Beyond portfolio support, VC ecosystems also vary in scale from local to international. When VCs evaluate which startups to fund, the criteria depend on the stage of the startup. During the seed stage, VCs judge startups based on their technology, team, and the extent to which the startup has a believable market opportunity. Moving towards the Series A funding round, VCs begin to care about unit economics, proof of traction through contracts and letters of intent, and revenue. At the Series B stage, VCs continue to value revenue metrics and begin to look for established customer pipelines, go-to-market strategies, and proof of high growth companies. All three stakeholder groups had varying opinions of the role of government in the precision weeding ecosystem. Under existing conditions, growers viewed the government as offering little support and being out-of-touch with grower needs. Because specialty crops are a small percentage of America’s total agricultural production due to large commodity crops like rice, soy, and corn, government intervention for specialty crops would not provide as positive of a return on investment. While the government is slow, some of the growers did commend effective government funding for irrigation. However, in the future, because hand labor for weeding is arduous, some growers have hope for increased government support because of precision weeding’s positive social implications. Startups viewed government involvement as limited to grants and the USDA’s agronomy advice. Though pushed by local politicians, drying cannabis particularly in Salinas Valley, R&D tax credits remain trivial. In addition, startups and VCs noted the role of regulatory agencies such as CalOSHA and the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

In connection to the government, all three stakeholder groups mentioned government funding for land grant university research and the UC Extension system in a positive light. Some startups mentioned that they want to become more involved with universities to influence the curriculum and develop two-year technical degrees to combat workforce constraints in agtech implementation. However, some interviewees, such as V2, voiced that the Extension has lost grower influence and that now, Extension advisors may not be the farmer’s first call or key advisor anymore. Similarly, growers felt that though Advisors are helpful in educating and advising, a lack of funding and relatively low salaries have prevented the UCCE from gaining more influence over grower behavior and precision weeding adoption. In total, the thirteen concepts mentioned most in the interviews were identified to measure the overlap of themes between the stakeholder groups, . Five described current limitations preventing precision weeding from proliferating, four involved the role of government in promoting precision weeding, three concerned the interactions between startups and VCs, and one was about the role of large corporate farms. Some concepts were more polarizing than others, as demonstrated by the color imbalances between the bars for each concept. Concepts about the limited involvement of government and the role of the government in funding land-grant university research and the UCCE were agreed upon by all three stakeholder groups. However, only VC interviewees addressed the concept of ‘Big Ag is looking for strategic returns/outsourcing innovation’ to explain why large corporate farms engage with precision weeding startups. Additionally, the complexity of the machines to operate was brought up as a blocker by the startups and the growers, but not VCs.To visualize the results about the third objective, interviewee responses were mapped onto a user experience template, colloquially known as ‘swim lanes.’ After overlaying the results for growers, the most common touch points identified in the growers’ awareness phase were social media, in-person networking through conferences and conventions, and collaborations with universities.

Growers perceived startups to be concerned about their lack of connection to the agricultural community, the risk of wasting time with unideal pilots, and ensuring the grower has the right field conditions for what the startup needs feedback for . On the other hand, startups perceived their concerns to be the dual marketing of value propositions towards growers as well as their investors, supply chain issues that may limit their technical execution of commercializing manufacturing, and large growers having bureaucratic issues that prevent demonstrations and pilot projects from becoming recurring customer relationships . During the pilot phase, growers perceived themselves to be concerned about the risk of crop damage, support staff, startup longevity, and startup quality and capabilities . During the piloting and purchasing phases, startups perceived growers’ concerns to be the price model, logistics, weeding quality, and the startup quality and capabilities . While many startups were concerned about matching customer expectations because imitating human dexterity and vision is technically challenging, one grower explicitly did not have concerns in the piloting phase because they have realistic expectations: “I don’t expect it to be like a John Deere tractor that’s just going to come out and be perfect and do everything that’s expected. I get it with technology companies that when it’s going to come out, it may suck.” Most of the areas of improvement brought up were in the consideration/piloting phase. Growers felt that points of improvement in their user journey included the prioritization of larger growers over smaller growers: smaller growers should have the same access as larger growers have to new technologies . In addition, smaller growers may value other pain points, such as food safety, over precision weeding . Startups felt that improvements could be made by educating growers about misperceptions about a lack of equipment availability within weeding-as-a-service business models. Some startups were also concerned about the ability of dealers to devalue the primary piece of farmers’ equipment, such as a tractor; the additional implements, such as precision weeding add-ons, could devalue the equipment .

The most common motivations for precision weeding technology adoption were labor concerns, environmental sustainability, costs, and return on investments. Growers were the most vocal and detailed about the shortage of labor motivating their interest in precision weeders. Because of the increase in minimum wage and AB 1066 qualifying farmworkers for overtime pay, growers and producers are growingly concerned about labor regulations . These increased labor expenses push producers to increase on-farm efficiency and mechanization, particularly on vegetable and organic farms. California growers’ issues with labor scarcity and thus increased labor costs has been a long-standing trend that also contributed to early mechanization during the 20th century. Because of California’s niche growing conditions, there was the advent of new gasoline tractors and mechanical pickers and harvesters . Now, labor scarcities are especially pressing because of California’s large production of specialty crops. Labor expenses are also especially pertinent because of the state’s strong organic sector and its associated costs. In 2019, data from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s State Organic Program found that California’s organic sector is growing: organic acreage has increased from 1.8 million acres in 2014 to 2.6 million acres in 2019, and in 2019, organic products in the state sold for more than $10.4 billion . Additionally, California’s organic production made up 40 % of all organics in the U.S., indicating the state’s importance as the trailblazer of organic agriculture . This increase in organic production has arguably been fueled by support from the State Organic Program, a regulatory and educational department within CDFA which has, for example, implemented cost share programs for USDA certification . In addition, the consumer preference for organics has driven this trend: multiple studies have demonstrated consumers’ willingness to pay premiums for organics, with the market demand influencing grower decision making . However, organic farms face logistical and operational challenges because they employ more workers per acre. A survey of organic farms revealed that farms that have less than half of their land in organic production have fewer direct-hire workers per acre, 0.58, in comparison to farms with more than half, 0.84 . Similarly, another study found that compared to conventional farms, organic farms have both more workers per acre and a higher proportion of full-time employees to seasonal contractors . Interestingly, despite copious literature on the positive correlation between increased costs—particularly from labor—and organic farming, pipp racking the results of this study align more closely with literature suggesting that digital technologies are often closely adapted to conventional/industrial farming practices. All the growers we interviewed produce both organic and conventional crops and most startups we interviewed still included herbicides in their weed management regimes. The trend of agricultural technologies being more suitable for conventional agriculture has been shown in the use of big data, an aspect of digital agriculture defined as large sets of heterogeneous data. While harnessing big data has proven environmental and economic benefits, access may not be realistic for small-scale farmers, further widening the accessibility gap between industrial players and more vulnerable ones .

Elaborating on this accessibility gap, a review of digital agriculture revealed that top-down technological development, as opposed to farmer-driven initiatives, often are designed for very specific production systems . In addition, agricultural machinery exhibits economies of scale at the farm level, favoring larger-scale farms . Beyond the larger farm size associated with conventional growers, technological solutions may not target the needs of organic growers. A study found that digital technology use for production was underrepresented on organic farms because of a mismatch in the technology solution and the grower needs . For example, GPS deployment may help a conventional grower save on diesel, fertilizer, and weed killer, but it will only help an organic grower save on diesel. As a result, literature suggests that digital agriculture, including precision weeding technologies, may be adapted more towards conventional agriculture despite the labor stresses felt by smaller-scale, organic growers. All venture capitalists interviewed were motivated by environmental sustainability while only one grower mentioned it. This venture capital emphasis on environmental concerns such as soil quality, water quality and quantity, and unsustainable practices spur agtech investments. Investors not only valued financial returns but were also motivated by social impact and environmental returns . Because of the venture capital emphasis on environmental concerns, startups may align themselves similarly to raise funding. In a study examining how agrifood tech startups pitch themselves to venture capital firms, researchers found that VC firms make investment decisions not only on the substance and hard facts, but also based on the performance and cultural signaling of the pitch . Therefore, precision weeding startups may drive narratives of social entrepreneurship and sustainability to develop ‘visions of desirable futures’ and add moral justifications to their technologies . Paralleling such startup pitches are the mission statements of agri-food tech investors, which often combine profit and purpose . Despite both stakeholder groups emphasizing sustainable stances, these aspirations may fall short: ‘techno-fixes’ are overly simplistic and cannot realistically correct global food system challenges and the investors’ ROI requirements may curb ambitions .Considering the varying views of government conveyed by the interviewees, the political identities of the interviewees may influence their views on the effectiveness and ideal roles of government. Growers also expressed an increased distrust of government, a trend consistent with the general population . A study using ANES survey data found a shift from democratic identification to independent and conservative ideologies . In addition, in Imperial County, the most impactful work-related stressor for farmers and ranchers were unpredictable factors like government regulations . Though growers felt that the government did not understand the realities of agriculture, many actively advocated and were involved in agricultural leadership efforts . These generally negative sentiments from growers towards the government are juxtaposed by the involvement of the public sector in the digitization of agriculture. A case study examining precision dairy farming in Australia found that public R&E played the largest roles, relative to private R&E, in market formation and the creation of legitimacy . In particular, the public sector galvanized a community of interest around precision dairy farming and developed the National Livestock Identification Program to establish industry standards . In addition, an example of public action promoting digital agriculture is the regulatory pressure against glyphosate use incentivizing industry players to decrease chemical inputs . Considering the parallels for all on-farm technology adoption, existing literature about digital agriculture and the public sector can be contrasted by our case study of precision weeding in which the startup-VC-grower matrix does not consider government interactions as a factor for technology adoption.