New Animal AgTech Innovation Summit Launches in San Francisco

Globally, the food industry is under intense pressure from consumers and policymakers to ensure a safe, sustainable and healthy food supply to meet the challenging demands of a growing population.

As part of this trend, demand is booming for new technologies that improve animal health and welfare, reduce the environmental impact of livestock farming, and ensure high-quality and consistent meat and dairy products for the consumer.

From dairy farming to beef, lamb, poultry and the rise of aquaculture, smart farming solutions are emerging that benefit both animal and human health through improved nutrition and wellbeing, disease detection and prevention, data-driven herd management and waste reduction.

When the new Animal AgTech Innovation Summit gathers in San Francisco on March 18, international agribusinesses, livestock producers and feed companies will join technology providers, entrepreneurs and investors to share innovation and experience from around the globe.

The program has a specific focus on:
• Precision Nutrition: Targeting Animal Microbiomes for Functional Health
• Smart Livestock Farming: Empowering Farmers through Digital Insights
• Gene Editing: Designing the Farm Animals and Fish of Tomorrow
• New Pharmaceutical Frontiers: Preventing Diseases through Next-Generation Vaccines
• The Rise of Aquaculture: Transforming the Industry through Digitization and Alternative Proteins
• Investment and Finance: How Corporate Venture Funds and VCs view the Opportunities in Animal AgTech

A fast-paced agenda featuring 40 speakers will explore the latest models for technology investment, incubation and commercialization, and showcase the most exciting start-ups from around the world, with dedicated pitches from:

Halter (New Zealand) – this revolutionary herd management solution allows farmers to use a tablet app and sound directed cow collar to remotely manage their herd and optimize their farming practices; improving productivity, efficiency, animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

Rex Animal Health (USA) cloud computing platform standardizes animal health and performance data from disparate IT systems, providing actionable insights and analytics to make veterinary medicine and husbandry data-driven.

ViAqua (Israel) is developing an orally administered particle-based platform for the administration of RNA and protein to improve resistance against viral diseases that attack shrimp and other aquaculture species.

Cytophage Technologies (Canada) is developing bacteriophages that will reduce and ultimately replace the use of antibiotics for illness prevention and growth enhancement in livestock, starting with poultry.

Across the full day of panel debates, the international speaker line-up includes more than 40 leading experts from: Cargill, Anterra Capital, Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, Advanced Animal Diagnostics, Allflex, Boehringer Ingelheim, Tyson Foods, Performance Livestock Analytics, White Dog Labs, Hendrix Genetics, Mitsui & Company, Cermaq, Elanco, UC Davis, Calysta, Ascus Biosciences, Recombinetics, Paine Schwartz Partners, Hatch, AquaByte, Aqua-Spark, SVG Partners/Thrive, Nutreco, Novozymes, TechAccel, Nutreco and VisVires New Protein Capital.

The Animal AgTech Innovation Summit is organized by Rethink Events, the team behind the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit and a global portfolio of agri-food events. Jennie Moss, Founder & MD said: “We’re delighted to host this much-needed platform to promote technology and investment in the livestock and aquaculture sectors. Our agri-food innovation week in San Francisco brings over 1,500 industry leaders together to break boundaries and cement new collaborations through the entire supply chain”.

Commenting on the launch, Maarten Goossens, Co-Founder and Principal of Anterra Capital, said: “World Agri-Tech has built the leading innovation event for the crop production industry, bringing together a good group of investors, corporates and start-ups. It’s excellent to see them turn their eye to animal health, an area with different dynamics and its own ecosystem that rightfully deserves separate attention.”

The Animal AgTech Innovation Summit takes place on Monday March 18, immediately before the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit on March 19-20. Full details and registration at www.animalagtech.com