Producer-Led Innovation Challenge

Congratulations, Gripp!

The Producer-Led Innovation Challenge seeks to tackle administrative burdens faced by today’s farmer. Innovators have the opportunity to compete for a $25,000 grand prize by developing a technology that reduces on-farm labor needs without facing the strategic decision between investment risk and labor uncertainty. Interested? Keep scrolling! More details on the Challenge are below.

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on the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge.

Presented by

A $25K Accelerator Program for Innovators

The Producer-Led Innovation Challenge, in partnership with Indiana Corn Marketing Council and Indiana Soybean Alliance, is a nine-week accelerator that empowers innovators to tackle farmers’ most pressing operational challenges. Participants develop market-ready solutions, vying for a $25,000 prize to accelerate commercialization of their technology. Our goal? To enhance efficiency and ROI for producers through new innovation that’s easy to adopt.

2024 Challenge Terms and Conditions

What problem will you uniquely solve?

A winning solution will seek to innovate in at least one of the following areas:

Data Management

Developing a unified solution that consolidates financial, agronomic and credit program data to enable seamless access and management in real time.

Government Program Compliance

Creating tools to streamline government compliance processes for incentive and risk management programs, reducing farmer time on task.

Labor Management

Automating and optimizing labor scheduling, tracking time and task assignment based on real time operational needs and worker availability.

Labor Resourcce Access

Designing a platform that simplifies the navigation of labor programs like H2-A, helping producers connect with available labor resources more efficiently despite bureaucratic hurdles.

Robotics + Automation

Integrating robotics and automation to supplement human labor, addressing worker shortages while minimizing the financial and logistical burden on producers.

Oh, and one last thing...

Given the critical nature of administration and labor management in agriculture, the Challenge encourages teams to innovate for current inefficiencies while also enhancing overall management and productivity of on-farm processes, ensuring sustainable and profitable outcomes for producers.

A springboard for agbioscience innovation:

Every winner of the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge has either received follow on funding or has gone on to be acquired.

FiberX (2023)

Works with corn growers to source and convert corn stover into a feedstock for the chemical and materials sector. They completed a round of funding in 2024 that includes investment from Purdue Innovates.

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Aker Technologies (2022)

Provides software to improve the workflow of soil analysis, enabling producers access to soil zones and operational analysis that are custom to their farm. Aker Technologies was acquired by Indiana-based Intelinair in 2023.

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Regrow Ag (2021)

Measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) tool that uses vetted crop and soil models, connectivity to farm management platforms and satellite imagery to create an agronomic platform with a fair, trustworthy market for Carbon.

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iYOTAH Solutions (2020)

Ingests data from multiple sources, secures data in the cloud and provides analytics for better and more connected information. iYOTAH Solutions completed a $2.8 million round in 2024.

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