth, challenges, and its unique product offerings. Robin enlightens us about their Agri-agent network, and the relentless testing that takes place in their in-house lab. From the plains of Kenya to the valleys of South Africa, we traverse the rising interest in agriculture, the impact of Canobi Academy's online education, and the exhilaration of being part of a nascent industry. We also touch on the upcoming Green Tech and Innovation Summit conferences and the ripple effects they will have on the industry.
As our conversation winds down, we delve into the innovative world of vertical farming, looking at energy efficiency and the potential of integrating different technologies. Robin talks about the importance of collaboration, the richness of experiential learning, and how Canobi Technologies is empowering farmers with technology. Robin's optimism and excitement for what lies ahead in the vertical farming industry are infectious. So join us on this insightful journey with Robin Vincent!
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Key Takeaways
0:00:20 - Navigating the CEO Journey
0:03:44 - Love for Tech and Electronics Origins
0:21:50 - Ubuntu Wellness and Growing Nutritious Food
0:26:36 - Conference Travel and Networking Discussion
0:33:43 - Energy Efficiency in Farming Innovations
0:39:26 - Loneliness and Challenges of Entrepreneurship
0:43:04 - Importance of Social Component in Organizations
Tweetable Quotes
"I see the world as vastly unfinished... I see solutions, I don't really see problems."
"We learned an awful lot more from our failures than our successes. While we're busy trying to break everything and figure out how not to grow strawberries, we're also trying to figure out how to keep them going."
"Every single human being on this planet could have access to food. We now have the technical ability to grow food anywhere on this planet."
Resources Mentioned
Robin's Website - https://canobiagtech.com/
Robin's Linkedin - http://www.linkedin.com/company/71643741
Robin's Email - [email protected]
Robin's Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/canobitech
Robin's Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/canobitech
Robin's Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/CanobiTechnologies
Robin's Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@canobiagtech
Connect With Us
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Sponsor Links
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Mentioned in this episode:
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
Transcripts
$680 million poured into precision ag last year.
Speaker:Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3
Speaker:months. A food company, not an equipment maker, bought a
Speaker:robotics startup to protect its own supply chain. The deals are
Speaker:accelerating, the money is moving, and the winners are already separating from the
Speaker:pack. If you're investing, building, or buying in this space,
Speaker:you need the full picture before your competitors get it. The 2025
Speaker:Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report From iGrow News is now
Speaker:available. Get your copy today at
Speaker:igrownews.com/precision. Today we grow
Speaker:with a combination of LEDs and lasers. And with LEDs, we cut our
Speaker:energy footprint by probably around 50%, maybe even more. And
Speaker:with lasers, we may be able to get it down to maybe 35%. So, and
Speaker:I don't think we've even scratched the surface yet. I think we're, and we're
Speaker:realizing a lot about the plant. I think a lot of The time there was
Speaker:the assumption that you hit them hard and, you know, keep hitting them
Speaker:hard and hit them all day long. Well, there's not a lot of organic systems
Speaker:that do well under those situations. So we're seeing much more gradual
Speaker:way, you know, uses of energy within the farm as well.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations
Speaker:with fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech
Speaker:visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the
Speaker:world of vertical farming with your host, Harry
Speaker:Duran. Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 9. Regular listeners,
Speaker:welcome back. If this is your first time listening, I'm sure you're in the
Speaker:right place because you were looking for a show where we interview fascinating CEOs and
Speaker:founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the world. And guess
Speaker:what? You found it. I'm your host, Harry Duran, podcasting since
Speaker:2014 with my first show, Podcast Junkies, and founder of Fullcast, our full-service, done-for-you podcast
Speaker:Agency. In case you missed last week's episode, great
Speaker:conversation with Lotte van Thijnen. We talked about her
Speaker:experience in greenhouses, her desire to
Speaker:circumnavigate around the world by water, and all the innovations that
Speaker:have been happening in that industry, and how much experience folks
Speaker:that are coming from the greenhouse side of things are bringing into the world of
Speaker:vertical farming. Very, very helpful and informative
Speaker:episode with Lotte. This week I speak with Robin Vincent. He's the
Speaker:CEO and CINO of Kenobi Technologies.
Speaker:If you've ever wondered how the world of tech collides with the world of ag,
Speaker:then prepare to be entertained with this episode. Robin takes us through his
Speaker:fascinating journey from his early fascination with technology and the
Speaker:evolution from infrastructure architect to CEO. He paints a
Speaker:vivid picture of his personal project to reduce the mortality rate of stingrays and
Speaker:seahorses, which I found super inspiring, and it's an adventure that
Speaker:pushed him towards the creation of Kenobi Technologies. We cover a lot of ground. We
Speaker:talk about the innovations happening in this space, energy efficiency,
Speaker:and the potential of integrating all these different technologies. Together. He also talks about the
Speaker:importance of collaboration, the richness of experiential learning, and how
Speaker:Kenobi is empowering farmers with their tech. Robin's full of optimism for this
Speaker:industry, and I think you'll find his energy infectious. Remember, if you're enjoying
Speaker:this episode or past episodes, I'd love it if you leave a rating or review
Speaker:at ratethispodcast.com/bfp. I'd love to read yours
Speaker:out next. And as always, these episodes are chock-full of great
Speaker:takeaways, and as a listener, I want you to focus all your energy on our
Speaker:conversation Rest assured, you can always visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com to
Speaker:read the full show notes for each episode, which includes all our guest links as
Speaker:well. Excited to be hitting the road at the end of this month,
Speaker:September 2023, as I record this. I'm heading over to the
Speaker:Vertifarm conference in Dortmund, Germany, which is going to be very exciting. I've
Speaker:never been in that part of the country before, and it's going to be an
Speaker:interesting day of travel for me coming from Minneapolis. Listen out for
Speaker:the details in the Sponsorship promo. Okay, enough from me.
Speaker:Before we jump into this uninterrupted conversation with Robin, here are a few
Speaker:words from the folks that support this show. Mark your calendars for the
Speaker:CEA Summit East in Danville, Virginia from September 19th
Speaker:to the 20th, 2023. This 2-day event co-hosted by
Speaker:Indoor AgCon and the Virginia Tech IALR Controlled Environment
Speaker:Agriculture Innovation Center brings businesses and
Speaker:academia together to help you grow your business. Immerse yourself in a full lineup
Speaker:of research showcases, panel discussions, and keynotes featuring top
Speaker:experts, grower operators, and other thought leaders. Explore the
Speaker:latest CEA innovations from tabletop exhibitors. Enjoy
Speaker:quality networking opportunities. Don't miss this unique opportunity to attend a
Speaker:conference at a research facility where you can get a firsthand look at cutting-edge research
Speaker:projects happening right now and explore ideas for collaboration with
Speaker:Virginia Tech and IALR researchers as well. Vertical Farming
Speaker:Podcast listeners can save 10% off the standard passes with code
Speaker:VFP. Visit ceasummit.com for more
Speaker:details and to register. This year, Vertifarm takes place from
Speaker:September 26th through September 28th at the Exhibition Center in
Speaker:Dortmund, Germany. For those new to Vertifarm, it's the most significant
Speaker:trade fair for next-level farming and new food systems. Their international
Speaker:platform is set to showcase the latest developments in innovative
Speaker:controlled production systems for vegetables, salad crops, herbs, and
Speaker:microgreens, As well as sustainable fish, insect breeding, fruit
Speaker:cultivation, and medicinal plants. Vertifarm is shaping the future of
Speaker:vertical farming and new food systems. Reserve your ticket and learn more
Speaker:at vertifarm.de. That's
Speaker:V-E-R-T-I-F-A-R-M dot D-E.
Speaker:So, Robin Vincent, CEO and CINNO at Kenobi
Speaker:Technologies, thank you so much for joining me on the Vertical Farming Podcast. Cool,
Speaker:great to be here. I'm not as familiar with the CINNO role,
Speaker:so maybe start there with explaining a little bit of that for folks that may
Speaker:not know. Well, my background is all technical. This is the first
Speaker:time I'm being a CEO. Okay. So naturally I
Speaker:felt that I was definitely more on the technical side than the CEO side. But
Speaker:over the course of the company, I'm enjoying the CEO
Speaker:role a lot more than I thought I might. But I
Speaker:still like to keep it very clear that I'm still one of the— well, I
Speaker:am the lead technical engineer behind the entire thing. Yeah.
Speaker:And so talk a little bit about folks who may not know your background. I
Speaker:see you've got a long list of leadership positions previous to
Speaker:Kenobi. Without having to go through the entire resume,
Speaker:what are some of the highlights if you think about it in just maybe 10-year
Speaker:chunks of the road that led you to where you are now?
Speaker:Yeah, well, I originally sort of started out life as an electrical engineer
Speaker:or taking an electrical engineering course. So that— and my
Speaker:father was an engineer, which is part of why I went down that path. So
Speaker:I think that gave me a lot of critical thinking and engineering type
Speaker:sort of skill sets. At the time, I was focused in the computer industry.
Speaker:And at that time, the computer industry, the computers were just unbelievably slow.
Speaker:Yeah. So I got more into the infrastructure side and worked my way
Speaker:through most computer departments within
Speaker:enterprises. So storage, networking, and so on and so forth. And a new
Speaker:role appeared in the industry just around the 2000s
Speaker:called an infrastructure architect, which is a multidiscipline role. And I
Speaker:sort of jumped on, actually I didn't jump, my manager suggested the role
Speaker:title to me, which fit what I do very well.
Speaker:But just through natural osmosis, I think you sort of climb the ladder.
Speaker:And I spent the last 15 years in different levels of management.
Speaker:I've always been more, I think, of a shop foreman than a manager. I always
Speaker:liked being out on the shop floor. And even though it's computers and that's, there's
Speaker:not a real floor, but Yeah, I like being out there working with the guys
Speaker:and keeping a bit of a technical role. Yeah. So I always like to
Speaker:think about this because of the era that I grew up. So I was born
Speaker:in 1970, but do you remember your very first computer? Yeah,
Speaker:actually I do. It was actually a portable computer called the Osborne. Oh yeah.
Speaker:And it weighed, it weighed a short, small ton.
Speaker:It had a screen on it about that big. Yeah. Yeah. That was my first
Speaker:portable. My first computer was a laptop. Essentially. Yeah. And yeah, it
Speaker:was pretty cool. I was thankful enough that my father got
Speaker:into computer repairs and he was working at Exxon of all
Speaker:places. And they dabbled in computers for a while. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker:they had a computer called QWIXX, which was an electronic typewriter. It
Speaker:also weighed a ton. It had a little thin screen. You could type one line
Speaker:at a time, do the autocorrect, and then you would enter and it would just—
Speaker:and it was magical at that time. You're like, wow, you can like, you don't
Speaker:need to use whiteout on your typewriter anymore. That was a big improvement.
Speaker:Yeah, 8-inch floppies. And yeah, I remember when they came up with the
Speaker:zip drives. Wow, that was just a massive leap forwards.
Speaker:Yeah, that's quite special. Where did you think your love of
Speaker:technology and then, you know, all things related to computers come from?
Speaker:Well, my father owned an electric computer company, actually a small
Speaker:computer company in England, which is how I ended up getting into electrical engineering
Speaker:because, you know, I wanted to work there. So, but back then you needed an
Speaker:electrical engineering degree to service computers. I mean, that was back when we were using
Speaker:oscilloscopes and troubleshooting chips. And, you know, it wasn't the rip and
Speaker:replace that it is today. So I think that kind of got me
Speaker:started for sure. But I think just being around
Speaker:both my parents, they're both quite creative people. My father's an engineer. My
Speaker:mom's just a creative human being. So I just always
Speaker:had this wide-eyed approach to everything and just see the world as vastly
Speaker:unfinished. And yeah, just, I see solutions.
Speaker:I don't really see problems. That's a great perspective. Have you always been like a
Speaker:tinkerer when it comes to tech and electronics?
Speaker:Always. I think my mom told me once that they bought me, made the
Speaker:mistake of buying me a little home sort of saw and
Speaker:hammer at one point. I don't know how old I was, but, you know, decided
Speaker:to quickly dismantle my climbing frame the moment my parents were
Speaker:back. I've been taking stuff apart since I can
Speaker:remember. Yeah. I'm getting better at putting it back together again. So that's a good
Speaker:point. That's the, that's the good side. It reminds me of when I was younger,
Speaker:we would get, we would buy furniture and I would be the first one to
Speaker:race to my parents and volunteer and put everything out on the
Speaker:floor and, and the paper and just organize all the tools and
Speaker:everything. Make sure everything that was in the sheet was included and then get to
Speaker:work like a huge puzzle piece or something to work on. Yeah. You
Speaker:mentioned this idea of enjoying your time on what you call the shop floor.
Speaker:Is it important for you to always, you know, in terms of the teams you
Speaker:manage and the companies you're working at, to really have that understanding of
Speaker:the work that's being done? And so that you can
Speaker:understand as you manage people who are doing those jobs, that you can
Speaker:speak their language and they also feel the connection with you because they know that
Speaker:you've also done the work as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's lots of different
Speaker:management styles. And my style definitely is orientated
Speaker:around understanding the content. And being able to get in
Speaker:there, you know, roll the sleeves up and get in there with the guys and
Speaker:help them fix problems. It's also where I
Speaker:get a lot of the enjoyment. I enjoy being in the deep end. I enjoy
Speaker:learning. I enjoy solving problems. So
Speaker:management is its own set of problems and skill sets.
Speaker:But I would say I definitely get a lot more enjoyment out of fixing and
Speaker:solving, you know, real-world problems. Yeah. Where do you think
Speaker:your management style comes from? Were
Speaker:there relationships with mentors or previous bosses that were
Speaker:inspirational in your growth? Absolutely. Yeah. I wouldn't
Speaker:actually be even attempting. I think I've been told in the past, and it's probably
Speaker:true, that I'm a better leader than I am a manager, for one. So I
Speaker:don't think management has ever come naturally to me, but I've been
Speaker:very, very lucky and very fortunate in my career to work with some really good
Speaker:managers. And I think that's the way life is. You sort of, you know, you
Speaker:take in pieces that you recognize you want to be
Speaker:like and integrate them into yourself. And I've been very, very
Speaker:lucky in that case and worked with, you know, I would say the majority have
Speaker:been fantastic. Yeah, even exceptional. I've been very
Speaker:lucky. That's great. As you think about where you
Speaker:were as you were moving into getting Kenobi
Speaker:started, can you take us back to that time? It looks like it's around
Speaker:2019. You know, what was— I'm a big fan of origin stories,
Speaker:so I'm curious about like how you were thinking about the inception of
Speaker:Kenobi and what was going through your head. your mind at the time? Yeah, it's
Speaker:a bit of a long story, but I'll try and keep it really short. So
Speaker:essentially, actually, Kinobiko goes back to 2001. It
Speaker:was absorbed into aquariums, into freshwater, you know,
Speaker:sort of hit the max on that, then got into saltwater and very
Speaker:quickly found out, you know, it sort of started going up in terms of the
Speaker:more difficult species to keep. And very quickly realized that the
Speaker:mortality rate for stingrays and seahorses, which I had sort of started looking at,
Speaker:was around 70% in the home aquarium industry.
Speaker:And to be honest with you, I just thought that was disgusting and
Speaker:actually didn't even want to be a part of it if that was the norm.
Speaker:But at the same time, I've always enjoyed that area.
Speaker:So I just kept at it and thought, well, you know, this is
Speaker:obviously probably most likely transplant shock. So
Speaker:started building a system to monitor what a fish
Speaker:tank probably should be based on the data that was available in terms of the
Speaker:ocean. Got that there and then started building up a system
Speaker:that would line 2 fish tanks together and then started
Speaker:sharing the data with some suppliers that I was buying
Speaker:seahorses and stingrays from. And collectively, through
Speaker:sharing data and lining up environments, we were able to drop that mortality rate about
Speaker:40%. And that software continued to run my
Speaker:aquariums and still does today. In
Speaker:2014, I decided I had this novel idea
Speaker:that I was going to build a little permaculture orchard because I wanted to— we
Speaker:have a farm. So I did that. And I actually, it was funny, I was
Speaker:still working full-time, but I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it a lot more
Speaker:than I thought I would. And there was the final sort of movement of
Speaker:QNX and BlackBerry. I was with QNX at the time. And an
Speaker:opportunity came up for me to, you know, step out on my own
Speaker:or, you know, move over to BlackBerry. And I decided to step out on my
Speaker:own. And I just thought, well, you know, I
Speaker:think we're there. I think we can probably use all of the
Speaker:experience I have in, you know, managing data centers and environments and
Speaker:apply everything I've learned in my career to the
Speaker:indoor farming volume of air and see what I could do. And
Speaker:of course, at the time, most of what was going on was in indoor, it
Speaker:was in medical cannabis. We ended up, I just worked as a sort of
Speaker:pro services consultant for about 4 or 5 years. But
Speaker:every time I ran into a problem at a client site, I typically
Speaker:built a piece of software or something that would detect it in the future and
Speaker:then potentially even resolve it. And in about
Speaker:2019, it really became obvious that I'd
Speaker:actually built a product. And I hadn't, didn't even have a website,
Speaker:just was still sort of running around word of mouth and
Speaker:decided, okay, I'm going to try and commercialize this. What was
Speaker:also a big inspiration for me was in 2014,
Speaker:you know, one of the reasons why I've gone into permaculture was I was just
Speaker:getting a little tired of, you know, buying garlic from China and beans from
Speaker:Peru. And I think seeing many of the things that we see in our
Speaker:big department stores today. So I got into it for food, really
Speaker:spent that time in medical cannabis, learned an incredible amount. But then
Speaker:COVID happened. And so end of 2019, beginning of
Speaker:2020, we were already doing some work
Speaker:internationally with some of our agri-agents. And COVID
Speaker:happened. And the door just swung wide open on food.
Speaker:And we just raced right through it. So it was sort of the
Speaker:beginning of our commercialization. And also with COVID
Speaker:it was a big incentive incentive for people to start looking at how they handle
Speaker:food sovereignty, food and food security.
Speaker:And I felt that a lot of that could be handled with what we were
Speaker:up to. And we're— we've switched from about 95%
Speaker:cannabis customers to now we're about 70% food. Oh, wow.
Speaker:Yeah. So it's— that's sort of the origin of what is
Speaker:Cannobie today. We're still happy to have medical cannabis
Speaker:customers. We've never really dealt much on the rec side. We're really
Speaker:about crop-over-crop consistency and some of the things that are very interesting or even
Speaker:requirements of the medical space. But
Speaker:we're involved in projects now all over the world— Africa, Middle East,
Speaker:here, a little less in Canada. Canada, though, this year I've really seen an
Speaker:upturn. I think a lot of people now are really starting to focus on food
Speaker:and where they buy food. Yeah. We are really focused,
Speaker:laser-focused on mid-sized farms. We do have some larger customers,
Speaker:and of course we're not going to turn them down, but We are very
Speaker:focused in terms of new business in the mid-sized farm. I think it's got a
Speaker:great deal of social value. It creates the jobs. I
Speaker:think it's got its own challenges, which is great. It's a very challenging area.
Speaker:And I like dealing with those size of businesses. So it's, yeah, that's where we
Speaker:are today. What were some of the challenges specifically for you
Speaker:as you were getting Kenobi off the ground in terms of building the team? Did
Speaker:you already have an idea what that makeup would look like? Did you know the
Speaker:specific roles you were trying to fill? I'm always curious about those early days.
Speaker:No, I don't think so. But I've been very lucky in the sense that
Speaker:I had a good group of advisors around me. And to be honest
Speaker:with you, that's— there's been times at very early stages I didn't.
Speaker:Doing this alone, you know, entrepreneurs, I think, generally face this
Speaker:issue that, you know, you just can't talk to anybody about what you're going through.
Speaker:Very difficult. It's quite a lonely business. So having a good group
Speaker:of people around with a very diverse set of experiences just been fantastic.
Speaker:So that's helped me decide, you know, or to preempt where
Speaker:the weaknesses might be. But we also took the decision
Speaker:very early on to try and do this with revenue and debt, essentially,
Speaker:rather than going sort of a VC route. So in some respects,
Speaker:that's also helped us grow organically. We haven't had this
Speaker:massive cash infusion where we just sort of expand as quickly as
Speaker:we can. It's been quite organic growth. So I think that's also
Speaker:helped us You know, with each decision it's been, okay, where do we have a
Speaker:gap? What do we need to fill? And do we have any redundancy in these
Speaker:areas? For the benefit of the listener who may not be familiar with Kinobi,
Speaker:can you talk about present day what the current offering is
Speaker:and what the split looks like in terms of the markets you're serving?
Speaker:So yeah, so we're very small still. Our Kinobi is
Speaker:primarily a software company. We do provide all of the
Speaker:hardware that our clients would require to run our software. This
Speaker:has just been primarily due to the fact that, you know, the
Speaker:software is only as reliable as the hardware that you run it on. So we
Speaker:do provide all the hardware a client requires. The company
Speaker:itself, while it's a software company, also deals with
Speaker:agri-agents. We decided early on to sell through an
Speaker:agri-agent network. And, you know, for anybody that's not sure what an
Speaker:agri-agent is, if they've ever seen Clarkson's Farm, there's the guy that advises
Speaker:Mr. Clarkson on how to run his farm. That's an agri-agent. So we actually
Speaker:use agri-agents to sell Kenobi for the most part. We do do some direct sales.
Speaker:So because of that, we were involved in farms that
Speaker:had— those agri-agents had their suppliers. So we got to meet a lot of
Speaker:other suppliers. So we are sort of growing in 2
Speaker:ways. Kenobi itself as a product has 3 core components. It
Speaker:has monitoring, so you can monitor air quality, nutrient quality of your farm.
Speaker:Okay. It has an industrial-level PLC automation
Speaker:component. So essentially what you're monitoring, you can also manage.
Speaker:So you can manage your fans, your HVAC, and all of the
Speaker:electronics and components within the farm. And then we also have
Speaker:the business tools, which is a full ERP. So the goal
Speaker:is to move forwards on all 3 fronts so that we
Speaker:essentially can provide to a client all of the technologies
Speaker:within, you know, generally speaking, that they would require to run their farm.
Speaker:It's very modular. The last thing we wanted to be doing was,
Speaker:you know, getting into a situation or conversation with a farmer that he loves a
Speaker:product, but he has to replace it in order to use ours. So we
Speaker:kept it very modular. Typically, when we're talking to clients, we identify the
Speaker:gaps, the places that they want to fix, and we're happy to fill
Speaker:that gap. We're not interested in displacing technologies that they're happy with.
Speaker:So because of that, we typically have a very small
Speaker:landing footprint. We don't— we're not there to take over the whole farm.
Speaker:We do tend to spread quickly. I think when people are faced with data and
Speaker:they look at it and they see what's going on, their natural propensity is to
Speaker:want to control it and do more with it. So we're certainly there to help
Speaker:with that. And it's one of the reasons why we stay
Speaker:with— we're very focused on the mid-sized farms.
Speaker:Because when you start getting up into the much larger farms, the
Speaker:requirements of our business would have to go up in order
Speaker:to meet their requirements. So with a mid-sized farm, we're able to keep our
Speaker:team efficient, relatively small, and we still are a very small team.
Speaker:We're about 13 or 14 full-time, about 30
Speaker:including people around the world that we take on part-time. And we've got,
Speaker:I think it's about 16 or 17 agri-agents worldwide. Okay.
Speaker:I noticed on the blog that you make reference in the post to some of
Speaker:the work that you're doing in your in-house lab. And so it sounds, you know,
Speaker:following up on your comment about using data, I get the sense that
Speaker:you're doing a lot of testing about seeing what works and what doesn't in-house as
Speaker:well. Can you talk a little bit about that process? Well, I've always believed that
Speaker:we learn an awful lot more from our failures than our successes. So,
Speaker:and whilst in the early days, it was very common to have clients who
Speaker:say, you know, yeah, yeah, give me a good deal and you can use my
Speaker:facility for testing. The moment you ruin a crop, that
Speaker:whole positive side of it disappears. So quite early on, we
Speaker:decided to build our own facility. So we have a small 2,500-square-foot
Speaker:indoor farm. And we spend most of our time trying to call it, you know,
Speaker:breaking it, we want to look at what happens when it breaks, identify how things
Speaker:break, what breaks first. And, you know, because of that, we
Speaker:also focus on a lot of very challenging crops. And right now, one of those
Speaker:challenging crops is strawberries. So while we're busy trying to
Speaker:break everything and figure out how not to grow strawberries. We're also trying to
Speaker:figure out how to keep them going. So it's kind of a very cool environment.
Speaker:And I'm like that. I have been on my whole career. And everybody that works
Speaker:for the company is like that. We're all fail fast. Yeah. And
Speaker:I completely support the trying of new ideas. How do you make decisions
Speaker:about what to work on? I saw a post about your 27-day bean and your
Speaker:Glacier tomato as well. You know, there seems to be no limit to all the
Speaker:things you can do. But I think at some point, you have to make a
Speaker:decision about What makes the most sense for your efforts? Yeah,
Speaker:so I'm very clear about our efforts in the sense that we are all
Speaker:here to improve Cannobis product. Okay. But
Speaker:if I was the only person that was driving what we grow, how we grow
Speaker:it, I think I'd probably be limiting the company. So a lot of these, like
Speaker:the 27-day bean, is actually one of our employees that
Speaker:I just told everybody, look, go out and find the weirdest stuff, constantly find
Speaker:the weirdest stuff. We'll try and grow it. You know, if we don't think it'll
Speaker:fit in a vertical farm, we'll try and grow it in a vertical farm. Farm.
Speaker:And we'll just constantly try things and we'll see what works and what doesn't. So
Speaker:there's a side of the business that's, you know, planting all kinds
Speaker:of different things and seeing how they grow. But the real
Speaker:focus is on the environment profiles, what grows
Speaker:with what, what can grow in the same nutrients. There's no doubt that the
Speaker:vertical farming and indoor farming industry is very new. And
Speaker:I think that there's a lot of data coming out of universities, very useful data,
Speaker:But much of that data, you know, it's not combination data. It doesn't say,
Speaker:well, hey, if you want to grow strawberries, you can't grow something else with them.
Speaker:Yeah. Or nothing else will grow in that environment. So we regularly
Speaker:grow lettuce with strawberries, strawberries with
Speaker:eggplants to see what works, what doesn't. Do
Speaker:the timing still hold? Do they grow slower or faster?
Speaker:And this is just a part of us having the lab. It would be for
Speaker:naught if we weren't trying to grow things. So yeah, the
Speaker:employees pretty much have free rein actually as to what we try and accomplish
Speaker:on that side of things. We also feed everybody from the lab.
Speaker:So we have, I met a fantastic group called
Speaker:Ubuntu Wellness in South Africa. They produce a recipe book
Speaker:that is based on rolling back diabetes and
Speaker:hypertension from using very basic natural foods that grow in Africa.
Speaker:So I came back and said, okay, here's the book. Let's figure out how
Speaker:much of this stuff we can grow in our lab. And let's cook lunch for
Speaker:everybody every lunchtime, because part of just growing plants,
Speaker:you don't necessarily decide to harvest them at the time to eat
Speaker:them because you're there to grow them. I mean, we grew a 2.5-foot diameter
Speaker:lettuce at one point. It wasn't very good, but we grew it.
Speaker:Yeah. So that kind of forced us into a pattern of, okay, well, we're growing
Speaker:it, but we want to make sure that we were— when are we harvesting it?
Speaker:Are we harvesting it early or late? And because now we're eating it, well,
Speaker:that's driven a lot of those, that data. So yeah. What
Speaker:drove the trip to South Africa and in general, the work you're doing
Speaker:in other countries? I don't know what drove it. Well, I think life
Speaker:drove it. You know, I would meet people and they would say, hey, you got
Speaker:to come here and speak at this show. And that was
Speaker:a lot of last year, actually. I have been in South Africa.
Speaker:I was there when I was a kid. That was 1976. I don't
Speaker:remember a lot about it, but I remembered it as a very beautiful country. My
Speaker:uncle lived there for most of his life. Okay. So, I
Speaker:already kind of had a propensity to want to go back and kept running into
Speaker:these people. And, one of the people that I'd run into wanted
Speaker:to grow— it was a grower in South Africa who was looking to grow
Speaker:strawberries in a vertical farming system we had in our lab. And, because of the
Speaker:way Kenobi's built, we can deal with remote growers. So, I said, okay,
Speaker:You grow the strawberries in our lab. I'll come down there. He's an
Speaker:agri-agent of ours now, and I'll meet some of your clients. So I went there,
Speaker:and as it turned out, we are dealing with— our lighting partner is now
Speaker:from South Africa. And we have a product called the
Speaker:MicroFarm, and that is actually manufactured, part of it, in South Africa as well.
Speaker:So going there actually led to a whole ton of benefits.
Speaker:Has that opened your eyes to the opportunities that might be available in
Speaker:markets where people may not be paying much attention? Absolutely.
Speaker:And, you know, I often bring up the fact that,
Speaker:actually, I shouldn't say fact, because I don't know how much verification I've done on
Speaker:it. But I have, I heard once that around 100 years ago, we
Speaker:had, you know, farming in North America hired more people than any other
Speaker:vertical. And today we have more inmates than we have farmers. So
Speaker:that's the part, I'm not sure that that's a fact, but I've heard it more
Speaker:than once. And what's interesting is I'm up on the stage
Speaker:talking about this thing. And I realized, you know what, We're all running around building
Speaker:farms right now, but what we're actually not doing is building farmers.
Speaker:And if you look at, you know, Canada, we still don't have a lot of
Speaker:controlled environment, if any controlled environment courses in our universities yet.
Speaker:Colleges are coming up fast, and yet we're doing controlled environment
Speaker:agriculture through cannabis for 20 years. So one of the
Speaker:things that I think has really not so much been
Speaker:surprising maybe, but it's certainly eye-opening.
Speaker:Is the access for people to learn new
Speaker:skills and their interest in agriculture. I mean, sure, it's
Speaker:driven a lot by what happened with COVID but I think also
Speaker:there's a lot of people that want to rebuild the relationship with their
Speaker:food and through farming as part of that
Speaker:revenue or that avenue. And I
Speaker:also think we're 70% women, I think, in Kenobi
Speaker:at the moment. I've also noticed that there's a great deal of interest
Speaker:from women around the world. Yeah. We put up our
Speaker:Kenobi Academy online and we've noticed that,
Speaker:you know, there are people signing up from South Africa just to go through our
Speaker:public courses. So there's obviously a real desire
Speaker:for maybe people that don't necessarily have access to schools or the
Speaker:money to go through education that are now realizing that online
Speaker:they can. So it's a big part of what we're doing actually is focusing on
Speaker:education. We built the Kenobi Academy to train our customers,
Speaker:But actually have realized it could be a really useful tool for anybody to learn
Speaker:how to do controlled environment agriculture. Makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:I saw that your team was also at Vertifarm last year. I'll actually be attending
Speaker:this year, so I don't know if you'll be returning, but it'd be nice to
Speaker:connect if we do. Yep. Yeah, we're— the next big one
Speaker:for me is Green Tech, which is next week. Yes. And then
Speaker:we're at the summit, the Innovation Summit in New York in 2 weeks.
Speaker:Oh, and I'll be in there. I'll be there as well. Oh, perfect.
Speaker:Awesome. Yeah, I'm probably going to travel a little less than I did last year.
Speaker:Last year was— I love traveling, but I got to admit, by the end of
Speaker:last year, I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, that's a
Speaker:lot. Yeah, we're going to spend some time at home. How do you feel about
Speaker:the conversations you have there? Because I noticed you get to slow down and shake
Speaker:hands. And for me, it's helpful because I get to meet some of the guests
Speaker:that have been on the show, but I also get to meet— come home with
Speaker:with 10 or 15 new guests that are potentials for the show as well. And,
Speaker:and what's your experience been connecting with folks at these types of conferences? I
Speaker:think it's great, actually. My gears have shifted. In, in the
Speaker:past, I was part of other companies that I did shows, and I was like,
Speaker:yeah, geez, I don't know how much value we get out of this. But at
Speaker:a lot of the shows we did last year, I did a lot of speaking,
Speaker:so I saw a different side of it, and we got a lot of value
Speaker:from that and a lot of, a lot of interactions with I'm
Speaker:not naturally the type of person that walks up to strangers.
Speaker:So I don't tend to meet as many people as some of our salespeople do.
Speaker:But I think it's incredible to be, you know, I don't know how many
Speaker:opportunities you get in your life to be at the beginning of an industry.
Speaker:And so it's really wild. You know, it's, it's very cool. There are so
Speaker:many great ideas out there. There's so many great products and people that are
Speaker:working really hard. It's really cool. Yeah, it's been
Speaker:exciting, really, right, for me, because I actually started it in
Speaker:March of 2020, the show. So think about timing, just
Speaker:before COVID hit. And it wasn't intentional, but all the
Speaker:things that happened because of COVID to your point, and
Speaker:supply chain disruptions, access to fresh food deserts,
Speaker:all this became top of mind. And so I'm grateful to have been at the
Speaker:right place at the right time and just along for the ride as well, because
Speaker:it's been really exciting to see all the development that's been happening. Yeah,
Speaker:I know it was very, very difficult for a lot of people.
Speaker:But for us, actually, I think it's been good. And I think, you know, the,
Speaker:the sort of outcome of this is to decide what we want to learn from
Speaker:it and what we take away from it and what do we want to go
Speaker:back to. And I hope and believe that
Speaker:we've identified some gaps in our food chain in terms of where we get our
Speaker:food from. And I think there's a lot of opportunities to fill
Speaker:those gaps and meet those needs, reduce the field to plate.
Speaker:And, you know, it saves quite a bit. But I'm really excited about the fact
Speaker:that, you know, one of the 3— one part of the
Speaker:problem is, I believe, fully now solved, is that
Speaker:technically speaking, every single human being on this planet
Speaker:could have access to food. Yeah. We now have the technical
Speaker:ability to grow food anywhere on this planet. Yeah. It's really
Speaker:exciting. Money and political will. Yeah. And
Speaker:obviously with new industries, there's a lot of hype,
Speaker:and we've seen a lot of news about companies getting a ton of funding. And
Speaker:to your point earlier about companies that receive VC
Speaker:funding, and we've seen how some of those have turned out, not necessarily for the
Speaker:better. So there's a lot of interesting, I would imagine,
Speaker:attention from the outside, people seeing, again, trying to decide if this
Speaker:is a fad. Is there What do the cycles look like specifically for this?
Speaker:So I want to talk about some of the things that maybe people don't talk
Speaker:about much in vertical farming, and it's something they get highlighted in articles
Speaker:outside the industry. Let's talk a little bit about the use of energy
Speaker:and the energy footprint in these vertical farms and what your take on that is.
Speaker:I think when this all started, I mean, well, for me, when it all started
Speaker:even back in 2014, indoor farming was
Speaker:probably, you know, incredibly inefficient. In many respects. A lot like
Speaker:a data center is at times, you're putting energy into the computing
Speaker:part and you're paying to cool it. It's a sort of lose-lose. And
Speaker:farming was, is very, at that time was very similar. But the thing
Speaker:is that not so much maybe in Canada, but in a lot of other parts
Speaker:of the world where there are power issues and there are resource
Speaker:constraints more than we have here, there's been a tremendous
Speaker:amount of innovation. That have brought down the energy footprint of an indoor
Speaker:farm. And on the other side of that, you have the renewables
Speaker:coming up in efficiency. So, you know, we
Speaker:ourselves, you know, started out the same way as everybody else. We were growing with
Speaker:metal halide or sodium lights, horribly
Speaker:inefficient, ton of IR, you know, pain all through the nose for the HVAC to
Speaker:get rid of the heat. Today we grow with a combination of LEDs and
Speaker:lasers. And with LEDs, we cut our energy footprint by probably around
Speaker:50%, maybe even more. And with lasers, we may be able to get it down
Speaker:to maybe 35%. So, and I don't think we've even
Speaker:scratched the surface yet. I think we're, and we're realizing a lot about the
Speaker:plant. I think a lot of the time there was the assumption that
Speaker:you hit them hard and, you know, keep hit them hard and hit them all
Speaker:day long. Well, there's not a lot of organic systems that do well under those
Speaker:situations. So we're seeing much more gradual way, you know,
Speaker:uses of energy within the farm as well. So We're
Speaker:coming at this from so many different angles that every,
Speaker:I would say every month, there are new products that in some way
Speaker:impact the energy efficiency of an indoor farm.
Speaker:So much so that, you know, we are, we have this thing called a
Speaker:micro farm. It's about 20,000 plants. And,
Speaker:you know, we were looking at the numbers and we want to partner up with
Speaker:a solar energy company, but I thoroughly believe with the
Speaker:energy increases from minerals, we're getting very
Speaker:close to the fact that with a high-efficiency farm,
Speaker:you would actually be better off planting solar panels that could then
Speaker:power the farm, and there would actually be surplus at certain times of the day.
Speaker:Wow. Which is pretty incredible. You know, I don't think we're going to be growing
Speaker:corn indoors anytime soon. But if you look at this from
Speaker:filling gaps, high-margin products, I think it's very much
Speaker:within reach of a profitable business, that's for sure. That's really
Speaker:exciting, especially when, you know, you see a lot of people
Speaker:complaining about their use of energy and then the fact that companies are, you know,
Speaker:greenwashing the benefits of vertical farming in terms of their— and
Speaker:how they mention it in their marketing. But it's interesting to see that the
Speaker:same perspective that you take on testing crops is also an
Speaker:approach you take when looking at different ways to manage and play
Speaker:with new energy options within your farm as well? Yeah,
Speaker:I think I'm not a big fan of silver bullets. I think
Speaker:hybrid approaches, combinations are how we really
Speaker:make a dent in the energy footprint and the ecological footprint. It's
Speaker:really in the combination and our use of lots of different technologies, each
Speaker:of them shaving a little bit off that cost and making things
Speaker:more efficient where we know of a chiller that is out of
Speaker:Korea that, and I mean, there's other people that make them, they're adsorption chillers.
Speaker:They turn waste heat into cooling. So you're not paying as much
Speaker:on the electricity side to do your HVAC. So there's all kinds of things
Speaker:going on all over the world that may or may not be
Speaker:suited for every area. But if you apply them in that
Speaker:area, well, then they can be huge wins. The other side of the coin,
Speaker:of course, is the single-use products. You know, we're out there
Speaker:talking about food security. You know, one of the things that I'm always
Speaker:cognizant of and looking for solutions to is not
Speaker:solving one supply chain issue by building in another. If
Speaker:we build in these multi-use products versus single-use
Speaker:products, well, then we're farming in the sense that farm
Speaker:can run independently as, as much as possible for long periods of time
Speaker:versus relying on more supply chain downstream to keep it running.
Speaker:Where are you seeing the most innovation or areas that have you
Speaker:excited, whether it's around the use of single-use or multi-use products
Speaker:or anything in the energy sphere? Lighting is definitely
Speaker:a keystone component. For every watt you light with,
Speaker:you've got to deal with the heat. Yeah. So lighting is definitely
Speaker:somewhere that I think I see a tremendous amount of innovation. And it's
Speaker:one of the reasons why we're partnered with Radcorp, the company in South Africa,
Speaker:because they are spending a tremendous amount of time innovating regarding,
Speaker:you know, shifting light spectrums and you know, being doing a lot
Speaker:more to replicate what goes on in nature than, than just sort
Speaker:of lights on, lights off. So I think lighting is probably the
Speaker:area that is advancing a great deal
Speaker:and will affect everything else underneath it.
Speaker:Vertical farms in their many iterations, I
Speaker:think, is the real big game changer. We obviously know we
Speaker:have to increase our food output, which generally means food
Speaker:density. And in our vertical farming
Speaker:solution that we partnered up with partners to put together, so it's not ours,
Speaker:we're still a software company. We're very focused on the sort of 8-foot mark
Speaker:so that you're not on ladders and lifts. But I think
Speaker:that will be one of the next big innovations is how do we go up
Speaker:in a meaningful, efficient way? Yeah, I
Speaker:have been seeing some of that innovation happening in the cannabis
Speaker:space. There's a company that I've had conversations with and they're working on
Speaker:a podcast. That's how I'm familiar with what they're doing. It's called PIP, and they
Speaker:are having success with multi-tier installations,
Speaker:double-tier, and I think there was even a triple-tier installation. So obviously
Speaker:experts in the racking space would probably be the first folks who'd be interested in
Speaker:maybe partnering or having conversations around what's the best use of making all these
Speaker:combinations work most efficiently. Yeah, that's it. And I mean, you know, there's
Speaker:the 2 big train of thoughts, which is get the human to the plant or
Speaker:the plant to Yeah. So many verticals are, you know, sort
Speaker:of chairlifts or scissor lifts and so on and so forth. And
Speaker:then there's a lot of, a lot of innovation going on in the whole idea
Speaker:of bringing the trays to the people. Yeah. And I see a lot of
Speaker:innovation in both areas. I think there are a lot of it's really, really cool.
Speaker:You may have a different answer to this next question depending on the day that
Speaker:I ask you, but for now, as of today, what's the tough question you've had
Speaker:to ask yourself recently? You know, I think
Speaker:growth, you know, how do we— finding good people is
Speaker:very difficult. Yeah. So, you know,
Speaker:there's the growth of the business, but that has to be in balance with the
Speaker:growth of the people within the business and bringing people in. So
Speaker:growth is a big one. Finance is another massive one because
Speaker:taking the route that we've taken, which is revenue, is very tough.
Speaker:Yeah. It's a lot tougher than maybe going out to VC. So am I making
Speaker:a mistake doing that? So those are the really big
Speaker:challenges for me. I think it's also probably because I am an
Speaker:infrastructure guy in the backend. So the technology
Speaker:problems don't faze me very much. It's the business,
Speaker:but it's lonely. And, you
Speaker:know, you've got to be honest with yourself. So that's not easy
Speaker:either. Yeah, as a fellow entrepreneur, I can definitely relate to
Speaker:the lonely aspect of the journey and having to figure it all yourself sometimes.
Speaker:And helpful, also helpful to have a peer, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker:your mastermind group, your peers, or folks you can, you know, run
Speaker:ideas by. I think there's something to be said for having people whose
Speaker:opinions you trust is really important. Oh, absolutely. And
Speaker:one of those, you know, that I gotta say, it's just
Speaker:absolutely invaluable for me just recently told me that, you know, in
Speaker:his opinion, running a Fortune 500 was not as difficult as running a
Speaker:startup. And yeah, I mean, some days it's a
Speaker:good thing my office doesn't have any windows in it. I'm on the ground floor
Speaker:as well though, so that's not really gonna help. So I
Speaker:think what I love about your approach, Economy's approach, is the fact that you're always
Speaker:testing things out and you're using data to make really informed
Speaker:decisions. And I think That's probably one of the benefits of folks that work
Speaker:with you is you're always, whether you're looking at crops, whether you're looking at
Speaker:technology solutions or equipment configurations.
Speaker:And so when you think about who would be an ideal
Speaker:client or who would make sense to partner with Kinobi?
Speaker:So the ideal client for us would be anybody that is
Speaker:either entering into this space And we have some very, very
Speaker:small clients with the goal of growth.
Speaker:So I wouldn't say that a guy that wants to grow in his
Speaker:garage or in his shed in the back is probably a good fit for us,
Speaker:but somebody who's building a proof of concept to build out a farm,
Speaker:then that would be a very good customer for us. And
Speaker:that goes all the way up to probably farms in the sort of, you
Speaker:know, 250,000 square foot range. So really
Speaker:mid-sized, small businesses. We talked a little bit
Speaker:about growth and I approach
Speaker:clients in the same way as I approach our business. I
Speaker:really believe if you're getting into this space, and this may not
Speaker:apply to the really big guys, but that you should start small,
Speaker:focus on quality, get a fantastic quality going,
Speaker:find a place to sell it. You probably won't have a problem with that if
Speaker:you've got great quality. And all of the people that I've known have that have
Speaker:followed that path are sold out for every crop they have.
Speaker:And I think that's every business, as you mentioned, that I've seen
Speaker:go straight to the $50, $100 million facilities. It's a much tougher game.
Speaker:I mean, and then we do it all the time. We're always swapping out crops
Speaker:and technologies. And boy, you know, we really run into the wall
Speaker:sometimes. And, you know, doing that at 400, 1,000
Speaker:plants, you can learn a lot from that. But doing that at 1 million
Speaker:plants, I'm not sure That's more of a splat than it is an education. Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, I think that companies that are looking for growth
Speaker:and mid-sized companies are really where we're at. Distributed too. We're
Speaker:involved in a few social programs in Africa
Speaker:that I think is also a great opportunity for us. And then
Speaker:we do have a version of Kenobi now for education for schools.
Speaker:So. I love the fact that you do that as well. Why do you think
Speaker:think the social component is important for you as an organization to be involved in?
Speaker:I think if you're going to contribute, there has to be value other
Speaker:than money. Yeah. And I want to contribute. I
Speaker:think, you know, I mean, it maybe sounds a bit big-headed or arrogant, but I'd
Speaker:like to leave the world a little better than I found it. And it's funny,
Speaker:in the data center world, doing everything I did, I don't, you know, I think
Speaker:I helped, but I don't know that I improved it. I think this is an
Speaker:area where I can And I think when
Speaker:you, like, you know, we've had students come in, come
Speaker:from agricultural families, and you ask them, do you want to be in
Speaker:agriculture? And they'll tell you, absolutely not. Right. Dirty.
Speaker:My parents are exhausted, tired, sick,
Speaker:tractors, no chance. But when they farm from
Speaker:their cell phone tablet for 2 months, it's a
Speaker:completely different thing. Pick a strawberry and actually eat it when it's
Speaker:ripe. It's a whole different environment.
Speaker:And I get, I guess I get a lot of value out of seeing
Speaker:that happen and knowing that if we're actually going to feed the planet and we
Speaker:do it through millions of small farms versus,
Speaker:you know, hundreds of thousands of big ones, I think that's going to hire a
Speaker:lot more people. It's going to drive a lot more innovation,
Speaker:build a lot of more, a lot of financial ecosystems around that. I just
Speaker:see this as a win, a massive win. And we all get to eat good
Speaker:food. Yeah, to boot as well. So
Speaker:as we get close to wrapping up, Robin, one of the things I've been doing
Speaker:is leaving some space at the end of these conversations for you as a
Speaker:platform. A lot of your colleagues, your fellow leaders in the vertical farming
Speaker:space have not only been on the show, but also listened to this show. So
Speaker:is there a message that you have for the vertical farming industry that is
Speaker:top of mind for you now? No. Well, I
Speaker:think we all need to really keep going with what we're doing.
Speaker:I know that there's a lot of negative press at times about indoor farming and
Speaker:controlled environment farming. There's a lot of climatic
Speaker:pressure on greenhouses, and consolidation
Speaker:is always there to help. So I think that
Speaker:my message would be that rather than
Speaker:consolidation, with all of these technology advancements,
Speaker:not just in Kenobi, it's getting a lot less expensive than they may
Speaker:think. They should look for alternatives because there are lots of
Speaker:alternatives out there. Do the homework for sure. But
Speaker:it's not, you know, there's the big guys that are out there. And,
Speaker:you know, I've heard of a lot of clients that have gone there and believe
Speaker:they just can't afford to do this. And that's not the
Speaker:situation anymore. There are a lot of very innovative and
Speaker:very cost effective solutions, including Kinomity. Yeah. One
Speaker:thing that did catch my eye from the blog, and I probably would be remiss
Speaker:if I didn't mention it because AI is the hot topic now, but I did
Speaker:see that you do, you have partnered with Harvest AI, and I'm wondering if you
Speaker:could talk a little bit about your initiative there as well. Yeah, I met
Speaker:Harvest AI actually in Germany, and they're a
Speaker:fantastic group of guys and girls, and they are building an artificial,
Speaker:an AI platform to look at yield. So they're
Speaker:essentially using different technologies to assess
Speaker:the yield of a plant. That's exciting. Yeah, Canopy itself does not
Speaker:have any core competencies yet in AI. And I believe in
Speaker:growing through, you know, partnerships and sort of a
Speaker:modularity. We got along really well, see a lot of things, I
Speaker:think, in the same way. So we sort of have a vector
Speaker:to help them commercialize. And I think what they're doing is
Speaker:absolutely fantastic. I think mid-sized farms are going to need more
Speaker:advanced technologies maybe than even the bigger guys because they're
Speaker:going to be growing more diversity. And they, a
Speaker:mid-sized farm can't necessarily hire a subject matter expert in every
Speaker:field. So they're going to rely on technology a lot more and
Speaker:more of a farm-by-wire model than maybe bigger guys who can.
Speaker:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'm expecting to see a lot of
Speaker:movement in that space as well. So yeah, it's exciting. Yeah,
Speaker:very. Well, Robin, I want to thank you for spending some time with me and
Speaker:for your team for reaching out and making this happen with so many companies in
Speaker:the space. And, you know, I keep saying I thought I was going to be
Speaker:done after a couple of years, and there's just so much innovation happening. So
Speaker:excited to see with my interviews, as at
Speaker:least, but it's so exciting to see all the different facets and all the different
Speaker:ways you're supporting, especially midsize farms, and the approach that you've
Speaker:taken of all the work that you do being backed backed by data
Speaker:and a lot of testing. And I really— and I'm going to encourage listeners to
Speaker:check out all your extensive blog posts. There's a ton of content there. The
Speaker:website is kenobiactech.com, but we'll be sure to include all the links in the
Speaker:show notes. And it's so exciting to see how your career trajectory is almost
Speaker:like prepared you for this moment in time to take advantage of this. And so
Speaker:I'm really excited for the future and can't wait to hear more and to
Speaker:hopefully get to meet in person at an upcoming conference. Excellent. Yeah,
Speaker:no, it's been great. Thank you very much for having me. Okay. Have a great
Speaker:day. $680 million poured into precision
Speaker:ag last year. Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John
Speaker:Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3 months. A food company, not an
Speaker:equipment maker, bought a robotics startup to protect its own supply chain.
Speaker:The deals are accelerating, the money is moving, and the winners are already
Speaker:separating from the pack. If you're investing, building, or buying in this
Speaker:space, you need the full picture before your competitors get it. The
Speaker:2025 Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report from
Speaker:iGrow News is now available. Get your copy today at
Speaker:igrownews.com/precision.
