Author Topic: Agricultural Investments  (Read 25454 times)

Feral Wolf

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Agricultural Investments
« on: September 09, 2020, 10:56:08 am »
Given the recent conditions we have all seen that certain industries prevail in difficult times.
Companies focused on agricultural endeavors will always be needed as the stable production of food
is the basis on which our society survives.

As a robotics & sensor engineer working with all types of farmers in the Western Cape, I am well
aware of the current technological developments in the agricultural industry. Recently the farmers that
I have spoken to are more open to new technologies, as they are in need of practical solutions to complex
integrated technological problems on their farms for which the local market only provides partial and over priced solutions.

Having identified these problems over the past few years and also growing up as the son of a farmer I have
a special insight into the most practical and cost effective solutions for over 30 major problems integrated into one platform consisting
of several integrated hardware and software solutions ranging from custom sensors to interactive databases & data visualization tools.
My brother and I are working together on this platform in our private capacity and we are busy starting a company together.

Our aim is to retain a certain portion of control, however we want to put the power of local development in the hands of the farmers.
The model which we have been considering consists of acquiring venture capital by selling shares to prospective buyers which include a profit share,
first & discounted access to new technology and a large growth on the initial investment. Ideally shareholders would be able to help provide
aid or advice in their own field of expertise in order to help the company grow in the right direction

I am posting this in this community because I have followed it for a few years now and back in my student days I planned on going in a financial direction, however any business sense that I used to have has washed away over the past few years as I have spent all my efforts growing and bettering myself in an engineering direction.

If you have any suggestions or recommendations for me regarding my business prospects it would be much appreciated.
Also it would be interesting to get some opinions on the topic of agricultural investments & recent developments.

Kobus Bredell





Bevan

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Re: Agricultural Investments
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2020, 04:54:19 pm »
Hi Kobus, congrats on starting a business and best of luck to you guys going forward. One way to get really rich is to build wealth as an entrepreneur and create something useful, rather than just shuffling shares around.   :)

Agriculture is a vital industry but also hugely tough. Maize and cattle farmers for instance are battling commodity markets, droughts and ever rising costs of seed, fertilizer, diesel etc. Then there's theft, safety etc. and of the course the usual years of feast and famine.

The problem as I see it is that farmers are battling Nature, instead of working with her. Farmers are farming debt as they seek to take on ever larger acreage and try for increased yields with the GMO seed salesman. Regenerative farmers are re-learning what we used to know hundreds of years ago i.e. don't throw chemical fertilizers on your land which only leach your soils; practise diversity and multi-crop horizons so you don't end up sterilising your soil; use things like inoculated biochar to improve soil water retention and build up your soil food web. Even if you're a plain old mealie farmer, understand which companion plants will help increase yields, and naturally fight pests, so that you don't have to waste money on expensive and unnecessary fertilisers and pesticides.

There are several hi-tech sensing devices from drones to tractor-based, and I'm sure they all have their uses. However, the farmer who really understands Nature should not be farming with such Homo Sapiens like precision. Instead, they should observe and be guided by Nature as she will always know far more than any Sapiens programmable device that says "whack more Nitrogen here", completely ignoring all the other inter-related factors. On the other hand, if you can start to build the language of Nature and the Elements, the seasons, and plant, tree and fungi inter-networks into your device then I reckon you're onto a winner!

We must protect the soil that protects us. Soil is going to become our No.1 commodity going forward i.e. increased flooding and removal of top-soil is one of the biggest survival threats that we as a species face. Unless we all want to eat hydroponically-grown lettuce for the rest of our lives... ugghh!

« Last Edit: September 10, 2020, 04:59:02 pm by Bevan »
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