Listen: Nebraska FARMcast
Previewing the Spur AgConverge Conference, set for Nov. 17 in Grand Island, including the "Women in Midwest Ag Tech" panel. With Ishani Lal, economic analyst with the Center for Agricultural Profitability, and Alexa Davis, soil and water programs coordinator with the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment. Find this episode on your favorite platform here.
Nebraska’s agricultural technology sector has strengths, but until recently it has lacked a key support: a connector institution that links producers with ag tech engineers, investors with tech innovators, and students with networking opportunities. It needs an institution, too, that educates students in ag tech entrepreneurship and validates the benefits from ag startups’ emerging technologies.
Spur Ventures, a University of Nebraska–Lincoln initiative, has stepped energetically into that multi-faceted role and will use its connecting power during AgConverge, an ag tech conference it will host in Grand Island Nov. 17-18.
“We’re a bridge, a platform, that connects different partners and resources through the university,” said Ankit Chandra, who leads Spur Ventures and is director and lecturer of entrepreneurship for the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. “We’re connecting producers, industry, startups, students, as well as regional ag innovation hubs funded by the National Science Foundation AgTech Engine.”
Started in May 2025, Spur Ventures is housed within the Department of Biological Systems Engineering and the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Its mission: connect producers, startups, industry, investors and students to accelerate the development, validation and commercialization of agricultural technologies.
A multidisciplinary team assembled by Spur Ventures drafted a comprehensive report identifying the strengths and challenges of Nebraska’s ag tech sector. The analysis pointed to early-stage investment challenges — a common problem not just in the Midwest — and Spur Ventures is positioned to help through its connector mission.
“We’re connected to a lot of accelerators in Nebraska and in the region, so when we work with a startup company we make sure to connect them to relevant partners and investors,” said Chandra, who has wide experience working with ag tech startups in the United States and internationally.
Working with The Combine ag business incubator, Spur Ventures developed a detailed graphic showing the many components of Nebraska’s ag tech ecosystem, including startups (robotics, precision ag, ag biotech, animal health monitoring, ag marketplace tools), agribusinesses, investors, business incubators, support organizations, commodity boards and university programs.
Online registration is now available for the AgConverge conference Spur Ventures will host in Grand Island with support from the NSF AgTech Engine in North Dakota. The gathering will feature a wide range of ag tech events.
The conference’s Farm Tech Adoption Challenge, for example, will showcase one of Spur Ventures’ key aims: connecting engineers who design ag tech innovations with Nebraska producers.
“In ag tech, a lot of cool technologies are coming in play but in many cases they don't get adopted at the farm gate because they were not co-created with farmers,” Chandra said. “The engineers didn’t always understand farmers’ challenges.”
The Farm Teach Adoption Challenge will address that need by enabling volunteer panels of farmers and ranchers to hear pitches from ag tech startups. The Nebraska producers will then provide detailed, multi-round feedback.
That interaction “provides an active voice from the producers’ side,” Chandra said. “They can evaluate the technology and give feedback about whether it’s going to fit with their operations.”
Startups can see, for example, if the technology would fit the producer’s soil type and agroclimatic zone and whether it would be affordable.
As an incentive, AgConverge will provide a total of $6,000 in prizes for the top three producer panels participating in the event.
Spur Ventures, Chandra said, is not only “farmer-centric” but “student-centric.” The AgConverge event will include an ag tech student poster contest (undergraduate and graduate) with a total of $1,000 in prizes.
“We have a great panel of judges who are judging this poster competition,” Chandra said.
The Grand Island event also will provide students with extensive networking opportunities.
“They will get to connect with industry people where they can showcase what they’re working on,” Chandra said.
Ag tech entrepreneurship education is another student-focused priority for Spur Ventures.
“We teach a blend of ag engineering and entrepreneurship in a class called Engineering Entrepreneurship for Ag and Biotech,” Chandra said. “Within the class, a farmer comes with his problem statement and tells students the challenges he is facing. Based on those challenges, students work on a solution.”
Other activities at AgConverge will include a Women in Ag Tech panel, Convergence of NSF Innovation Engines panel, and a demonstration of ag tech robotics and technology. A panel will discuss industry-academia collaboration. Another will examine factors shaping the Midwest bioeconomy.
One of Spur Ventures’ ongoing efforts is independent, third-party validation for startups through its Spur Validation Sandbox Program that provides evidence-based evaluations of emerging agricultural technologies. The program assesses technical performance and practical considerations, including producer affordability. Nebraska producers provide data and feedback as part of the evaluations, along with input from faculty and students using university test beds and regional extension centers.
Spur Ventures publishes the validation results online, providing transparency and explaining the scope and limitations of each evaluation.
“We’ve established trust and relationships with farmers,” Chandra said. “That’s helped us in making the commercialization pathway easier for these startup companies,” since farmers can learn about them through the publicly available validation reports.
The process illustrates a central focus for Chandra and his colleagues.
“Trust is the main thrust for Spur Ventures,” he said.
