How the 39 North Agtech Innovation District is planning for the future of agriculture

Hear more from Emily Lohse-Busch in The BizSTL Podcast.

Emily Lohse-Busch is not a scientist, nor does she necessarily plan to become one. But Lohse-Busch, who previously served as executive director of Arch Grants, has a passion for innovation. It’s served her well as executive director of the 39 North Agtech Innovation District in Creve Coeur, where she leads a nonprofit tasked with growing and developing the district into its next phase as a globally recognized hub for agriculture technology and plant science invention.

The formation of the nonprofit was a meaningful step forward for 39 North’s future. How did that come to be?

There are people in this region who have heard about 39 North for years. It was formed in 2016. There was a study done that identified that area that’s primarily anchored by the Danforth Plant Science Center as a really interesting place to develop an agtech innovation district. What that means is putting the facilities in place, putting in the connectors and walking paths, building the infrastructure and all of the things that would make 39 North a physical place where agtech companies want to start, grow, and collaborate on all these wonderful things. It was managed through a partnership between the Danforth Plant Science Center, the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, and with partners, including BioSTL and others for several years until about 2022. In the plan that was developed in 2016, there’s a part that said, at some point, the governance and structure is going to need to be figured out to sustain this district.

What happened in 2022?

Coming out of the pandemic, those entities that had worked together so well to advance the concept of 39 North made a decision to do a study and figure out what 39 North should look like. The critical part of that study is that we didn’t start with questions like How are we going to fund it? Or, What will the board look like? We actually started with Should this thing even exist? Is there a need for it? Think about it: Does anybody want to start a new nonprofit that doesn’t need to exist? The answer is absolutely not. I led a taskforce of 15 people through a year-long process where we identified gaps, looked at national and international benchmark districts, and came to the conclusion that, yes, there was an opportunity for this entity to see its potential if it’s an independent organization.

What could an independent organization do that the existing partnership could not?

Part of it is that the entities that were effectively and passionately managing and running it all saw this as part of what they do but not the core. So the opportunity to make the building of a world-class agtech innovation district in St. Louis the core mission is what got everybody excited and led us to start the organization. 

You mentioned that the exploration process involved identifying gaps. What were they?

Doing this in 2022, the big questions everyone was asking at that point were: What’s the future of work look like? Are people coming back into the office?  What we found is that, for agtech in particular, there is a pronounced gap in the physical infrastructure that these companies need to effectively meet every milestone in every stage of their growth. They need equipment. They need facilities. They need really expensive growth chambers and greenhouses. You can’t do that kind of work out of your garage.

Were there other gaps?

An absolutely critical need in this space is the exchanging of ideas and information. If you think about the ag world, someone who’s working on a new gene modification for a plant or a biological fertilizer is working in one tiny sliver of a huge supply chain. So the ability to walk down the hall or across campus to talk to someone you trust in a different part of that supply chain is critical. 

What has allowed St. Louis to become such a fertile region for agtech in recent years?

Part of it is legacy. Bayer Crop Science has produced some of the best ag talent in the world. Bunge is another big player in the ag world, and then all of the work the Danforth Plant Science Center has done in the last 20 or so years. One thing I think a lot of people don’t realize is that we also have a lot of the farmer-facing organizations here. The United Soybean Board is a national organization with incredible resources and connections, and it’s based right here. The same is true of the National Corn Growers Association. Another thing is that St. Louis is within 500 miles of 50 percent of all agriculture in the country, and 80 percent of all the corn and soy. Unlike any place on the coasts that might have a leg up in tech or some other area, you can’t beat miles and miles of farmland.

Which agtech trends are you following this year?

One thing we need to continue to focus on—and I think we do a great job of this in St. Louis—is regenerative agriculture. That means being a good steward of the land that we have. There are all these issues we’ve talked about with feeding a growing population and protecting our climate. That has to do with how we are either extracting or regenerating through our agricultural practices. That’s a key area that’s going to continue to hit ag before it hits other sectors.

Are there any funding trends on your radar?

We’ve seen a lot of traditional tech investors getting into the ag space over the last 10 to 15 years. What’s coming to the fore is this realization that you can’t just overlay tech thesis onto an agtech company. More and more investors are becoming savvier in what it looks like to invest, whether it’s agtech, or whether it’s a new genetic modification—whatever that may be. 39 North board chair Mike DeCamp always says—and I love this—that one thing he always keeps in the back of his mind is that every farmer has 30, and if they’re lucky, 40 shots on goal in their life. Every year, they put everything they have into the ground, and the weather and the work they do leads to what they’re able to produce at the end of the year. You have to keep that cycle in mind and not be frustrated with what may feel like a slower speed of adoption. You have to think about things from the mind[set] of, Look at the risk these people take every year. How are we incorporating that into how we think about developing, selling, and scaling products?

Has anything surprised you about the agtech sector?

I’m surprised every day. That’s the best part about being able to work in innovation. What has really sunk in for me is the inherent timeline and risk associated with ag—what we just talked about.

What else?

How many people in this sector did not start in ag. It’s a really interesting time because sustainability, climate change, and all of those things are so top of mind for so many people. You hear from young people all the time that they are wanting to get into this field. They want to be part of the solution. I think that shift from people thinking about ag as something that is maybe beyond you, especially if you didn’t grow up on a farm or in rural areas, to something that is critical to whether or not we’ll be able to sustain not just our quality of life, but life going forward is a really exciting thing.