Penn State Collaborative Effort Aims to Accelerate the Future of Agriculture

Dec 03, 2025

An innovative interdisciplinary collaboration between Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and the College of Agricultural Sciences will focus on fostering innovation in food and agriculture.

The 2026 Land Grant Startup Launch Competition is the brainchild of Travis Lesser, the director of Smeal’s Center for the Business of Sustainability, and Mark Gagnon, the Harbaugh Entrepreneur and Innovation Faculty Scholar in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

The application window opens today (Dec. 1) and closes on Feb. 1, 2026.

The competition will support early-stage startups focused on sustainable business practices. Early-stage companies with a clear vision and the potential to transform the food and agricultural landscape are encouraged to compete.

Winning startups will receive a $50,000 investment from the Garber Venture Capital Fund to accelerate their growth and impact. The investment is intended to support scaling the business, furthering research and development and contributing toward team expansion.

The Garber Fund is housed within Smeal’s Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Smeal’s Office of Impact Entrepreneurship is also supporting the competition.

Source : psu.edu

Video: What If Everything You Knew About Feed Inventory Was Wrong?

AI, Agriculture & the Future of Smart Farming with BinSentry CEO Ben Allen. Every day, livestock producers make thousands of dollars' worth of decisions based on one simple question: How much feed is actually left in the bin? For decades, the answer has often been an estimate.

In this episode of AgTech with Andrew, I sit down with Ben Allen, CEO of BinSentry, to explore how artificial intelligence, machine vision and real-time data are transforming one of agriculture's most overlooked challenges—feed and grain inventory management.
We discuss why some of the biggest inefficiencies in livestock production aren't happening in the barn, but throughout the feed supply chain. Ben shares insights from his career leading agricultural technology companies, explains why AI must solve real business problems to earn producer trust, and offers his vision for the connected farm of the future.

In this interview, you'll discover:
Why feed inventory has remained one of agriculture's biggest blind spots
How AI is reducing costly feed outages, waste and unnecessary deliveries
The hidden safety risks of traditional bin inspections
What separates successful ag technologies from those that never gain adoption
How connected farms are changing decision-making for producers, feed mills and integrators
Why real-time inventory may become as important as precision planting and autonomous equipment

Whether you're a livestock producer, grain farmer, feed manufacturer, ag retailer, nutritionist or simply passionate about the future of agriculture, this conversation offers valuable insights into where the industry is headed.