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I decided to dedicate one of my articles to  what brought me back

The three founders who started  Lighthouse Ag were having a conversation last summer.

Aaron Magenheim has an AgTech retailer and consulting background, helping investors and large growers.

Tal Maor has a farmer, AgTech hardware, retailer, and venture investor background, aiding investors and startups.

Aaron Hutchinson has an AgTech software background supporting global food companies and their farmers.

So, we have farmer, investor, food, consultant, retailer, and startup views represented in the conversation. First, we agreed that all sides are frustrated by the lack of success and integration in the AgTech market. So, we set off to figure out why!

Below are some of what we found unsurprising to many of you.

1. Finding the right AgTech is work. It takes a lot more than shows and articles. Did you know there are about as many non-VC-backed AgTech providers as VC-back companies?  
2. There is so much work that prominent Ag industry companies have innovation teams to find AgTech. Most "innovation teams" focus more on deploying capital or working with VC investors than embedding themselves in their core business needs and innovation to become genuine change agents for their companies.
3. You often buy AgTech to find out it plays poorly with others. Bring in data, sure; share data, rarely; integrate with existing, legacy, or next tech purchase, hardly ever. 
4. They sell you the product promised to fix a particular need, but you must integrate it into a more extensive solution to get value. So, you find yourself with IT person(s) who need to learn about farming or the young guy on the farm with no process training trying to put it all together. They try to assemble what you bought, but did it solve your problem, provide business value, or make new challenges?
5. The core problem is that outside of hiring multi-million-dollar integrators, no integrators exist in AgTech for the rest of Ag (99%).