C8 The BulleTin • Sunday, May 2, 2021
Cultivating bright ideas
From grape goggles to berry blockchains, NW Ag
Innovation Hub connects growers, technologists
with tech gurus to solve problems
and create new businesses along
the way.
BY GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
S
ALEM — Bruce Sonnen came
up with the idea for “wine gog-
Pipeline for startups
gles” a few years ago as a way
to improve the quality of Oregon’s
The Hub is led by Alex
already world-famous Pinot noir.
Paraskevas, rural innovation catalyst
The concept is simple, said Son-
for the Strategic Economic Develop-
nen, the vineyards manager at Van
ment Corp., or SEDCOR, based in
Duzer Vineyards in Dallas. As Pi-
Salem and serving Marion, Polk and
not noir grapes ripen, they grad-
Yamhill counties.
ually change color from green to
Since joining SEDCOR in 2018,
purple to dark purple, a period in
Paraskevas has become something
viticulture known as veraison.
of an evangelist for the region’s high-
But not all grapes ripen
value agriculture. Farmers
at the same pace, and un-
here grow more than 170
ripe fruit can throw off the
different crops — every-
flavor of the finished wine
thing from grass seed to
(Sonnen compares the taste
wine grapes, berries and
to Lemonhead candies).
hazelnuts — which are pro-
Color is the key to help-
cessed locally and shipped
ing workers identify which
to consumers around the
clusters to remove before
world.
Sonnen
the all-important harvest
“Every farm is an interna-
and crush begin.
tionally competitive small
To help identify ripe
business,” Paraskevas said.
grapes, Sonnen had an idea
According to SEDCOR,
for tinted eyewear that can
agriculture, food and bev-
make those darker shades of
erage companies employ
purple “pop” more clearly.
16,332 people in the three
“The idea with the color
counties, with an annual
Paraskevas
goggles is they could make
payroll of nearly $543 mil-
those ripe berries stand
lion.
out,” he said. “We can make sure
By bridging the divide between
nothing we don’t want goes into the
rural farms and high-tech opera-
wine.”
tions in Portland and elsewhere,
Sonnen pitched his idea to a team
Paraskevas believes the Willamette
of developers last year as part of a
Valley can become fertile ground for
five-day Agricultural Innovation De-
agricultural technology designed to
sign Sprint Challenge, hosted by the
help growers increase yields and ef-
Technology Association of Oregon.
ficiency.
The team designed a pair of
SEDCOR last year received a
glasses, which Sonnen said has the
$469,150 grant from the U.S. Eco-
potential to become a low-cost tool
nomic Development Administration
for winegrape growers.
to launch the Hub. With the money,
“You’d be able to sell them like
Paraskevas said they will hold reg-
hotcakes in our industry, for sure,”
ular events aimed at building those
he said, adding that “it’s still a work
relationships.
in progress.”
Eventually, he said the goal is to
Wine goggles are one example of
establish a network of farmers that
how the newly established North-
will host field trials and aid in the
west Ag Innovation Hub is laying
development of future tech start-
the foundation for agricultural
ups, creating more jobs in the farm
technology to flourish in the Wil-
sector.
lamette Valley, connecting farmers
“We want to be sort of the pipeline
Courtesy of Pete Nelson
Allison Malone, a student at University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, runs a TerreSentia
robot to monitor progress of cotton maturity. TerreSentia is a product of Earthsense,
an AgLaunch portfolio company that has been field testing in Tennessee and the
Mississippi Delta region since 2019.
and the funnel for startups, pairing
them with farmers,” Paraskevas said.
Flipping the script
Last year’s grant award was the
culmination of years of work that
started in the small city of Indepen-
dence, about 15 miles west of Salem.
Shawn Irvine, the city’s economic
development director, saw the po-
tential for developing agricultural
technology in 2006 after a munici-
pal partnership with the nearby city
of Monmouth led to the creation of
MINET, providing high-speed inter-
net to every home and business in
those cities.
“This was an investment by the
two cities to make sure our com-
munities would be able to access the
digital economy and keep pace in
the digital age,” Irvine said.
Irvine said he felt Independence
could be a place where people come
from all around to develop and test
new broadband technologies. Given
its agriculture-rich profile, he said
it made sense for the community
to promote itself as an interface be-
tween urban tech and rural farms.
“Frankly, I think it’s an opportu-
nity to flip the script on rural,” Irvine
said. “Smart agriculture is a way to
show what rural is really all about.”
About five years ago, Irvine began
holding regular agricultural tech-
nology meet-ups in Independence,
inviting growers, entrepreneurs, uni-
versity researchers, tech companies
and local government officials to sit
down in the same room and begin
the conversation.
Those meetings generated some
early trials around the Mid-Willa-
mette Valley. Intel, the tech giant
with a large footprint near Portland,
partnered with Rogue Ales, using
remote sensors to track shipments
of fresh hops from a farm near Inde-
pendence to the brewery in Newport
on the coast.
Intel later took the same concept
and applied it to tracking blueber-
ries from farm to processor. Along
the way, sensors kept track of envi-
ronmental conditions such as light,
temperature and humidity, and up-
loaded the data directly to a block-
chain — a digital ledger that tracks
every transaction.
As interest grew, Irvine said he
could no longer handle the initia-
tive by himself. He applied for a
grant from the Ford Family Foun-
dation to hire a new position, which
Paraskevas at SEDCOR now holds.
“Now we have an actual project,”
Irvine said. “We have a thing that
we’re doing, and all these partners
want to help us.”
Model for success
A similar model for agricultural
innovation is already succeeding
in Tennessee, providing a glimpse
at what may be in store for the
Northwest Ag Innovation Hub.
AgLaunch, based in Mem-
phis, got its start in 2015 before
becoming a nonprofit in 2018.
Like the NW Ag Innovation Hub,
AgLaunch is cultivating a network
of farmers willing to work with
technologists, screening products
and assisting in field trials.
Pete Nelson, executive director
of AgLaunch, said the group has
26 grower-members in its network.
Roughly 36 startups have already
accelerated through AgLaunch —
including three within the last 10
months alone.
One of those companies, called
SwineTech, is based in Iowa and
has created a digital platform for
hog farmers that allows them to
adjust their on-farm activities re-
motely, reducing labor costs and
animal mortality.
Another, called Stony Creek
Colors in Tennessee, makes in-
digo dyes for blue jeans, creating a
market for indigo as an alternative
crop for tobacco farmers.
Now, Nelson said AgLaunch is
working to build a national net-
work of like-minded organiza-
tions. That includes partnering
with the Northwest Ag Innovation
Hub.
At a formal kickoff meeting for
the Hub last month, Paraskevas,
with SEDCOR, said they are still
3-5 years away from getting where
they want to go.
But, he said, the momentum is
building.
“We’re trying to build both
sides of this marketplace to make
the Willamette Valley as compet-
itive in agriculture as possible,”
Paraskevas said.
Nelson, who also spoke at the
kickoff, said the possibilities are
mouth-watering, given Oregon’s
array of specialty crops and supply
chains.
“I just literally drool when you
guys talk about some of the oppor-
tunities you all have,” he said.
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