A Year in the Making

Nathan Faleide: Well everyone, I am back with my little podcast finally. My actual agon censored one, which I haven't done for maybe almost close to year. maybe not that far, but probably not that far off. I took a little break 'cause I don't know, just a lot of shit going on. from just the chaos of how my I guess personal consulting world of sorts kinda started to crumble after a deal that went to crap after the new administration got in a fight with Canada, basically. That's what kind of unraveled it and then The ag economy in a weird place, the ag tech sector of everything being even worse, and a lot of uncertainty. add that all in with my wife started her own medical practice with weight loss management. So that was a lot. And then this last fall, the opportunity came up to farm and as probably most of you know. That's kind of what I'm doing right now. so I really haven't just had time to honestly sit down and think beyond the short moments I do on LinkedIn and whatnot and I even really didn't do much on the newsletter except switching mine over from a typed version of this, which I basically actually used this process to record what I wanted to write and then edited it to switching it over to kind of my farm story because I want people that, you know, are in more of the business suite of things, which is most of my followers I guess, to see just kind of how reality is in agriculture. And the reality is it's like weird and random and you know stressful and awesome and all those fun things. That's not what this is. I'm yes, there's elements I'm gonna add into it. Either way, it's gonna be much of what kind of I was trying to do before, which was just talking about the observations and things I'm seeing in the ag industry as a whole, but more tech related and how it relates I mean it will how it relates to my farm, how it relates to other stuff I'm doing, like this whole revamp of things I'm doing under the ag uncensored thing with my ag tech directory and kind of tying the newsletter in with that, tying the Podcast, this one in with that, and then actually a different one, same under this brand, which will be more of a review of the different software and systems through my lens with those groups, how the stuff works. And that's more of like a kind of a hopefully paid gig of sorts because it takes a little more intricate time. This is me just bitching about. stuff or bringing up thoughts and ideas and observations and whatnot of the actic industry. So I knew I had to start this again and I've I don't know maybe I'm just putting out too much crap and I should concentrate on like other stuff, but there's too much to tell as well. And you know everyone's busy so there's a lot of different ways to get out things. and I'm kind of a rare bird where I've seen a lot and experienced a lot, know a lot of people, talk to a lot of people and now farming now there's this added kind of juncture into it that allows me to I don't know, call it out in a little different way. And it's almost like a new superpower too, which this is gonna sound really stupid, although some of you some of you will understand it. Since me starting to say that I'm farming It's like some of the stuff I say people listen to more. There's like more resonance to it. It's the same thing. Same thing I've been saying forever or tone of it. I don't know. I I I knew it could be the case but I wasn't really you know, you don't know till it kind of all kind of hits you in that way. And when I farmed before it wasn't enough to really do much and I d It just was different. It was different times. Fifteen years ago, so totally different time. Although a lot of the same problems that were then are the same now. So anyways, that's a little just where things are at. So you know, I could talk about that even more and I won't. You probably want something to actually think about and how many of you will watch YouTube or not, but It is also when I'm doing this it's five twenty five, so I'm having a beer. Whatever. It's five o'clock somewhere. And it's like okay, what what to talk about? I I've kind of written about the last kind of few weeks of I went to Tech Hub Live, which is kind of a it's a bunch of us in the industry and there's a lot of ag retailers there and it's around that 'cause Meister Media puts it on. It does Crop Life magazine, which farmers have no idea what that is for the most part, but they want farmers there. I don't know, that's a whole nother freaking story. But it's kind of like a reunion gathering therapy session. and while there was like nobody at the booth that allowed us to all talk to each other. And it kind of proved a point that I've been thinking about for a long time is the ag tech industry as a whole kind of needs its own conference. But not not to necessarily promote what they're doing. It's more just to gather. So maybe it's that. I I don't even know it. There's a word for it. I can't even think of it right now. But basically a bunch of like minded people that are in the same area kind of doing the same thing and you know call it a Hootinanny. I don't know. Whatever. Meeting of the minds. But it actually helps us all figure out kind of where we're at, where we're not. How we can help each other work together, how we can like each other. And then also honestly just sharing the stupid things that happen and that we're frustrated about. It's yeah. It's good. It's actually it was good for everyone. Everyone kind of enjoyed it. Even though there was like nobody really talking about client business stuff. It was more how do we kind of work together? I mean, you know, this is one of the reasons I'm trying to help through the directory. I want everything to kinda work. I want an easier place for everyone to find everything 'cause I was having a tough time doing it myself. I was like, just for myself, I'll make this. And I was like, well, might as well share it out, whatever. Who cares? It's not like someone else can't do it. It's just I can put a flare to it. Cause I'm me being in this and I'm cynically controversial or something like that. then there's another local conference, AI, and all that. Anyways, I've written about it. Go read in the newsletter though. So if this bores you and you wanna hear about more than that, go over there. I'm not gonna regurgitate that. But what you know, what what's the the vibe, the interesting things to talk about then? I'll say it this way. It's like s there's been like a turning page in AgTec right now in all of it, honestly. And it's hard to It's hard to explain it exactly because you have to kind of go back to go forward here. But I'll say it like this. Right now, and I've confirmed this with a few people because they felt the same thing. They're like, Yeah, this there's something different. But I can I kinda know why. So curious on your thoughts, I guess. The the industry has little tech sector of it, which I don't know, I know is broad and there's giants in there. It's more of the people. Think of the the feeling, the essence of kind of you know the confidence of what many people are doing. There there's something kind of forming where there's a new level of kind of understanding and trust of where we're actually all at. And this isn't the first time. I think the first time I really experienced it was around that 2009, ten ish area. Cause the years before that, everyone was kind of I mean, everything was new, everything was battling for positioning of who they are, what they are. You know, there's a lot of competitiveness, a lot of Unknowns, you know, people are building things from scratch, clearly, and things had never been done. Things had some things had more focus, some things were better, made more money, some things were harder. I mean, it's all over the place. But by that point in time, I would say most kind of figured out where they were at. And I'm talking from top down, from OEMs to like individual players, you know, even agronomists, maybe even farmers, even at that time, were like. Okay, we we kind of see it what it is. Of course what what wrecked that, 'cause actually things were going well and we all kind of figured our spot and we're trying to kind of figure out to work together was money. Outside money came in. And I've complained about that plenty, so you know, go back to other things I've written if you want to go into that. s it just caused a bunch of chaos. And then a lot of new ignorant players came in, including investors themselves. And it just shifted the narrative of even how everyone kind of dealt with business. And it was just a muck with chaos and stupidity and opportunity and kind of evolution of what it's all became. Course, over now I'll say fifteen years, I suppose about all that kind of chaos brewed, reality set in, you know, we're on the trough of whatever disillusionment, whatever people say. And well especially in the software world. And I would say a lot of other things tied to it, sensors and things. Well, everyone learned that there's like no money in it beyond like breaking even. the ones that did make it big was like I mean it's hype and valuation and weird crap like that. Yeah, good great for them. I mean, that it's not easy either to even convince people that you might be worth more than you are. Or sell a different story. I'm not gonna get into that. There's a morality wave of you know, good intentions to some were not, and manipulation but also honesty. no one's really to blame. We're all human. We all kinda suck at being normal and doing human things. So no blame. Frustrating at times, don't get me wrong, but no blame to those really. But all of that started, you know, it's been trickling down and you know, people getting out, investors saying, Well, this is a stupid industry to be in and you know, it's not working the way they want. It's this long term thing, you know, whenever you're gonna get money back on it, you almost forget about it by the time you would. Which is honestly true, 'cause that's kind of actually just how it works in agriculture. Just slow and repetitive bullshit, really. Until you have a lucky year. That's farming. I I'm I'm hoping I can have a lucky year this year. So far things are going well. So I'm you know, everyone crosses the fingers. corset doesn't always work that way. And for many it didn't, and for some it still's not, and there's plenty that are gonna get out here soon in some form or fashion. I can tell you that. But what's maybe changed it really is I think I mean, really the the the vibe coding. AI coding process. that wasn't really a thing a year ago, not to the extent it is now. Like there's been giant breakthroughs. It's all over the news. Not gonna get into that either, beyond it's a thing. And what it started to do is allow a lot of these groups to well, get their budgets in place, reduce overabundance and overstaffing. Or actually build the things they want or refactor everything they have to something that's just cheaper to run and easier to run and more malleable. And I mean basically everyone's rebuilding their systems right now. Like everybody. Unless they built it on kind of the new world because they're new, because there's like a new there's a new AgTec software like literally every day somewhere in the world. I see It's why I built the directory. It's like, well Go there at least to put it somewhere so people can find it easier because throwing it up on LinkedIn or Twitter or social media on Facebook or whatever it doesn't work. It's not it's not enough. I'm trying to help focus it. That's kinda just I just wanna do it's free to start, so just fucking do it. Okay. that's like changed the entire mood. And it's allowed people to refactor their stuff to the point where they're like, maybe we can implement that other API now because literally we just ask it to do it, in a sense. I mean it's not as simple as that always, but I mean I started doing it myself. That's how I built the directory. I I vibe coded it myself. I tried other ways for other systems, plug and play things, no code stuff. None of it worked. Not to the way I wanted to do it. So sometimes innovation comes when the right timing of other innovation happens. And that's what's starting to happen. Now, this doesn't work in all sides of the ag tech world, what if as many will call it like to a point, yes. the biological side, I guess, you know. formulas and stuff you can test it digitally or something. on the robotics side, you know, still maybe helps with sensors driving itself, some things like that, you know, but it doesn't help necessarily make the business model work or not. That's a long term play too. And some of the other sensor stuff and all that, but I mean all the anything sensored, that data needs to come in somewhere to formulate it. So Regardless, it's with that at the same time of investment going out, basically, you know, code isn't what's valuable. It's not I don't give a shit what you make. Some cool dashboard that has some cool analytics and so many that are like creating these new things. I mean, they're not it's not many from here, they're from you know basically from developers that don't have jobs anymore because AI took their job. And so they just built something that they kind of built within the development house they worked in. So I s I see a lot of it from India, Eastern Europe, some in South America, Indonesia, places like that. I suppose China too, but not as much there 'cause of just China is China. That's where I'm seeing it happen more. So I don't know where that'll all go, but either way, No one wants to really invest in that side of things anymore. So we don't have that to create that's not creating chaos anymore. We can actually kinda like breathe 'cause we couldn't for like fifteen years. Especially this us old guard that have been around. We there's just so much going on. We couldn't like just sit there and talk to each other, like, hey, what but what the hell are we doing? What are we building anymore? do you want to like do that part of it? And that was weird. My my dad, he actually did a booth at the Tech Hub Live, which was info ag back in the day. And he hasn't done it for a while because it was just pointless because there was so much noise. And he's just like, I'll just go, you know, talk. people and kinda soak it all in and whatnot. And that was the right move 'cause it's expensive. but this year we had a little new product that you know and I kinda dabble in it, but To kind of showcase and then me farming too. Like we actually just you know put the two together. It's like, okay, here's what's real, and then here's also what's new and real, and here it's like nobody does it anymore. No one like showcases reality. So and then the new product, which is called super res super resolution, which is enhanced sentinel data from like ten meters to basically one, one and a half meters. It's really cool shit, by the way. Check it out. It just sparked some things. And then people seeing him there, even though he's sixty nine, going on seventy here this fall. People saw the what the real value is. And even for me and others at there and you know I've I've been seeing it slowly more and more is yeah, finally the value isn't the code because it never actually really was. the value is kind of our understanding and time and connections and trust in the industry you work in. understanding the context. That's the value. So for a lot of these groups, just building that tool that maybe was like ours with imagery, or maybe it was like something with yield or something with weather or soils. It doesn't matter. Those tools become like kind of just their own noise and it's like, how about I just and you know no one really makes money on that way. It's like, why not just work with the people that know it? And trust in that and you know, start to modulize all these things and with people rebuilding all their stuff, you can start to modulize it. into a way that actually makes sense. And then it doesn't have to just be for the ag business that everyone's gone to, the B2B, because that's where all the money was. You can start parsing it out to farmers because farmers are starting to vibe code and building a lot of stuff. So I'm part of a group full stack ag Nick Corob started a as I've kind of talked about because yeah part of it with him and some of his old work colleagues and other people we know and Trying to help farmers and individuals teach how to do it. for w to the levels they can. And you know, some are way above and some really cool stuff people are building, but they're not building the like the really complicated stuff. You know, it's one thing to get certain data sets in there, you know, yield imagery as applied, you know, from my John Deere or from some just file that's that way. It's another to ingest it at scale at a process that works for a lot of people that's really just you just say a prompt and it works. It's not the same. Maybe it's getting there. It isn't right now. nonetheless We are getting there. So as I was kind of getting towards is Now things seem to be getting to an actual maybe similar time from the past. That I experience, but also It's kind of a new beginning. And and honestly, it it's a lot because of this AI vibe coding, but it's also, like I said, because of shifts in dynamics of how investors think of this space. And even what I guess many that kind of were ignorant coming in have now learned and understood and you know, they're not they're not new anymore. They're not really startups. Whether they call themselves that or not. It's kind of a it's like a self refresh, maybe. That's a good word for it. So that We're not burdened by like all this other distraction, which I think is good. it's weirder though, because the promises of like what many were thinking of big money and big contracts and you know big acquisitions from giant evaluations, like all of that is dead. It's gone. Not saying some can't still make some good money from it or this or that, but those giant deals don't really make sense anymore. I mean that's all of like software kind of right now, unless there's I don't know. I don't even know what would do it really. if I just think quick. You know, an established group that has a lot of customers and you know good employees that has good consistent revenue. Yeah, I mean I sure. But even that is almost hard. you know, silk really comes down to I think in this kind of new age of ag tech is You know, either you have something that's groundbreaking and have some IP saved around it. And that's like I said, it's not really on the software side anymore. maybe, you know, hardware, sensors, stuff like that. But even that is tough. Even some groups I know doing that that have amazing stuff. yeah, they have it built, they have the IP, but they don't have like customers, you know, because OEMs are just building this stuff themselves, really. And they might want to buy that because you know it looks good on their portfolio that and maybe there's some little nuance to the tech or they want other people to basically build it or then and they buy it and make it look like theirs. I mean that's clearly what's going on. Everyone's kind of sees that. If you don't, that's what's going on. software side, yeah, it just doesn't it's not working like that anymore. and there's a few players out there that still, you know, a lot of money were put into them and I mean, as long as they can just keep coasting and their investors aren't like hounding on for to sell, 'cause they're not gonna get what they want anyway, so what choice do they have? there's some of those, but I I kinda wonder how it's all gonna parse out, but to my point, I think the really the the clear path is modulizing these Kind of little things you build. 'Cause well, for one, it's easier and and cheaper, and then you can really concentrate on something. And I think farmers and ag businesses will adopt it. Of course you need the right structure behind it. And you know, it's where a lot of my open source open FMIS concept comes to be and it it's still viable. I think it's needed more than ever, even more so than when I first kind of talked about it, actually. I haven't really built it, but of course I was kind of started. Anyways, that's besides the point. That's another conversation. but I do think more open source is gonna happen. And I I already see it happening. I see people, individuals, maybe groups, they are you know, they maybe vibe coding some process, or maybe they have something they already built from the past, but they're redoing it, and they're just saying, I know I can't make money off this, but it's already built, or it was easy to build because I used my knowledge and understanding and skills and I just kind of want the world to have it. So here it is. Go ahead. Because sometimes people that's what the open source community kind of does. They just kind of build things in their extra time. It's their hobby. And maybe that's really where agriculture software and you know things tied to that real how you really need to think about it is it's kind of a hobby to do it, but then you know how do you make money? If you want to. Well, think of woodworking. Oftentimes it starts as a hobby because you like to do it. It's fun, enjoyable. You can build some of your own stuff and it's cool. But there's a point where, you know, other people see it because you just showed up your neighbors or you know, another business colleague, and you're like, Yeah, I made this, you know, go use it, whatever. Or I'll build you one, you know. With software, you copy and paste is a lot easier than you know, physically having to build a new. Piece of furniture or something. But it slowly kind of forms into this new thing. And often that can create kind of a new business. Someone might say, Hey, I'll pay you a thousand dollars if you build this chair for me that you built. Like it's really cool. I just don't have the time. You're like, I sure I like doing it, and I have the time for whatever reason, and they do it. And then someone else asks and it keeps building. Like that's probably actually where a lot of software is gonna go. Now these elemental pieces that are really hard to build. Or at least they're hard now. yeah, those those can be structured in that kind of other app based realm, I guess. And if it can work that way, which I think it's getting there, it's actually a good sustainable way for it to work. And a lot depends on where the larger tech industry going and then there's the fear of okay, you're building all these things and you're adding your context and they'll steal it and you know, anthropic or chat GPT will be like, Well, here's our new ag module and it just like has everything. I mean, we could be getting there too. Don't be get me wrong. It's like, yeah, and we took all this other data because you're talking in it and you shared your email address and everything soaking in, and then it's just like, We'll just do this job for you and you don't have to think about it. We'll just market your grain, we'll manage your business. I mean, that it sounds nice. I mean, personally, it sounds nice. I really want to make the tools to actually build those myself. For me, do I want someone like Google or Anthropic or Open AI to do that. No, not really. Though maybe that's inevitable. know, you think of all the control you've left out to different functions on a server, some groups doing searching. Let Google do it. instead of going to your local library or something like that, or asking, you know, a group of people or calling a friend or something. maybe it's inevitable that that kinda happens and there's really nothing you can do about it. Scary, it's dystopian, I guess, too. In any realm, that's a whole nother wild subject of where things can go. In the end though, from just talking here and getting the essence of where things have been, honestly, the last I'll call it year, as you know, kind of started out with. Maybe it's good I took a pause. I could really reflect on it all. it does feel better than it did. But it's a different, better it's not what I don't think people assumed would be better. I think many thought, investors will come back in, there'll be more sales from clients and businesses and all that. no, that isn't necessarily the case. And now that there's like I said, a new app coming out like every day somewhere in the world doing basically the same thing as then the one that came the day before it. you're gonna have to be really crafty if you're really trying to make a lot of money off of it or something that, you know, isn't even enough to sustain your life. it's one thing to make a couple thousand dollars off selling this or that to some friends or you know, some groups of people, but That's a whole nother thing trying to make enough where you know it pays your bills. And I know that from experience. I deal with it now. I've basically you could say I got like five or six side hustles just to kind of try to fulfill that. And do they I well yes and no. It depends how you look at it. can they? Yes. Is it a lot to manage? Yes. It's also I'm trying to like For me at least. I think others are doing this too. I'm starting to see it more and more. You're kind of staging it in different parts. like for being farming is basically a side hustle for me. Takes probably three months out of the year, but though mentally it's you know it's constant. It's just like the physical effort of it. And then I have my fun boundary play rugs. Aerial imagery which kind of fits into the whole mold of all my ag stuff, and that's about two months, I'd say. It's not full time, but during those two months, but it's a lot of time. but there's planning and that's you're thinking of that. And I got this stuff, and you know, this new directory thing. Well, honestly, it's probably more of a winter thing, and then I just kind of dabble at it, but that's when people are searching and looking the most for things like that. Once the main ag season is kinda over. and there's there's other things I'm working on like that or I don't know. It's all I'm trying to put it in this big circle. But I think it's smart to do because they all kind of associate with each other in a similar fashion. And they can connect to a larger story. And I mean, that's maybe what just people have to do is Start thinking in building things for the time scale of what needs to be done. And I'll give a great example. Well, for one, software's always had this problem in agriculture since the beginnings, from when I was, you know, young kid dealing with it, when my dad was doing stuff and others. You'd build all year, you know, it'd try to sell as much as it could, but really the end user would only use it like a few days a year. It's not like other tools. and that can be hardly hard because then you're like retraining people, re you know, talking like, this, this, this. It's really it's it's tough. But what I'm seeing now, and just thinking from the the farm side and you know, I don't need my necessarily accounting digital system right now. I might need you know, like an hour a month or a few hours a month. That's all I needed. And really you just need it at certain times. even grain marketing stuff. Yeah, I mean you're you want a constant awareness, but you're you really won't use it in its full extent until you know certain time periods. Agronomy, same thing. buying things from equipment to inputs, same thing. You're basically spreading out these things. And for me, what I kind of started doing is like I'm just building this kind of mini tool that's basically throwaway. In the moment I need that thing. And putting that together and then Do I want to turn it to some big product? Well, no, because I've done that and I don't want to deal with it. But others are starting to say, I'll make a module for that time frame and then you just buy it, you know, for that so you don't have to like kind of build it. It's like, is it worth a hundred dollars so you don't have to do it? It's like, yeah, I suppose. If all can like sync into one place, it kind of works together and you don't really have to update it because all these other people are doing that. And you can get it from multiple vendors or people, even individuals like. All together, yeah. It's like, yeah, that sounds kind of that sounds kind of good actually. And I and I'm trying to bridge that to myself, even with my director saying, Hey, here's all these options. And if people start building these modules, like here's all these modules. Here they are. That's that's about it. It's like here at least they exist, and here's how you connect to them. Go do what you want at your whim. Maybe I can make some money on showcasing but I don't really know. It's not necessarily not a goal. It's not also a pure goal. It's kinda like you know, everyone wants their time valued at something, so All in all though, I think the essence of what really needs to be done is that type of ecosystem is needing to take place for really the industry to move forward and actually adopt it instead of this kind of old world way, which seemingly is now dead and everyone just kind of understands it. And if you don't understand it, get f get that figured out pretty quickly here, because you're gonna get left behind. So yeah, there's the there's the there's kind of my most recent thoughts and I will have more, hopefully every week. I'm trying to kind of keep a cadence, do my best I can. As harvest approaches, it might be a little tougher, but I'll at least try to put up something. You know, some shorter quip. This one's a little longer than I'd usually want to go just because it's rolling out the red carpet again. So As I've stated, yeah, this is me just kind of talking about the industry, you know, complaining a little bit, trying to bring some light to it, help others see something else that they can't see. I think you'll have some of my other fun ones. So, you know, listen to those as well. Share these out if you got anything good from this. I will put up probably the content of this on the website under my newsletter tab, because I have like my weekly newsletter and then I have like a sub newsletter in within it that I s just there. More of like a blog thing. So I think that's where I'm gonna put these. And then that'll match to the podcast. And I'm trying to rework some of that so it's a little more seamless. But you know, bear with me. Other than that, yeah, thanks for listening everyone and I'm kind of back I guess. And Yeah, like I've said before, it's kind of almost a self therapy than anything. Gets the stuff off the head and hopefully can help some people out and I mean that's basically it. Try to learn something and share what I can. So thanks for listening and as always, like, share, subscribe, check my other stuff out, check out the directory. If you are in the industry, add your stuff to that. If I already added you in there, claim your spot. If you got suggestions, let me know. hopefully it can kind of turn into something cooler and bigger and I can get a bunch of people from all sides of the industry on there 'cause that's that's the goal. And all kind of come together so we can learn from each other and make this whole sector of agriculture a little better than what it's perceived to be. 'Cause it's messy. Always has been, but I'll unmessify it if possible. So Until next time, we'll see you later and thanks for listening. See ya everyone.