Friedberg describes Koch Industries as a family business founded in 1940 with 120,000 employees across diverse sectors in 60 countries.
“It's a family owned business based out of Wichita founded in 1940 by Fred Koch with businesses ranging from energy, agriculture, chemicals, building products, consumer products, even cloud computing, and a very active minority investment portfolio a 120,000 plus employees, that statistic might be off across 60 countries.”
Friedberg reports majority of US farms lost money last year without federal support payments and bailouts.
“I've heard reports that the vast majority of US farms lost money. You're on the senate ag committee, which is why I'm asking this.”
Friedberg asks how to fix agriculture so farmers can earn a living without government checks.
“Do think we have a path to fixing agriculture in this country? And how do we get farmers back on track where they can earn a living without requiring checks from the government?”
Friedberg's Climate platform reached 10 million acres with free software before monetizing through premium seed and fertilizer recommendations.
“And then we had the idea of charging for certain add ons, certain models. Like, it would recommend what seed to use and recommend what fertilizer to use”
Friedberg states his Climate software now covers 200 million acres globally and runs on 80% of US farm equipment.
“And I think 80% of harvesters and tractors in The US have an iPad that runs that software, and it's connected to the farm equipment.”
Friedberg explains agriculture startups are hard because seasonal cycles mean only one sales attempt per year of capital.
“Agriculture, I tell people, is difficult because you have a seasonal cycle, you only get to sell once a year. You don't know until the end of the year how it's going.”
Friedberg's investors told him not to build software for agriculture, advice he ignored to create Climate's success.
“I was really convinced that building software for agriculture could work and should be the future, and we should do that.”
Friedberg explains missing an ag sales window by days means waiting a year versus enterprise software's continuous selling.
“I mean, always tell people like at Climate Corp, if you miss your sales window by a couple of days, you got to wait another year.”
Friedberg notes the $100 billion global potato industry relies on inefficient vegetative propagation instead of seed.
“So the global potato industry is about 100,000,000,000 a year. And, I'm not sure if you guys have ever visited a potato farm, but potato farm potatoes are vegetatively propagated.”
Friedberg explains Ohalo's system replaces 2.5 tons per acre of leftover potatoes with less than 10 grams of seed.
“They're farmed vegetatively, so you actually chop up leftover potatoes and put them back in the ground in order to grow potatoes, like Matt Damon does in The Martian.”
Friedberg's system replaces two and a half tons of potato planting material with less than ten grams of seed.
“And with our system, you can put less than 10 grams of little tiny seed to replace that two and a half tons of potato.”
Friedberg says boosted breeding enables true seed propagation in crops that currently rely on vegetative propagation.
“So it unlocks a significant yield gain and it creates new opportunities for creating seed products in markets where it doesn't exist.”
Friedberg explains potato farmers dedicate 10% of harvest to replanting, requiring substantial fuel and labor resources.
“Potato farmers today use about 10% of their harvest to replant leftover potato vegetative biomass back in the ground. That's how they're doing planting.”
Friedberg cites estimates that US strawberry farming labor costs tripled from $700M to $2B annually in four years.
“Someone quoted me this, so I'm simply stating their quote. I don't have direct data that I'm representing here, but their estimate is that the the labor cost in strawberry farming in The United States has grown from 700,000,000 a year to 2,000,000,000 a year in four years.”
Friedberg identifies multiplex precision gene editing, soil metagenomics, and biologics as next transformation opportunities in agriculture.
“I do think that there's going be some big opportunities for the next transformation in agriculture in multiplex precision gene editing and in, metagenomics in the soil microbiome, even in breakthroughs in biologics or other platforms that can discover the next, set or the next range of biologics.”
Friedberg predicts the world will be surprised by ag and food productivity acceleration in the next ten years.
“I think the world will be surprised by how much we see acceleration and advancement in productivity in ag and food systems in the next ten years.”
Friedberg sees massive M&A opportunity in genomics and gene editing as they fundamentally threaten big input companies.
“I do think that there's gonna be some big opportunities for the next transformation in agriculture in multiplex precision gene editing, and in metagenomics in the soil microbiome, even in breakthroughs in biologics or other platforms that can discover the next set, or the next range of biologics.”
Friedberg predicts the world will be surprised by acceleration in agricultural productivity over the next decade.
“I think the world will be surprised by how much we see acceleration and advancement in productivity in ag and food systems in the next ten years.”
Friedberg reports seeing 50% per-acre yield increases in plants by simply turning genes on or off.
“having seen how turning certain genes on or off in a plant can extraordinarily expand the productivity of that plant and increase farmers' yields by 50% per acre, by just turning a gene off.”
Tom Bilyeu
“Of that 30,000,000,000 acres, 15,000,000,000 are where we grow stuff. 3,000,000,000 is crops, 12,000,000,000 is animals.”
Friedberg says UN estimates require 50% increase in food production by 2050, driving Amazon deforestation.
“by the year 2050, the UN estimates we'll need to increase global food production by north of 50%. So the way we're doing that is we're eating into the Amazon.”
Friedberg reports 50-100%+ yield gains from boosted breeding technology in initial trials.
“And so we started to do it, and the results were incredible. We saw 50 to a 100% plus gain in yield in the offspring.”
Friedberg notes US farms still use 100-year-old Russet Burbank variety, requiring football-field-sized warehouses for storage.
“we've still been farming Russet Burbank in The US for a hundred plus years. That's a hundred year old variety.”
Friedberg explains Ohalo's core technology converts meiosis to mitosis to stack plant traits without trade-offs.
“But you don't have to make the trade offs like you do in plant breeding today, where you give up other good traits in order to try and stack those two traits together.”
Friedberg states the global potato industry is worth $100 billion annually.
“So the global potato industry is about a $100,000,000,000 a year. And, I'm not sure if you guys have ever visited a potato farm, but potato farm potatoes”
Friedberg states the global potato industry is worth approximately $100 billion annually.
“So the global potato industry is about a $100,000,000,000 a year. And, I'm not sure if you guys have ever visited a potato farm, but potato farm potatoes are vegetatively propagated.”
Friedberg states the global potato industry is $100 billion annually and uses inefficient vegetative propagation instead of seeds.
“the global potato industry is about a $100,000,000,000 a year. And, I'm not sure if you guys have ever visited a potato farm, but potato farm potatoes are vegetatively propagated.”
Friedberg advocates value-based pricing where farmers keep two-thirds of created value, technology provider one-third.
“I generally think that ag products should be built and priced on a value creation system. So, you know, this is the Monsanto pricing model.”
Friedberg notes top US corn farmers get 300 bushels per acre versus 175 average, showing efficiency potential upside.
“And in The Us while the average is one seventy five, there are farmers who regularly get over 300 bushels.”
Friedberg says Ohalo has proven theorized gene editing approach to dramatically increase crop yields.
“And then seeing this outcome that we had theorized, all of that has now been proven with this business.”
Friedberg states global malnutrition rose from 600 million to over 1 billion people since COVID.
“In the last two years since COVID, we've unfortunately seen a reversal in global malnutrition statistics. You know, we were at 600,000,000 people, living on less than 1,500 calories a day just before COVID.”
AgFunder
“Farmers want to pay for value. I want to pay for ROI. I want to spend $8 and get $60 back.”
Friedberg explains why biologicals 1.0 had poor hit rates due to indiscriminate application across different soil ecosystems.
“And so the hit rate for biologicals one point zero in the way that they were being sold in the traditional input cycle inputs model, not very good.”
Friedberg reports the enzymatic starch synthesis system demonstrated nine times higher efficiency than growing corn for starch production.
“Now the efficiency of this system was nine times more efficient than corn, is what they demonstrated.”
Friedberg states that producing 100 calories of animal protein requires 3,000 calories of energy and three years.
“To make a gram of animal protein, or let's say like 100 calories of animal protein, it takes 3,000 calories of energy into a system to make that animal protein.”
Friedberg claims decentralized beverage manufacturing could free up 120 million acres of farmland for natural ecosystems.
“120,000,000 acres of farmland that could be reduced and returned back to the natural ecosystems that we would stop using to grow all this stuff.”
Friedberg says decentralizing beverage production could free 120 million acres of farmland for natural ecosystems.
“120,000,000 acres of farmland that could be reduced and returned back to the natural ecosystems that we would stop using to grow all this stuff. So that's our long term incentive, right?”
Friedberg states that 70% of businesses are affected by weather annually, representing a $4 trillion opportunity in US GDP.
“So years later when I was at Google, I came back to this idea about sort of all the world's businesses affected by the weather, maybe there is something they can do about it”
Friedberg quantifies WeatherBill's addressable market at $6 billion from 160 million acres at $40 per acre.
“There is 160,000,000 acres of corn and soybeans planted just in the Midwest Of The United States. Our product costs $40 an acre. There is $6,000,000,000 of revenue we are going after”
Friedberg says WeatherBill targets $6 billion revenue opportunity with 50%+ close rates on farmers.
“Our product costs $40 an acre. There is $6,000,000,000 of revenue we are going after and our close rate is very, very high.”
Friedberg explains WeatherBill achieves 40% claims frequency versus typical insurance industry's under 3%, creating operational barrier for competitors.
“Those small variations occur to 40% of farmers. So 40% of our farmers getting some money back at the end of the season”