By Cyndie Shearing
The Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge, now in its 12th year, showcases top entrepreneurs developing solutions to address both traditional and new challenges facing America’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities. As nominations roll in for the current competition, it seems appropriate to share what some prior winners have been doing. I recently caught up with a few of them.
Past Ag Innovation Challenge Winners
Matthew Rooda is with 2018 winner SwineTech. Since participating in the competition, the Iowa-based company has graduated from the prestigious Pearse Lyons Accelerator and raised $12 million in capital. The company, which protects pigs through novel technologies that minimize labor and energy use, has scaled operations to manage nearly 15 million pigs in the U.S., Canada and Australia. “Participation in the Ag Innovation Challenge played a pivotal role in our early growth,” said Rooda. “By leveraging both the network we gained and the initial funding, we were able to refine our product, secure our intellectual property and prepare for the commercial launch of our solutions.”