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Programming Note 1: The SFTW Convo series will be off next Wednesday (US Independence Day week) and will return on July 9th with a conversation with Dr. Emma Kovak (Breakthrough Institute). Some upcoming SFTW Convo guests include Mackenzie Burnett (Ambrook), Dr. Brad Zamft (Heritable Agriculture), Dr. Channa Prakash (Tuskegee University), Andrew Nelson (Nelson Farms), and Dr. Terry Griffin (Kansas State University).
Programming Note 2: I will be moderating a panel at Tech Hub Live called "AI Tools in Agriculture: What to Know Before You Buy In." I hope to see some of you there. Meanwhile, you can get my three AI and GenAI in Agriculture white papers for free.
Welcome to another edition of SFTW Convo. This week’s conversation features Christine Gould, founder of GIGA. Christine also founded Thought for Food (“Thought For Food is the world’s next gen innovation engine and community for food and agriculture.”)
Christine has extensive experience at Syngenta, and has worked in the policy space for many years, including a stint as an Advisory Committee member for food systems at the United Nations. Christine is a community builder and wants to find structures which can help push innovations forward in food and agriculture.
I have been accused of being a rabid techno-optimist (I am actually quite pleased with that accusation against me). Also, given my work with AgTech Alchemy, it was but natural to have a conversation with Christine.
Christine is the author of a book called “The Change Maker’s Guide to Feeding the Planet” and currently resides in Switzerland.
Summary of the SFTW Convo
Christine Gould shares her journey from growing up on a farm to becoming a leader in agricultural innovation. She discusses the importance of scaling solutions in the food system, the challenges of fragmentation, and the need for connectivity among stakeholders.
Christine emphasizes the potential of decentralized solutions and the importance of aligning incentives to create a collaborative ecosystem. She also highlights proof points of successful innovations and the need for creativity and joy in transforming food systems.
Christine and I discuss the barriers to innovation in AgTech, the role of traditional industries, and the challenges posed by the VC model. She emphasizes the importance of government support for agricultural innovation and compares the agricultural policies of the US and Europe.
Christine shared her enthusiasm and conviction about the transformative potential of AI in agriculture and envisioned a future where technology and sustainability coexist harmoniously.
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Scaling in agriculture
Rhishi: Christine, thanks so much for joining this conversation. How did you decide to do what you're doing right now?
Christine Gould: I’ve lived my life and career with a lens of curiosity, always following my passions and trusting the dots would connect, and they have. I grew up on a farm in the Midwest of the U.S., where my dad worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. From a very young age, I encountered farming systems alongside innovation, science, and technology, and saw how they could unleash farming’s potential.
We used to walk through our farm while my father explained everything they were doing with the crops around us like corn and soy. He talked about the soil microbiome, corn byproducts, how they used those to make food ingredients, energy, and bioplastics. I saw agriculture as a sector full of possibility and potential. It led me to study science and technology policy, focusing on the role U.S. agricultural universities (through the land grant system) play in driving innovation strategy. I started to explore what that could look like in the future, or how it might serve as a blueprint for other parts of the world. That’s really how I brought together my love for innovation and policy, and the idea of enabling infrastructures.
After finishing graduate school in New York City, I moved to Europe to take a job at an industry association. It was an unusual career move, most people take that route after working in industry, not before, but I believe it was a smart decision. I worked in Brussels for an association that didn’t just focus on EU policy, we managed global issues shared across the plant science industry.
That role gave me exposure to how all the leading companies in plant science think, their key priorities, issues, cultures, and it gave me a fast, valuable education. It really turbocharged my trajectory in this space.
One of those companies, Syngenta in Switzerland, recruited me. I joined and spent a decade there in corporate affairs. I sat on the leadership teams for our corn and cereals business units and helped navigate major strategic transformations. I also created a role that didn’t exist before, Head of Next Generation Innovation. It sat at the intersection of corporate affairs, business development, and ventures. I searched the world for the most exciting people and innovations we could invest in, partner with, or acquire.
That role let me explore adjacent industries like vertical farming, synthetic biology, and other innovations Syngenta wasn’t actively pursuing but I saw on the horizon. I started immersing myself in those innovation communities.
Later, Flagship Pioneering recruited me. I joined several of their portfolio companies and saw firsthand how scaling works outside of the big companies. These were well-funded startups, and they gave me a different perspective on innovation.
At the same time, I was building Thought For Food, my nonprofit, which I had incubated at Syngenta and later spun out. I envisioned a broader platform, with more funders and partners, to support early-stage startups around the world working to transform the food system.
We were actually the first to bring startup competitions into ag. We started doing that in 2011 and 2012, and 2013 was our breakthrough year.
Earlier this year, I launched my new company called GIGA. It’s an innovation and investment platform focused on scaling the most promising solutions to nourish people and build resiliency. We act as hands-on executors, matchmakers, and ecosystem architects. We help startups reach the market, corporations de-risk innovation, and governments deploy solutions where they’re needed most. We also work with investors and yes, we plan to launch a fund too, because the traction and deal flow we’re generating make it a natural next step. GIGA brings together everything I’ve learned across big companies, startups, scale-ups, and policy. It’s built to finally make scaling in food systems work.
Rhishi: What do you mean by scaling?
Christine Gould: No one wants to stay stuck in what I call pilot purgatory, which is sadly very common in our sector. Scaling gives us momentum for food systems transformation, which is expected to unlock $4.5 Trillion annually in business value
When I led Thought For Food and accelerated hundreds of early-stage innovations, with great teams, promising technologies, and real problem-solving potential, we celebrated them. We got them early funding, sometimes their first investments. We connected them with partners across the industry. But honestly? Most of them didn’t make it.
You could say that’s just the reality of the innovation process, survival of the fittest. But I don’t believe that’s how it should be in food and ag. This sector is more complex than most, and we haven’t built the right systems to give promising innovations a fair shot. They get caught in fragmented markets, long biological timelines, and other structural barriers.
These great ideas ended up dying death by a thousand cuts. We don’t have time for that. Our planet faces urgent challenges. And the world is changing faster than ever. We need agile, resilient innovation approaches that enable diverse solutions..
That’s when the idea of scaling really took hold for me, not in the traditional sense of one-size-fits-all, monoculture-dominating, global solutions like we’ve always done. That kind of scale actually undermines resilience.
What we really need is to help the most promising innovations survive. Scaling, to me, is about building bridges over the valley of death. It’s an architecture that allows the dots of innovation to connect. And when I talk about scaling, I think in terms of three horizons. Vertical scaling, which most of us know, like vertical integration, or growing within a value chain. Horizontal scaling, which involves integrating solutions to create stronger value propositions, or expanding them into new markets. And the hardest but most important: deep scaling. That’s about changing systems, cultures, and behaviors so solutions can actually grow roots and thrive.
Depending on the innovation, we need to work across all of these. That’s what I mean by scaling, and that’s what GIGA is about. It’s a big job. And I’m all in.
GIGA is purposefully ambitious, energizing, and it excites people. And that’s the kind of shift we need.
Rhishi: The issues that prevent scaling, often come down to the fragmented nature of the system. And honestly, that fragmentation is not going away.
The way you farm strawberries is very different from how you farm corn. Farming corn in Iowa looks completely different from farming it in Africa. If fragmentation is the natural reality, what are you planning to do differently to enable scaling?
Christine Gould: You’re absolutely right. Agricultural production is, by nature, complex, local, and fragmented. What works on a strawberry farm in California doesn’t necessarily apply on a cornfield in western Kenya. Even farming the same crop looks different in Iowa than it does in São Paulo or Nairobi. And trying to standardize all of this to an outdated industrial scale model is what keeps breaking the innovation potential of this sector.
That’s why I see fragmentation not as a problem, but as a feature. A design principle. And more importantly, as the space where the most meaningful and valuable opportunities - what I call ‘giga-opportunities’ - lie.
The way we unlock these opportunities is by meeting each of the stakeholders we work with where they are, and then building bridges between them: startups, corporates, governments, and investors. Each has different blockers. We solve those blockers with expert teams, flexible engagement models, and deep sectoral experience.
Let me explain how this works in practice.
We have started our work at the first end of the innovation chain with startups, accelerators and portfolio companies of VCs. . With our “Go GIGA” offer we provide teams who are ready to ‘go big’ with a fractional support model that gives them hands-on expert leadership support. We go way beyond what a typical accelerator or mentor does. We dive in, roll up our sleeves, and help them take on the key areas necessary to gain traction. We bring direct access to the right relationships, e.g. customers and partners, who we have at our fingertips. We also bring credibility.
Then comes the next step in our model: corporate innovation. The big companies know they need innovation to hit their growth goals, ESG targets, and future-proof their supply chains. But working with startups is hard. There’s risk. There’s a whole mess of procurement and internal alignment to deal with. They don’t have time or money to spend on it, even when they see it can add value. So innovation gets stuck in pilot purgatory, or doesn’t even make it that far.
We work with companies to curate the right startups, co-design milestone-based pilots, manage the scale-up process, and make sure the value lands clearly inside the business. We handle the complexity, so the company doesn’t have to burn cycles on things that go nowhere. The result is faster access to solutions that work, and startups benefit by getting access to customers who take them forward.
But it doesn’t stop there. Like companies, countries are facing urgent pressures that they need to solve and innovation is a key enabler for this. This really has come to a head in our post-Covid, geopolitically volatile world. Supply chains are strained. Local food production is fragile. Youth unemployment is rising. Governments are looking for relevant, high-impact, homegrown solutions, not just to protect food security, but to unlock economic growth and resilience.
In this case, GIGA works with governments just like we do with companies: identifying problems and opportunities, finding the right-fit startups, managing implementation, and supporting local capacity. We also advise and give them blueprints of regulatory and policy approaches that can help them prevent costly mistakes or leapfrog forward.
Once again, this offers a great scaling pathway for startups as we help them to launch into markets where their solutions can make a difference. These are places the startups might not know how to reach on their own.. The farmers benefit. And innovation actually reaches the field.
Because of our experience across startups, corporates, and government agendas, we can build the connective tissue this sector needs. When you line up incentives, speak the right language across silos, and follow through with hands-on execution, you get a synergistic, net-positive effect. Which then means the case for investment in agrifood innovation gets stronger.
That’s why we also work with investors, giving them access to our dynamic pipeline of de-risked startups who are collaborating with corporate and government customers. These are teams with market validation and clarity on what needs to happen next with real, paying partners. That means higher returns.
GIGA isn’t just one thing - and that’s intentional. We have purpose built this model because it is what food systems innovation needs. At our core, we’re building the connective tissue the agrifood sector has been missing. We’re an innovation and investment platform that orchestrates across startups, corporates, governments, and investors. You can also think of us as the hands-on integrators - stitching together the systems, relationships, and execution support that finally unlocks scale. We help each player get further, faster, while making sure value is shared. That’s what makes us different.
Rhishi: Could you take a specific example, maybe the corn and soy system in Iowa, where you grew up, or smallholder farming in Asia?
What are the current challenges in that system? What are the right questions we need to start asking to move in the direction of a more decentralized, resilient ecosystem?
Christine Gould: Let’s keep building on this idea of designing with fragmentation, instead of trying to eliminate it.
One example that brings this to life is some work we did on the avocado supply chain. A company came to us with a clear pain point: high-value avocados were getting damaged during harvest and transit, which meant lost revenues. They wanted a way to fix this, and asked us to push their thinking.
Together, we asked: What would it take to redesign the system from farm to fork so that a premium avocado shows up in perfect condition, every time?
That reframe changes everything. Instead of solving just for packaging or logistics - e.g. their piece of the puzzle -we zoomed out. We looked across the whole chain - from microbiome treatments that strengthen fruit skin, to robots that handle avocados gently, to rural cold chains and smart sensors that track quality in real time.
In the end, the company chose a simple, plug-and-play solution with quick ROI. Great. It worked. And that startup is actually now commercially integrated across 3 of their regions, which we love to see. But, importantly, the exercise proved the point that there is an opportunity to think bigger, and that when you think about connecting smaller pieces of the puzzle into a bigger system, you have the chance to unlock way more value than any single fix can deliver.
The challenge is: how do you actually build that system - and who pays for it? That’s what keeps me up at night. Because everywhere I go, I see these so-called pieces of the puzzle. The potential to put them together is right there, waiting for someone to turn them into stronger value propositions.
Let me give you another example. During a recent trip to an emerging-market region, I sat with 50 smallholder farmers growing tropical crops like coconuts and limes. They were struggling with market volatility and feeling stuck. But the real issue was that they weren’t connected to what the market actually wanted. They were growing supply, not demand.
That’s the kind of gap GIGA is built to close. We’re now helping them identify what makes their crops stand out - whether that’s flavor, climate-smart practices, or traceable origins - and connecting them with innovative startups in our network who can help them deliver that: from tools that boost taste and shelf life, to solar dryers for local value-addition, to MRV platforms that make them visible to global buyers. It’s early, but the shift is exciting. They’re starting to see themselves not just as producers, but as value creators. And the startups are getting the momentum they need.
Back to your question. I want to be honest that I don’t have all the answers. At least not yet. We’re building something new. We’re designing collaborative innovation systems where multiple solutions can reinforce each other, where local context drives innovation, and where value is created through connection instead of control.
There isn’t a ready-made playbook for this. The closest thing I’ve seen to a playbook for our industry is the one Leaps by Bayer put out recently on how to bring a biological crop protection product to market. It’s useful if you want to follow a linear path, with one product and one big company in mind. But that model reinforces the slow, incumbent-led system. It misses the bigger picture of what’s possible if we aim to do something new by unlocking value across fragmented systems, building trust between unlikely partners, and turning local ingenuity into global impact. The GIGA approach is the harder path, but it's the right path. And I am leaning into that because how else can we move beyond incremental change to unleash the economic windfall from true transformation? ?
Rhishi: In your avocado example, you’ve got so many different players involved, there’s the farmer, the seed and input provider, the logistics company, the storage infrastructure, the buyer, and possibly middlemen in between.
For all of them to work together, their incentives need to align. What’s your theory of change here?
Christine Gould: Our theory of change at GIGA is simple: innovation only scales when value is shared and incentives are aligned between the multiple stakeholders who are critical for innovation to grow. That alignment doesn’t happen on its own. It has to be intentionally built.
I’ve seen this from all sides. At Thought For Food, we helped develop and deploy cutting-edge technologies, just like most accelerators do. As mentioned, they hit a wall. Our competitions started to feel like innovation theater. At Flagship, I saw the same thing happen - but these were incredibly well-funded startups led by experienced teams. The industry is that hard to break through.
At Syngenta, I saw how much effort went into ensuring our innovations could land in the real world. We had full teams dedicated to policy shaping, value chain partnerships, and trust-building. I realized that innovative solutions need more than investment, they require that same level of support.
In designing these integrated approaches that unite pieces of the puzzle, it's all about aligning incentives. This means figuring out who benefits, who pays, and how the returns are distributed in a way that’s fair and motivating. It also means knowing how to speak the language of each stakeholder, whether that be a farmer, a procurement officer, a funder, a policymaker, a consumer, etc.
We are prototyping various approaches to tackle this : sometimes through milestone-based co-financing models between startups and corporations. Sometimes by bundling different solutions into a stronger offering for governments. And sometimes by helping a startup rethink how it prices or measures impact so that their value lands more clearly with customers, partners, and investors.
But long-term, what excites me is the potential to build systems where value sharing becomes automatic.
I keep thinking about a creative model I saw in the electronic music industry. I talk about it in my book. Basically, everyone involved in the song’s creation - e.g. writers, samples, producers, singers - receive instant payouts every time a song is streamed. Imagine applying that logic to food systems. You buy an avocado at a premium, and a portion of that payment flows directly to the farmer, the storage provider, even the startup whose sensor helped maintain the fruit’s quality. All built on a smart contract with shared rules, verified data, and mutual trust.
It is a dream, absolutely, to build something like that. We have the tools to make it happen. What’s missing is the coordination architecture and the willingness to try. That’s where GIGA can come in. We would love to help design the system for partners to unlock the bigger win that no one could achieve alone.
This is our version of moonshot work. It’s not about building the next unicorn. It’s about reshaping how value is created and distributed across agriculture. That’s the real innovation.
Systemic change drivers
Rhishi: In your book, you lay out why food systems are so hard to change. You mention a whole range of factors, cultural norms, an aging workforce, low digitization, income constraints etc.
Where do you begin? What is the one leverage point where change might be most possible, or most impactful?
Christine Gould: It really goes back to why I named this company GIGA, because to me, it’s both a mindset and a mission.
GIGA means big and in teen slang, GIGA means extreme or doing something to an exceptionally high level
It’s about doing big, bold things that shift systems, and I believe the most overlooked leverage point to doing this today is imagination.
Somehow, we’ve squeezed imagination out of many parts of the food system. We've made this sector so serious, so problem-focused, that we’ve forgotten this is one of the most creative, human, joyful things we can work on. And without imagination, we’ve stopped dreaming of possibilities.
In tech, we’ve seen a different kind of energy. I’m definitely not here to glorify people like Elon or Altman - but I am interested in their approach.
Musk knew that to make electric cars work, he would need to go bigger than his own product and build infrastructure like batteries and charging stations. Sam Altman knows AI won’t solve global problems without rethinking energy and compute, and he’s investing in that too.
My personal innovation hero Steve Jobs didn’t ask, “How do we make a better phone?” He asked, “How could people interact with technology in the palm of their hand?” That shift in question led to the iPhone, and the creation of an entire ecosystem around it.
That’s what systems-level imagination looks like. It starts with a better question, and it leads to real, scalable solutions.
In food and agriculture, we need that same kind of thinking. Back to my avocado example. The question is too small if we just think “how do we grow more avocados”. When the question becomes “what needs to be true for a perfect avocado to reach the end consumer every time?” it opens the door to a whole new value chain and giga-scale business opportunity. That’s the power of imagination.
Rhishi: Are there any specific examples you can share?
Christine Gould: Right now, we’re still in the early days of GIGA, but I’m bringing everything I’ve learned, through trial and error, through the years into this space. We're applying insights from across the industry to build something different.
We’re currently developing a series of case studies, and one of the projects I’m most excited about involves "living labs" on farms. We're bringing together a consortium of private sector partners who are eager to source regenerative produce efficiently and cost-effectively. We’re connecting them with vetted, high-quality startups that can help them do just that while also managing pilot projects for them.
While these partners aren’t sharing their raw pilot data with one another, they are committed to sharing their learnings and experiences which is a great form of collaboration. Ideally, even competitors within the consortium will end up working with the startups we’ve introduced them to, which creates a new pathway for scaling and sustaining those solutions.
We’re also advising multiple governments, and one of the most exciting projects we’re launching is in Colombia.
We’ve helped facilitate a stakeholder-driven process involving investors, NGOs, policymakers, and startups. Together, we identified four priority areas for the country’s food systems transformation, and we’re moving forward on the first one. This project gives Colombia a ‘leapfrog opportunity’ to tackle a major challenge, capture more value for their local market, and become more competitive in the global market. We’re doing it by designing innovation-driven interventions tailored to place-based needs, and backing them with the market access needed to grow.
Another major focus going forward is capital deployment. As I alluded to earlier, it just makes sense to invest, given the model we are building.. This isn’t about copying the traditional VC model. We want to blend the best aspects of venture capital and private equity, while leaving behind the structures that don’t serve this sector. If we get this right, we’ll unlock the kind of capital that allows solutions not just to survive, but to thrive and deliver the impact they’re truly capable of. More on this soon.
Rhishi: Let’s take the Colombia example you mentioned earlier. You said there were four priority areas, and you’re focusing on one. If you’re able to talk about it, what’s the specific problem statement you’re addressing there?
You mentioned bringing innovation, so what does that actually look like?
Are you working with startups? Who’s funding them? Is this being done through an accelerator, a venture studio? I’m trying to understand the mechanics of how you’re making this work on the ground.
Christine Gould: We haven’t publicly announced it yet, but I can share the model we're building.
At its core, it’s about helping farmers and local partners gain access to relevant, best-in-class technologies around sustainable beef. Private sector actors and investors are funding pilot projects.
And we are also working with a local venture studio. They’re playing a critical role, especially because in some cases, we’re bringing global startups into Colombia. Those startups need support not with pitch decks or IP strategies, but with real, on-the-ground deployment.
So you can consider this a hands-on market entry program that carves out a tangible scaling pathway.We are helping startups link to on-the-ground problems, understand how to operate in the Colombian context, and we support them with navigating logistics, working with farmers, and adapting their models to local realities.
There's another example like this out of Malaysia, led by the former CEO of Thought For Food.
She’s launched a program and fund that operates as a public-private partnership with the government of Sarawak. The government defines key problem statements they want to solve and provides land access.. She brings in solutions from across Malaysia and Southeast Asia, startups ready to deploy.Then, the program matches them with co-investment from both the public and private sectors. These are different approaches to scaling. What I like is that they are highly contextual, deeply rooted in place, and much more likely to deliver lasting impact.
Rhishi: Across industries, the venture model assumes most startups will fail, and a few will hit power-law returns. That’s what keeps investors in the game.
But when you think specifically about food and ag, what are the main reasons why startups or innovations don’t survive? And even when they do survive, why is it so hard for them to scale?
What are the biggest barriers? And is GIGA set up to knock down those barriers and help more solutions make it through?
Christine Gould: Absolutely. That’s why GIGA isn’t just another accelerator or advisory group. We’re building this fit-for-purpose innovation and investment platform to address fragmentation, distribution bottlenecks, and lack of scale in agriculture..
As mentioned, a big part of why solutions don’t work today is because they are just pieces of a puzzle. And farmers often don’t want, or can’t justify paying for, just one piece. From the industry’s side, it’s often too complex or not worth the effort to approve something that solves a niche problem, or is tailored to a single crop. As a result, everything gets pushed toward corn and soy and the large markets and large companies. Many other crops and regions that are incredibly important, remained underserved by innovation.
That’s a huge issue.
And that’s where I believe horizontal scaling can make a real difference. If we can integrate solutions and build creative value-sharing models like what I talked about earlier, we give these innovations a better shot at surviving. Sure, it’s hard, IP sharing is tough, everyone thinks their tech is the crown jewel, but sometimes, this type of collaboration is the only way forward.
Another major barrier is access to distribution channels. Coming from the crop input world, I’ve seen first hand how those networks are tightly controlled by incumbents. The big companies have deeply entrenched relationships and long decision cycles.
And when you look at biologicals, whether biocontrol or biostimulants, we know they work under specific conditions and with specific crops. But the industry isn’t designed to evaluate products that aren’t “blockbusters.” It’s modeled after pharma, where success meant products that worked across markets and geographies.
That model shaped how companies like Syngenta and Bayer make decisions: if a product doesn’t scale across regions and crops, it doesn't get funded easily. But today’s biologicals don’t fit that mold. They may be highly effective, but only in a specific region, or on a specific crop. And suddenly, they don’t make the cut, not because they’re bad solutions, but because the system isn’t set up to invest in solutions like that.
That’s the tension we’re facing.
And that’s exactly why we need to build new structures. It’s going to be long and hard. But I spend a lot of time with the traditional industry players, and I see the spectrum: some leaders are saying, “We urgently need to future-proof our portfolios, help us.” Others say, “We’re fine. We’ve got our solutions.” We’re here to work with the first type.
But as a whole, I think our industry is still thinking too small, too parochially, and too short-term. We're not chasing the bigger, disruptive opportunities to do things differently.
Here’s a quick story. A few years ago, I did some work with AB InBev. I discovered they had a Chief Disruptive Growth Officer in the C-suite. His name was Pedro Earp. I was fascinated by this role, not just “innovation,” but disruptive growth. His job wasn’t to explore adjacent technologies or incremental improvements, it was to pursue the spaces that could put the company out of business if they ignored them.
And that mindset really struck me. Shouldn’t we in agriculture be thinking the same way?
If we want agriculture to be resilient, or better yet, anti-fragile and not just survive but thrive in volatility, then we can’t just tweak the status quo. We need to build new systems and invest in new kinds of innovation.
Home-runs or singles and doubles?
Rhishi: I worked at Google X, the moonshot factory, for a couple of years. Projects like Waymo came out of it. But a lot of things didn’t make it.
I worked on Mineral, which was eventually shut down. Loon, which aimed to beam the internet through high-altitude balloons, also didn’t pan out. So I’ve seen firsthand how moonshot thinking can lead to incredible innovation, but also a lot of dead ends.
And people have criticized that approach. Using a baseball analogy, they’d say, you’re always swinging for home runs, while what farmers need are singles and doubles. They’re trying to manage risk, not take massive bets.
Christine Gould: You're absolutely right to raise this. Farmers don’t need hype or high-risk moonshots that don’t work. They need real, grounded solutions that are practical, affordable, and reliable. Singles and doubles, as you said.
I’m not advocating for moonshot products, necessarily. I’m advocating for moonshot thinking. That means asking better questions, exploring new models, and challenging assumptions that keep agriculture stuck in this current paradigm.
At GIGA, we apply this type of moonshot thinking but we build from the ground up. We aim to design solutions that are context-aware, financially viable, and rooted in how the system works. We focus on integration, not invention for its own sake.
I also want to add the point that these moonshot projects you mentioned like Mineral and Loon may not have panned out but they laid groundwork for future innovation. Mineral helped surface gaps in ag data infrastructure. Loon pushed boundaries in connectivity. The ideas, tech, and IP from those efforts don’t disappear. And that is also worth something. We shouldn’t consider them failures, but experiments that pushed things forward and delivered learning that benefits us all.
Rhishi: I was talking to someone today who said something that really stuck with me. They said, “In farming, there is no exit.”
It runs counter to the startup world, where people talk constantly about exits, getting acquired, going public, cashing out. In farming, that kind of thinking just doesn’t compute. Most farmers can’t exit easily, even if they want to.
You’re building a quasi-VC model. What does that actually look like in practice? How does it help bridge the gap between investor expectations and the realities of agriculture?
Christine Gould: That line hits hard. Because it’s true. Farmers can’t pivot or cash out the way a startup founder can. They’re tied to land, to legacy, to livelihoods.
A lot of startup founders are, yes, motivated by the idea of an exit. But I’ve also met so many founders who are driven by the desire to make their solution live, to see it make a dent. It's not about chasing unicorn status; it's about survival, about keeping something meaningful alive and working.
That’s a big disconnect from the traditional VC model, which is built around fast growth, clear exits, and high multiples. In agriculture, that math often doesn’t work. But that doesn’t mean investing here is a lost cause, again, it just means we need a different approach.
We’re building what I’d call a grounded venture model. It’s a hybrid of venture ambition with private equity operational support. We roll up our sleeves, work directly with founders, and help build the conditions where these companies can actually succeed beyond cash injection. With the right partners, the right business model, the right markets.
Right now, there’s a massive pool of underutilized AgTech IP out there - what I sometimes call “zombie tech.” These are solid solutions - proven, field-tested - but they’re stuck in companies that can’t move. Traditional VC moves on. Farmers never even see it. And the potential sits there, unused.
What we’re doing is going in, identifying that potential, and saying: What would it take to bring this back to life in a way that creates real value? Sometimes that means pairing it with a new team. Sometimes it means finding a different buyer which isn’t the farmer. Could it be a logistics firm? A processor? A food company under pressure to meet Scope 3 or quality goals? That’s the kind of mapping we do. Because unless we clearly understand who benefits and who pays, even the best innovations won’t scale.
Right now, we’re sitting on a trove of underutilized IP - zombie IP. These are good technologies that stalled due to lack of the right support to scale.
The policy lever
Rhishi: You mentioned your family’s history with the USDA and your own background in policy.
What role do you think state actors play in pushing innovation forward? Where can government actors be most effective in helping bring this vision to life?
Christine Gould: I studied science and technology policy, with a particular focus on the U.S. land-grant university system. That model has always intrigued me, not because it’s perfect, but because it represents something powerful.
What made it so compelling was how the United States said, We don’t want to depend on food imports, because food security is national security. So the country built the enabling infrastructure to ensure it could lead the world in agricultural R&D. Through land grants (as well as sea grants, and space grants), the government aligned national interests with research agendas, and that alignment drove decades of agricultural innovation and productivity.
To me, that’s exactly the kind of approach we need today. And its a blueprint for other countries who want to secure food and economic security.
If we want to be a peaceful, prosperous nation, and a global beacon for agricultural leadership, as the U.S. has been for so long, we need to recommit to building enabling systems. In the past, the focus was on production increases. Today, the goal might shift toward nutrition, or regeneration, or climate resilience, but the same model can apply: define the goals, and then align research, investment, startups, and the private sector to achieve them.
Historically, the U.S. has been very good at this. But I’m concerned about the current trajectory. We’re seeing cuts to research funding and a weakening of institutional infrastructure. And I don’t believe the private sector alone will step in to fill that gap, not at the scale or pace required.
Did the land-grant system deliver everything perfectly? No. One area I’ve always believed the U.S. should uplevel is extension. Extension services, in many places, felt outdated. They weren’t keeping pace with modern innovation. Ironically, the private sector stepped in more effectively there, helping farmers understand and adopt new tools. But beyond extension, when we look at the core of agricultural R&D, I ask: Who’s going to carry that forward now?
That’s a question I’m watching closely.
From where I sit now, in Switzerland, I see interesting momentum in the U.S. around the bioeconomy. There are real conversations happening about how America can lead in that space, and I think that’s smart. There are national security, economic, and climate reasons to do it. So maybe we’ll see the U.S. step up again, just through a new lens.
It’s an inflection point.
Rhishi: You worked in policy with Syngenta. What are some of the key differences in approach to policy between Europe and the US?
Christine Gould: I definitely feel that Europe moves slowly on innovation. The precautionary principle is deeply embedded here, and as an entrepreneur and innovator, I find that really challenging. You can feel the drag, it’s slow, and it affects momentum.
Having spent most of my entrepreneurial life in Europe, I genuinely miss the energy I’ve always known in the U.S. ecosystem. The appetite for risk, the speed of iteration, the optimism, it’s different. But at the same time, Europe’s food system has strengths many admire. A lot of people believe it delivers healthier, more nutritious food to its population. So the real question becomes: What can we learn from each other?
How do we bring the U.S.’s entrepreneurial spirit and innovation-driven mindset to Europe, while also adopting Europe’s public-interest orientation and long-term thinking into the U.S. model?
Then there's the issue of industry influence. The revolving door between policy and corporate roles exists in both places, but it’s more pronounced in the U.S. And I think we need to ask: Who’s really shaping decisions? What special interests are guiding policy, either by blocking innovation or steering it toward narrow goals?
I’m not trying to be dramatic, but I do think we’re often facing a “right questions, wrong answers” situation with the current decisions we are seeing play out.
If I were back in the U.S. working on public policy, I’d see this moment as a huge opportunity. We already have innovations at our fingertips, especially in biologicals. These tools can protect crops from pests and disease, boost farm profitability, and move us away from reliance on outdated synthetic inputs.
But what’s happening instead?
Startups with promising biologicals can’t get regulatory approval. They can’t reach the farmers who would benefit most. Meanwhile, the big players are lobbying to keep legacy pesticides on the market. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the “MAHA moms” advocating for everyone to become homesteaders and cook from scratch all day.
To me, that’s a false dilemma.
We’re not limited to a choice between industrial status quo and full rejection of modern systems. The real path forward is innovation. We can create tools that work better, for farmers, for consumers, and for the planet. But to do that, we need systems that are willing to let new ideas through the door.
Role of AI and two futures
Rhishi: You can’t have that conversation about innovation without bringing up AI. What role can AI play in helping us scale solutions in food and ag?
Christine Gould: I’m not naive about the environmental impacts of AI, or the concerns around industry domination. I share those questions. But at the same time, I’m diving in, because, as I’ve said, I’m driven by curiosity.
Right now, I’m using AI for almost everything, design work, marketing, content, and for the startups I work with that are bootstrapping, it’s a game-changer. AI gives you this incredible toolkit to move further, faster, without needing huge teams or budgets. It’s leveling the playing field for resource-constrained innovators.
Agriculture, of course, is still the least digitized major industry. But I believe AI will bring a transformation that’s inevitable, and fast.
We're already seeing it reshape R&D. AI is accelerating how we develop new solutions and how we test them. I once worked with a company doing ‘in-silico’ modeling of agricultural ecosystems. They were ahead of their time, but I think that approach will absolutely be possible, and valuable, in the near future. Beyond R&D, AI is coming to the farm itself. We’ll see it power agronomic advice, connect datasets that were never designed to work together, and create new layers of decision-making support.
What excites me most is the possibility of AI unlocking trapped knowledge, data that’s been stuck in silos, in people’s heads, or even in languages we rarely translate. Imagine if we could train models that combine indigenous knowledge with the latest scientific research. The potential is enormous.
And the use cases go beyond agronomy.
Just last night, I was experimenting with Sesame’s voice AI, and I was struck by how human it sounded. It made me think: what if we applied that to mental health support for farmers, many of whom face isolation, economic stress, and long periods alone? We're already seeing this kind of support used with Gen Z. Could we use AI to spark a rural renaissance, one that restores both productivity and human wellbeing?
The transformation is coming. The question is: how do we guide it to serve the people, places, and systems that need it most?
Rhishi: Let’s imagine two futures. Let’s say you’re successful. In 5 to 10 years, how does food and agriculture look different? If things don’t go the way you hope, what does it look like?
Christine Gould: Here’s my dream scenario:
We break the silos. We integrate the puzzle pieces. And we finally unlock the true potential of agriculture. That’s only going to happen when we build solutions that connect soil, genetics, and digital systems across the entire value chain. We need to move from isolated breakthroughs to whole-system integration.
I know it’s conceptual, and I wish I could be more tangible about how we get there, but the question I keep asking is: Who’s stepping up to make this happen?
This is the future I want to see.
It’s a future where biotech and regenerative agriculture work together, not in opposition.
I always say this, I’ve got my “I ❤️ GMO” sticker, because I genuinely love biotechnology. It’s part of my background, and I deeply believe in its power. But I also believe in regeneration. The real breakthrough will come when we stop treating them as binaries and start designing blended solutions.
Now, I’ll be honest, I have two nightmare scenarios for the future of food.
The first is the fully industrialized future, the Soylent Green kind. A world where food becomes cold, technified, stripped of creativity, stripped of nature, stripped of joy. I've tried Soylent, I get the convenience, but that’s not the food system I want. That’s a soulless dystopia.
The second nightmare is the opposite extreme: a future with no technology on the farm. I grew up on a farm. I spent my early summers detasseling corn. I know what that life looks like. And now, I see this growing trend, people romanticizing homesteading, imagining some idyllic agrarian past.
We can’t afford either extreme. The answer isn’t “back to the land” with no tech, and it’s not “hyperindustrialize” and forget the earth. We need to design a new future, one that’s science-driven, regenerative, human-centered, and joyful. Filled with imagination.
That’s the work. That’s the opportunity. And I’m here for it.
Rhishi: What are the one or two key factors that you believe would actually make that dream scenario come true?
And on the flip side, what are the one or two things that could bring about the nightmare scenario?
Christine Gould: This really ties back to something we developed at GIGA: the GIGA Readiness Level, or as we call it, GRL. Yes, it’s a bit cheeky, it spells "girl", but honestly, that’s the point. It’s memorable, it’s a brand, and it reflects our ethos: smart, bold, system-aware innovation with a human soul.
The GIGA Readiness Level is our way of assessing what actually makes innovation work, beyond tech specs and pitch decks. It focuses on three core dimensions.
First, team and culture. We need to invest in the right people, not just the right technology. A team’s mindset, values, and way of working are what ultimately carry a solution forward.
Second, collaborative spirit, creativity, and caring. We look for people who genuinely care about the problem, who are collaborative, and who are open to engaging in new value-sharing models, the kind that break traditional silos. We value creativity, especially when it means seeing the non-obvious solutions others miss.
Third, social license to operate. This is something I learned deeply while at Syngenta: you cannot succeed without social legitimacy. That means listening to farmers, to youth, to creatives, to older generations, understanding their needs and expectations, and innovating with them, not just for them.
When a company or project scores high across these three areas, we consider it GIGA Ready. And if they’re low in one or more, we ask: How can we help build that capacity? Because we’re not just investing in tech, we’re investing in people who want to build legacies.
And I have to say, I often see technologies that receive massive funding while being low in all of these areas. That’s a red flag. These are often short-term bets, built for buzz rather than long-term systems change.
At GIGA, we’re not here for the tech-bro solution economy that still dominates parts of the venture world. We’re here to scale what actually lasts, solutions rooted in empathy, creativity, and community. That’s GIGA Ready.
Rhishi: Christine, thank you for joining this edition of SFTW Convo! Big picture thinking and ecosystem collaboration are highly relevant for the future of food and agriculture.