Christine Gould: Agricultural Transformation through Collaboration
Founder of GIGA and Thought for Food joins SFTW Convo
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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