Alabama Farmers and Companies Shine at American Farm Bureau Convention
After meeting virtually last year, farmers from 50 states and Puerto Rico welcomed the opportunity to fellowship and share ideas at the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Convention in Atlanta Jan. 7-11.
At the closing session, two Alabama companies, CHONEX and Caravan Tech LLC, received $10,000 each as Top 10 finalists in the AFBF Ag Innovation Challenge. CHONEX has developed a patented process for producing organic fertilizer called StrongSoil, while recycling poultry litter.
Chonex/StrongSoil Joins HudsonAlpha Campus
The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is excited to welcome Chonex to its campus this fall.
Chonex, dba StrongSoil, is a soil health company that restores health to degraded soil by adding microbes that are essential to higher yields and growing nutrient-dense crops with fewer chemical inputs.
“To improve the human condition around the world is core to our mission at HudsonAlpha,” said Alex Cate, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs for HudsonAlpha. “This is one of the reasons we are so glad to welcome our newest associate company to campus, Chonex. Their work with regenerating topsoil is a clear fit with HudsonAlpha’s research focus on sustainable agriculture.”
Celebrating and Elevating Ag Entrepreneurs with Emma Larson
On this episode of Farm Credit MidAtlantic, Katie Ward interviews Emma Larson, Assistant Director of Industry Relations at American Farm Bureau. Emma grew up on her family's farm in California and made her way to Washington, D.C. to begin her career advocating for America’s farmers and ranchers.
Emma leads the Ag Innovation Challenge, a national business competition that showcases American startups developing innovative solutions that address challenges facing farmers and rural communities. Listen to this episode as we get to know the top 10 Ag Innovation Challenge semi-finalists and talk about how these entrepreneurs are changing the agricultural industry for the better.
Here’s a Company Figuring Out How a Storable Product Can Deliver Diverse, Nutrient-Cycling Microbes
We recently became acquainted with some folks in Alabama who are showing it’s possible to deliver impressive soil microbes through a dried, storable product.
CHONEX Inc. has been working with the larvae of black soldier flies, a popular resource for making highly-quality compost and protein-rich animal food. The folks at CHONEX combine the larvae with chicken manure to produce livestock feed, while also making an organic soil conditioner and fertilizer. Because the larvae eat all kinds of things, CHONEX is helping to answer the growing need in agriculture (not to mention lots of other industries) for a sustainable means of waste disposal.
A Birmingham-based Agribusiness Venture Selected for a Missouri-based Startup Competition.
A Birmingham-based agribusiness venture has been selected for a Missouri-based startup competition.
CHONEX, which has previously received an investment from Southern Research's Prosperity Fund, was selected by The Yield Lab to participate in the first-ever Manure Challenge.
The eight companies were among 63 applicants for Manure Challenge, a new startup competition focused on manure-management technologies and products. As part of the competition, cohort companies will receive mentorship, guidance, and networking opportunities aimed at commercializing their technology. The eight startups will compete for non-dilutive funding at a pitch contest in the first quarter of 2020.
CHONEX has been granted U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a system it has developed to recycle poultry manure.
Meet the Latest Plug and Play Startups
Being part of Plug and Play will give CHONEX the opportunity to demonstrate StrongSoil’s viability to farmers who really need it and link us to a network of startups with whom we can partner to further validate its benefits. Plug and Play’s North Dakota AgTech Program focuses on multiple areas directly related to achieving the optimal growing conditions: Soil Sensing and Analysis, Field Monitoring, Precision Farming, Analytics and Sustainability. StrongSoil is a product designed to create optimal growing conditions. Farmers who are adopting technology to improve their productivity and performance are the same farmers who will be interested in our product and who will immediately benefit from it.
Manure Innovation Challenge Final Pitches at the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit in San Francisco
The Animal AgTech Innovation Summit will host the final of the Manure Innovation Challenge, organized by The Yield Lab Institute for early-stage companies to advance innovative manure-management technologies.
Eight start-ups from around the world have been announced as the finalists to compete in the Manure Innovation Challenge at a special pre-summit Breakfast Pitching session in San Francisco on 16 March. All summit delegates will be welcome to join.
Recycling Nutrients for More Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Health
When it comes to sustainability in agriculture, there’s more to chicken waste than you might think. Chonex, a nutrient recycling company focused on poultry manure, converts chicken manure into its product, StrongSoil, which helps restore soil health.
Ag Innovation Showcase 2019
Ag Innovation Showcase is an intimate venue for industry leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs to form relationships and engage in substantive discussions that will enable innovative solutions to come to market for consumer, social, commercial, and environmental benefit. Speakers, sponsors, early-stage companies, and other stakeholders in food and agriculture innovation network with each other to address today’s questions and develop tomorrow’s solutions for feeding the planet.
The common theme across the 10-year span of AIS since 2008 has been to explore global and national issues related to soil health, food production, food sustainability, food waste, and food security. AIS has been at the forefront of bringing thought leaders and influencers in the field of agriculture and related industries to initiate dialogue and drive collaborations domestically and internationally.
Startup CHONEX aims to turn chicken poop into profit, with help from Prosperity Fund
Using a proprietary process, CHONEX applies black soldier fly larvae to poultry manure. The voracious larvae convert the waste into three products: a certified organic protein feed, a fatty acid used in cosmetics, and a high-value organic fertilizer and soil enhancer.
With Prosperity Fund Help, Startup CHONEX Aims to Turn Waste Into Profit
Corey Tyree, Ph.D., Southern Research’s director of strategic growth initiatives and a co-founder of The Prosperity Fund, said CHONEX’s technology not only has commercial potential but also addresses several problems facing the agriculture industry today.
For one thing, the industry needs sustainable and more efficient methods to produce protein since most soybeans, one-third of all grains, and a large portion of caught wild seafood go to make animal feed. At the same time, egg producers need new sources of organic protein.