The Georgia Center of Innovation’s Director of AgTech Chris Chammoun has been featured multiple times in recent media interviews as this key industry sector experiences growth in the state.  

A month ahead of the state’s first AgTech Summit to be held in Tifton on March 2nd, Chammoun joined Atlanta Business Radio to discuss the initiatives the Center is taking on to fuel AgTech innovation and support Georgia’s agriculture businesses—the state’s largest industry.  

Throughout the discussion, Chammoun emphasized the increase of integration of existing agriculture businesses with new technologies – both software and hardware – developed by startups in the AgTech space. Several of these startups are Georgia based and include research developed at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and other Georgia academic and business assets. According to Chammoun, we’re seeing a merger of traditional agriculture businesses leveraging new tech to increase efficiency.  

Four areas in the AgTech space where the Center of Innovation sees opportunity for growth were highlighted: 

• Integrated Precision Ag: Autonomous tractors, sensors, and data collected at the farm level – and the State of Georgia is already leading in this space.  

• Controlled Environment Ag: Improved greenhouse operations and the indoor, or climate-controlled warehouse-style farm. This sector has been nurtured from its earliest days in the state and driven by the population growth in Atlanta as consumers demand more local, fresh produce that is available year-round.  

• Food Product Innovation: The Center and businesses in the state are working to add additional value to the commodities grown in Georgia by leveraging AgTech innovations. For instance, they look for ways to transform harvests so that they have a lengthier shelf life and can be sold at a more favorable price.  

• Food System Technology Integration: Georgia is the No. 1 poultry-growing state and is consistently working to make the poultry system healthier and more efficient. As a new frontier, machine learning is helping increase efficiencies within poultry processing—making the process more mechanical and consistent, requiring less worker interaction.

The Center of Innovation’s AgTech team spends half its time supporting AgTech companies and the other half building an AgTech ecosystem across the State of Georgia with counterparts in other key sectors, such as energy (think: Controlled Environment Ag!). The Center is constantly talking with universities and academic institutions that are involved in R&D and the development of new agriculture-related technologies and innovations – taking their knowledge and matching it with Georgia companies who could best benefit from these advances.  

To learn more, listen to the full Atlanta Business Radio interview with Chris Chammoun here. 

On March 2, 2022, the Center of Innovation will host an AgTech Summit in Tifton, Georgia. The event will bring together academia, business, and government as they look at ways to support and spur further innovation and growth within Georgia’s AgTech sector. Attendees can register here.