FoA 251: Agtech Opportunities in Developing Markets with Igor Buchatskiy

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thanks to the</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">FieldWork</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">podcast for sponsoring this episode. Visit</span> <a href= "http://www.fieldwork.org"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">www.FieldWork.org</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">to learn more. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This episode is a good follow up to</span> <a href="https://aggrad.libsyn.com"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Episode 250</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">about one example of how agtech is helping smallholder farmers in developing countries. We are again talking about the potential for agtech in developing markets in this episode, but this time from a different perspective. My guest Igor Buchatskiy sees real opportunities in very large integrated agricultural operations. Whereas last week we focused on smallholder farmers, this episode is about the very large, sophisticated operations that are hungry for technology and innovation in the developing world. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Igor is a mechanical engineer by training, but after getting his MBA at the University of Chicago, he started a career in management consulting. That led to a job with a family office back in his home country of Ukraine. It was in that role that he discovered his love and fascination for agriculture in 2007. Since that time, he’s worked all over the world with agricultural operations and agtech startups. He’s based in Boston, but you never know where in the world he is going to be. In fact, at the time of this interview he was working on a project in Saudi Arabia. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>“(Working in agriculture) was a revelation. Seriously, I thought wow, that's what I should have been doing for the last 10 years instead of mechanical engineering and management consulting because it was just an amazing experience. So I dove head in into that business and we started growing it, bringing new technology