2022 Awards of Excellence Winners Honored at Tech Hub LIVE
The Global Ag Tech InitiativeSM – North America launched the annual Awards of Excellence in 2007 to recognize individuals demonstrating exceptional work in the use and adoption of precision and digital agriculture technologies and practices.
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Recipients are honored in one of four categories: Crop Adviser/Entrepreneur, Educator/Researcher, Farmer, and Legacy.
During the 2022 Tech Hub LIVE Conference and Expo held in Indianapolis, this year’s winners accepted their awards in person during a ceremony and luncheon on July 21.
Brent Shedd, CEO of Salinas, California-based Stout Industrial Technology, accepted the Crop Advisor/Entrepreneur of the Year award on behalf of the company.
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There were two winners in the Crop Advisor/Entrepreneur of the Year category this year, including Stout Industrial Technology, creator of the Smart Cultivator. Pictured: Stout CEO Brent Shedd accepts the award for the company from Meister Media Worldwide Group Editor Lara Sowinksi and Corporate Content Director Richard Jones.
Stout is an ag tech startup developing farm implements that automate labor intensive and expensive tasks like weeding, cultivating and spraying. The 12-person company boasts over 25 Stout Smart Cultivators currently working throughout the U.S. with the first delivery to an overseas buyer in the UK made earlier this year.
The Smart Cultivator uses machine vision tied to a Convolutional Neural Network that enables the machine to differentiate between crops and weeds. The machine then uses cultivating blades to aerate the soil and kill the weeds by cutting them at their root.
According to Jeff Antle, Stout’s chief product officer, the AI that controls the blades is completely homegrown and a work of technological wizardry. Similar to a Tesla, these machines grow smarter and more capable over time via Over The Air updates.
Stout builds machines that significantly reduce the use of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers while helping growers maintain their operations despite the increasing shortage of workers. The company is also developing data streams that help growers better manage their farms by providing vision-based, plant level data analysis and recommendations on everything from plant health to soil and water use analysis.
There were two winners in this year’s Crop Advisor/Entrepreneur of the Year category.
The other Crop Advisor of the Year award was presented to Jeff Wessels, Acre+ Precision Ag Manager for Frenchman Valley Coop in Grant, NE.
Jeff Wessels of Imperial, Nebraska-based Frenchman Valley Coop leads the company’s Acre+ program and is very respected for his work in precision technologies, according to his colleagues.
“He is constantly challenging the status quo,” remarked one of Wessels’ colleagues.
“Every day we are innovating new ways to evaluate crops and how we can positively affect the outcome. His research and vetting process for new practices have changed our go-to-market strategy. Our message has now changed to selling less fertilizer because we are constantly searching for new efficiencies in fertilization techniques and soil testing techniques. We now sell a completely different consortium of fertilizers than we did five years ago.”
Wessels was also praised for teaching younger staff about proper nutrition and how to effectively grow a profitable crop.
“He has been a pioneer in the precision ag industry. Our staff is always asking Jeff what to do next. He has also led our intern program in the past,” said the colleague.
In addition, “Jeff is constantly looking for new and more efficient ways to adopt all aspects of precision [technologies]. We fail on more quests than most people are even willing to try. We use our program to properly fertilize a field based on what it is capable of based on historical data. Nitrogen utilization has increased exponentially under Jeff’s guidance. We are now fertilizing for what the ground is capable of.”
Simply put, “His hard work is legendary and his commitment is unwaivering. Jeff is an awesome addition to our team,” offered his colleague.
The 2022 Precision Farmer of the Year award was presented to Greg Odde, L&O Acres, in Aberdeen, SD.
Several members of Greg Odde’s family joined him on the Tech Hub LIVE stage to accept the award for Farmer of the Year award on behalf of Aberdeen, South Dakota-based L&O Acres, which was founded in 1974 by Greg Odde’s father Leonard.
The family-run farm consists of 35,000 acres of minimum till corn and beans, which is operated by Greg and his two sons, Chris and Kirby, along with grandson, Parker. In total, 34 full-time employees keep the farm running.
L&O Acres is well respected in the community for both their sustainable farming practices as well as their charitable donations.
“Greg Odde has made a positive impact on Aberdeen for many years,” remarked Aberdeen Mayor Travis Schaunaman. “His generous donations have helped move a number of worthy causes forward, benefitting our community greatly.”
As for L&O’s contribution to farming, Brent Wiesenburger, who has led Agtegra’s precision agriculture portfolio for 28 years, said, “L&O has influenced the way we approach precision ag by pushing us to be better. We created an industry-first product for our producers called Field Groups that L&O had a direct impact on.”
Wiesenburger added that, “To say L&O Acres has challenged Agtegra to get better is an understatement, and whether they know it or not, they have been an influencer to our Tech team and truly deserve this award.”
The Legacy in Ag Technology Award was presented to Jim Chambers, Vice President and General Manager, Ag Division, Trimble Agriculture. Pictured: Chambers accepts the award from Meister Media Worldwide Group Editor Lara Sowinksi and Corporate Content Director Richard Jones.
Lastly, the Legacy in Ag Technology award was presented to Jim Chambers, vice president and general manager, Ag Division, Trimble Agriculture.
Chambers’ career has been dedicated to ag tech, precision ag, and water technology at startups and major corporations alike. His global viewpoint was developed from his experience working on farms in 93 countries doing everything from bioscience to water management, pest control, and now automation. Chambers spent 13 years at Monsanto, and also worked for John Deere, where he led the development of several early precision farming technologies in aerial imagery, soil information services, and traceability.
During his time at John Deere, Chambers also took over the technology department for water and eventually served as Product leader for the irrigation business globally.
He was also a founding leader of the precision ag program at Bayer Crop Science; the CEO of a startup IoT company focused on precision farm water management in Australia; and SVP/GM of Agriculture and Weather Analytics at ClearAg, a machine learning and AI company.
In his current position at Trimble Agriculture, Chambers leads the team in strategy and identifying things that can be automated to make life easier for farmers. Most notably, Chambers has helped Trimble Agriculture go from a world leader of steering and guidance to a company with a bigger view on automation and autonomy.
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