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COMMUNITY PARTNERS
EXHIBITORS
DAY 1 TOUR SITES
Track 1 | Urban Agriculture in Communities
Track 2 | Distribution and Operations
Track 3 | Sports, Venue, and Infrastructure Innovation
Track 4 | Innovative Food and Ag Models
Track 5 | Kennesaw State University & Hydroponics with AmHydro
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
INTRO TO PANEL ONE | HENRY GORDON SMITH | AGRITECTURE CONSULTING
Eight years ago, Henry Gordon-Smith started a blog to track news in the commercial urban agriculture space. Years later, the loyal following surrounding his blog led Henry to launch a consulting arm, Agritecture Consulting, to further assist entrepreneurs in achieving their urban agriculture visions. In 2017, Henry co-founded another new initiative to support the growing movement of young professionals transitioning careers into sustainable food & agriculture, AgTech X. Through this unique lens, Henry speaks to hundreds of entrepreneurs each year and spends much of his time traveling the globe tracking both success stories and failures. For this introductory talk, Henry will share some of his key lessons learned.
PANEL ONE
CREATE | Getting From Ideation to Implementation
Urban farming entrepreneurs face a number of challenges getting started. Access to funding, settling on an operational strategy, and lining up appropriate sales channels can each be daunting and time-consuming. On top of this, urban farms are becoming increasingly diverse in both their objectives, approaches, and products. Our first panel of the day will explore this creation process by featuring four unique urban agriculture operations.
MODERATOR
Henry Gordon Smith | Agritecture Consulting
PANEL TWO
PILOT | Creative Strategies for Proving Your Concept
Product/market fit is a crucial yet hard-to-define milestone in the entrepreneurial journey. For most early-stage entrepreneurs, arriving at a proof of concept requires serious creativity on a small budget. On this panel, we’ll explore various strategies that have helped startups get there.
MODERATOR
Nina Meijers | FoodBytes!
INTRO TO PANEL THREE | JÉRÔME DOUCET | MONTEL
What happens when some of your primary markets shrink from digital transformation? You look to new markets. Montel has been pioneering high-density mobile storage systems since their inception in 1924. In this introductory talk, Jérôme Doucet will touch on the process by which the company found opportunity in vertical farming to apply their space saving solutions and help indoor growers maximize their productivity.
PANEL THREE
GROW | Challenges and Opportunities that Come with Scale
As startups grow, new challenges emerge. These challenges can be particularly harrowing for new agriculture models given the multitude of factors that can infringe upon growth -- local zoning codes, food safety standards, new sales channels. On this panel, we’ll hear various strategies for navigating this landscape.
MODERATOR
Julie Bryant Fisher | Technology Association of Georgia
KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
Christine Gould | Founder and CEO | Thought For Food
As Founder & CEO of Thought For Food, the world’s next gen innovation engine for food and agriculture, Christine Gould has worked with thousands of young leaders from around the globe. She will be presenting our Keynote Conversation: Unleashing the Power of the Next Generation to Fix our Food System.
PANEL FOUR
CLOSING THE LOOP | Circular Economy Applications for the Urban Food System
Is urban agriculture strictly limited to the production of food within city limits? We’ll challenge that assumption on this panel with emerging leaders building more efficient channels for upcycling surplus resources, feeding those who need it most, and rethinking the idea of “waste.”
MODERATOR
John A. Lanier | Ray C. Anderson Foundation
AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS & PRESENTATIONS
AGRIHOODS | Not Just Your Neighborhood Farm
An innovative model that centers community development around a working farm, agrihoods are rapidly growing in popularity. Recent estimates indicate that there are now around 150 agrihoods in existence around the US. But how do these projects come together? What metrics are key stakeholders using to measure success? And how can these projects sustain themselves over the long haul?
HOST
Daron Joffe | Farmer D Consulting
URBAN AG AS STEAM EDUCATION | Giving our Next Generation the Knowledge to Build Resilient & Food-Abundant Cities
Calling all educators! This speaker series will present four unique approaches to using urban agriculture as an educational forum for the next generation. Presenters will highlight funding strategies, successes, failures, and measurements for success.
HOST
Carol Hunter | Truly Living Well
BUY-SIDE PERSPECTIVES | Voices From Those Shaping the Reach of New Products
Local food sales in the US have quadrupled since 2008 as consumers are demanding more transparency. The rise of urban agriculture, CSAs, and boutique markets are allowing farmers to reach consumers faster and more directly -- often with unique products catering to a specific segment. Yet local producers still face major hurdles when it comes to accessing larger, more traditional markets and purchasers. Here we’ll explore such barriers from the perspectives of these buyers.
HOST
Emma Cosgrove | Supply Chain Dive
LOCAL GROWER RESOURCES | Atlanta-area Resources for Urban & Local Farmers
If you’re a farmer or aspiring grower in the Atlanta metro area, you won’t want to miss this informative workshop featuring various local agriculture resource providers.
BEYOND THE HYPE | How Agricultural Data Can Create a More Resilient and Empowering System
Data: we seem to hear about its potential, its power, and its ubiquity on a daily basis. On this speaker circuit, we’ll aim to move beyond the hype and discuss specific use cases focused on the ability of data to unlock new opportunities in urban agriculture.
HOST
Ricky Stephens | AgTech X
THE CASE FOR COMPOST | How Food Scrap Programs Can be Smart for Business
Recycling food scraps into compost makes plenty of environmental sense -- but in this workshop, Kristen Baskin of Let Us Compost will also explain why the incorporation of a food scraps collection program also makes good business sense. Aimed at restaurant/food business owners and operators.
MEDIA PARTNERS
YOUR HOST
The City of Atlanta's Office of Resilience, the host of the Aglanta Conference, has created a taskforce to research and investigate safety considerations and policies for future Controlled Environment Agriculture, a technology-based farming practice which takes place within enclosed structures. The effort will encourage the production of more local fruits and vegetables. The 21-member taskforce consists of members of the Atlanta City Council, the non-profit community, academia, environmental stakeholders and local farmers.
EVENT CO-ORGANIZERS
Agritecture provides advisory services to public and private institutions in the design, planning, implementation and operation of urban agriculture projects. We offer our clients the tools, data, ideas, network and expertise needed to ensure their success. We consult globally and are based in Brooklyn, NYC.
Agritecture's expertise is in controlled environment agriculture, a rapidly developing technology and industry that is rapidly gaining traction and predicted to be valued at $9 billion
Talk to us about your greenhouse or vertical farming project and we can help you from feasibility to implementation. Know before you grow..
AgTech X exists to create new pathways for sustainable food & agriculture innovation. We do this by creating unique content & programming to connect early adopters, startups, and multinational brands.
AgTech X’s expertise is in building community, opening doors for entrepreneurs, and producing purposeful gatherings & experiences. By combining the power of our network with continuous research and observation from our educational initiatives, AgTech X has collected a unique knowledge set of emerging trends in the industry.
For the last 18 months, AgTech X has also run New York’s only coworking space dedicated to accelerating sustainable local agriculture & related technologies. We’ve hosted more than 30 members throughout that time, including small startup teams; individual founders; researchers; and remote workers.