Francisco Martin-Rayo

CEO at Helios AI

 

Why does your avocado cost $3? And what does that have to do with climate change, cybersecurity, and geopolitical conflict? In this fascinating conversation, host Kristin King sits down with Francisco Martin-Rayo to connect dots most of us never see, revealing how our food system is far more fragile and interconnected than we realize.

Francisco's journey is unconventional: from studying radicalization in refugee camps in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, to starting an NGO providing university scholarships, to now working at the intersection of AI, climate risk, and food security as CEO of Helios AI. But is the thread connecting it all? Solving complex, urgent problems that affect real people.

In this conversation, you'll explore:

  • Why we need to thank farmers more (and understand the razor-thin margins they survive on)

  • How climate disruptions, cyber-attacks, and supply chain vulnerabilities cascade through our food system

  • The privilege of food security, and what happens when it breaks down

  • Why AI and technology might offer hope for preventing food crises

  • The connection between conflict zones, water scarcity, and what's on your plate

  • Why gratitude and presence matter when we sit down to eat

This isn't just about predicting prices, it’s about understanding the fragile systems that feed us, the people behind our food, and how we can build a more resilient future. Whether you're concerned about climate change, fascinated by supply chains, or simply want to be more mindful about your meals, this conversation will change how you think about food.

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Guest Contact Information:

LinkedIn:  Francisco Martin-Rayo

Company:  Helios AI - Helios is your ultimate partner for predicting price and supply availability for agricultural commodities.  Our approach is intuitive yet powerful: we equip our customers with the market intelligence they need to get ahead of price movements and supply disruptions.

📰 Article: “The Rise of Mangoes in Sicily:  Adapting Crops to a Warmer Europe”

📘 Francisco’s book:Winning The Minds: Travels Through the Terrorist Recruiting Grounds of Yemen, Pakistan and the Somali Border” (Link)

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Help people experiencing Food Insecurity:

Local Harvest (Link) – sponsor a family with a crop or farm share program.

Find Help (Link) – find your local food bank or pantry, or other food assistance services.

Donate meals, support hospitality groups at your place of worship, or schools.

Episode Key Highlights

00:01:23 — Food & Family Connection
00:08:43 — From Tech to Agriculture
00:09:42 — Facing a Hotter Planet
00:12:47 — Mangoes in Italy
00:17:02 — Tracking 250,000 Data Sources
00:18:33 — We’re Focusing on the Wrong Climate Conversation
00:22:33 — You Vote with Your Dollars
00:24:50 — Trucking Bees Across the Country
00:31:04 — The Power of Predictive Data
00:34:29 — Coffee Trees and Financial Barriers
00:38:54 — Cyber, Climate, and the Future of Conflict
00:40:07 — Solving Problems, Not Selling Fear
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📘 Sign up for early updates, exclusive previews, and launch news of Kristin’s book, “Securing What Feeds Us” (working title) here.

---------------

🎤 Book Kristin King to Speak

To invite Kristin to speak at your conference, corporate event, webinar, or workshop, visit the website and submit a request.

---------------

🎤 Bites and Bytes Podcast Info:

Website: Explore all our episodes, articles, and more on our official website.  

Merch Shop: Show your support with some awesome Bites and Bytes gear!

Substack: Stay updated with the latest insights and stories from the world of cybersecurity in the food industry.

Schedule a Call with Kristin: Share Your Thoughts

Socials:  TikTok; Instagram; LinkedIn; BlueSky

---------------

🛡️ About AnzenSage & AnzenOT

AnzenSage is a cybersecurity advisory firm specializing in security resilience for the food, agriculture, zoo, and aquarium industries.  AnzenSage offers practical, strategic guidance to help organizations anticipate risks and build resilience.  Learn more about their offerings at anzensage.com.​


AnzenOT:  Industrial Cyber Risk — Simple.  Smart.  Swift.
AnzenOT is the SaaS risk management platform built to bring clarity and control to Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity.  Designed for critical infrastructure sectors, AnzenOT translates technical risk into clear, actionable insight for decision-makers.  Explore the platform at anzenot.com.
For demo requests or inquiries, email stuart@anzenot.com or kristin@anzenot.com


Listen to full episode :


Episode Guide:
00:00:20 — Episode Introduction
00:01:23 — Favorite Food & Family Traditions
00:04:07 — Francisco Introduces Himself & Helios AI Overview
00:05:25 — The Reality of Farming and Climate Optimism
00:08:43 — Francisco’s Background and Path to Helios
00:09:42 — The Harsh Truth About Climate Change and Food Security
00:10:16 — Mid-Episode Break: Marriage Update & 13,000 Downloads
00:11:13 — The Global Impacts of Climate Change on Food Systems
00:12:47 — Mangoes in Italy: Climate Adaptation Case Study
00:14:06 — Balancing Regenerative Agriculture and Genetic Innovation
00:15:22 — Food, Culture, and Identity in a Changing Climate
00:16:45 — Invasive Species, Data Collection & Global Risk Tracking
00:17:02 — The Power of AI & Data in Predicting Food Disruptions
00:18:33 — Why Climate Conversations Are Failing

  • 00:00:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And welcome back to the Bites and Bytes Podcast.

    ‍ ‍

    00:00:24 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I am your host, Kristin King.

    ‍ ‍

    00:00:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's right, new name, same mission, more on that during the break.

    ‍ ‍

    00:00:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Today's episode is one that hits right at the intersection of technology, climate, and the food that sustains us.

    ‍ ‍

    00:00:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    My guest, Francisco Martin-Rayo, CEO and co-founder of Helios AI, a company using artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural prices, supply disruptions, and climate risk long before it happens.

    ‍ ‍

    00:00:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We talk about how AI can actually predict food shortages, why climate change is forcing farmers to adapt faster than ever, and what happens when the systems that feed us start to break.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's an eye-opening conversation that connects global markets, dinner tables, and human stories behind both.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So grab your coffee or tea and do curiosity.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:14 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    This one's going to make you think differently about what's on your plate.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Enjoy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    In Bites and Bites tradition, we're going to start with favorite food and favorite food memory.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So go for it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:30 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's kind of a random favorite food.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:31 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So my grandmother was a refugee from Spain.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    She came over from Spain to Mexico during the Civil War.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And she used to make lasagna, which is not what you would expect a woman from Barcelona to make.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:41 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    But she used to make it as a special dish for me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And she used to make the pasta and the bechamel sauce and the meat sauce all from scratch.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:47 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And we started making it during Christmas as kind of like the family tradition.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:51 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so my wife is Kurdish.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I'm kind of Mexican.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I guess my grandparents were from Spain.

    ‍ ‍

    00:01:56 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so it's probably the weirdest Christmas dish for a Mexican Curtish family to have is lasagna.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:01 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But it's been really nice to have that almost like common history, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    In terms of what I was fed by my grandparents and what I'm now feeding my children and hopefully what I'll feed my grandchildren one day.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So that's been a really happy memory recently.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That sounds like a great Christmas meal, to be honest.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, you don't have to go.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    The dashamel really makes all the difference.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:18 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    If you make it from scratch, it's delicious.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    A lot of people skip that step.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:21 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I think it's a super important step.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I haven't had like a proper lasagna in I don't even know how long, to be honest.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's not that hard.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:27 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    I mean, it was a little daunting at the beginning, but I prefer that to ricotta.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:30 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I don't love ricotta.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Really?

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Actually, I do love ricotta, though, in general.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    No, that's fantastic.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's also probably tied to your favorite food memory then, is because it's with family and together, or unless it's not.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    No, that's it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it's the food, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it's really nice to have your whole family sit around a table and eat.

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They call it, in Spanish, sometimes it's called sore mesa, which is

    ‍ ‍

    00:02:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    after the food is gone, you're still lingering around the table and chatting and having more wine and eating now with whatever's left over that's kind of cold.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:00 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Just really happy memories around that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:02 Kristin King

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    I love that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:03 Kristin King

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    That's like one of my favorite things to do with people is after we've eaten, we never get off the table.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:06 Kristin King

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    We just sit there and just, like you said, pick on whatever's left over.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If it's like the bread or whatever cold meal or.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    Yeah, and like an hour in, you're taking like the cold bread, you're dipping in the cold lasagna, it's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, I love that actually.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And then, you know, of course the wine's moving around or whatever coffee's coming out or whatever's happening.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Those are great memories.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:24 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We usually cleared the table of food.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Well, we kept a little food bits and we would start games.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So games would start and the conversations would continue.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it was always tiles was the game that we used to play with my grandparents.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Oh, I like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:37 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, now that I've taught it to my stepsons, so now, of course, they're beating me really badly, actually.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's the goal, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    The next generation should be better than we are.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:46 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I feel like my grandfather's smiling and he's laughing, that good old hearty laugh that he has when I'm losing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:51 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it's okay.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But that's what it's about, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:56 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's about the connection.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's about the people.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's what food does for us.

    ‍ ‍

    00:03:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's besides the nourishment.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, that's what's great.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:02 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I love that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Now I'm craving lasagna, so thank you for that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You're going to have to take care of that problem.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But go ahead and introduce yourself so everybody knows who you are.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, I'm Francisco Martinreo.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I'm the CEO and co-founder of Helios Artificial Intelligence.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We are the preeminent climate risk platform.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:17 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We have predicted 90% of all agricultural disruptions for 64 commodities across 85 countries, and we predict

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:23 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    the price of agricultural commodities five times better than industry averages, which is really awesome.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I'm sure most people probably look at you and say, okay, then you can tell us how much an avocado is going to cost.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That is exactly what we do.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yes, that is on the platform.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:34 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I'm sure that hopefully nobody blames you for that price or it gives you a hard time when you tell them what it is, if that ever comes up in conversation, because people get very uppity about avocado prices of all things.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, they've been pretty crazy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, the other night, I think I paid like $3 for an avocado.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I said, well, this is.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:49 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You need to come out my way since we're both in Virginia because I only paid.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you're further away from the hub, I think.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I am.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Actually, no, I'm actually not.

    ‍ ‍

    00:04:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There is a distribution center very close to me because it's the last city that before you head out into the western part of West Virginia.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That might be why, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:08 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So yeah, and actually I know that there's a lot of groceries, the hubs that are coming into this area, that the distribution system in this area is decent.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Not to mention farm to table is very close here because it's still agricultural out of this area.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So I mean, I generally think that that's good.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You want to be closer.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:24 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it's a wonderful thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We're actually, we have a very good partnership with a farm out in Middleburg.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So we take the team to visit.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:30 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We're tracking to see how climate is impacting the different crops and the decisions they make.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's an incredible business.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, it's like the most, you have to be the most optimistic person in the world to be a farmer because everything is perfect.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:41 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You make like 5%.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    If anything, anything goes wrong in that season, you're done.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Like you're just at a loss.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And also all the hats that they wear, the fact that they have to be like meteorologists and like midwives and

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    and plumbers and fabrications and engineers.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:56 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's wild how much what they do.

    ‍ ‍

    00:05:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And the aptitude is so high.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's not just like I put seed in ground and I water.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's so many other factors to it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Marketing, their tech, they do cyber.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:08 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like there's so many aspects to it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And nobody knows.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's the thing that's so hard that nobody knows all the things they do or how your food gets to you because our modern world has given us such privilege that we don't even understand where our food comes from at all.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's frustrating, but also

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's also kind of like amazing that we've done that system, but also it's such a big system and it's really common.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It is, it is.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I would encourage everyone of your listeners, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:31 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, go visit a farm.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yes, please.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Not like an apple picking farm, like a proper farm.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They love, typically, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They love having people over.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:38 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    You can pay, you know, visitors pass, you can buy some fresh eggs and all that stuff.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:41 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    It makes an enormous difference.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It'll be really cool.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:43 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It really does.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And yeah, agreed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:45 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If you do want to go to like the trend of your little like pick your flowers, pick your, you know, whatever, go hang out with a cow, that's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Go for it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:06:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I know that there's a, I think there's a ranch, technically a ranch, a producer of beef that's somewhere between here and there in our area that they do these amazing like tours of their facility as well as they do a whole like beef tasting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:08 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So they do like, yeah, they do like, I think they're a Kobe beef farm and they will do this like aged tasting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

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    Yeah, I mean, it's a.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Little pricey, but I was like, that's pretty cool.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:19 Kristin King

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    And maybe appreciate it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:20 Kristin King

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    I mean, they're going to spend some money to eat some steak, but it's,

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    can't get any fresher, honestly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And if you're into that, like that's really cool.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:27 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And there's so many vineyards in the area and there's so much agriculture in our zone.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's so amazing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, Virginia is really wonderful.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I did read this interesting study as well that says if you actually get primarily or all 100% grass fed beef, the saturated fat content is lower than grain fed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so it's actually much healthier for you to eat that type of red meat.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, and it's interesting because a lot of people don't know that all cattle is actually finished on grass.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it really is

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    grass fed in some regards, not fully.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:55 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I guess there's some different layers and rules to this.

    ‍ ‍

    00:07:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And forgive me to all the ranchers that are listening because I have not asked the right questions because I have several ranchers that I now speak to quite regularly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And they remind me that cows are finished on grass.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I'm like, oh, like it's like almost like, duh, I should have known that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like that makes sense.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But like also like I'm an idiot because I don't live on a ranch, you know, and I don't know these things because I'm so far removed from my food system.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:18 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So yeah, it's exactly that point, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:20 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You know, what the chicken's finished on, et cetera, you know?

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Chickens, but that's a complicated conversation, of course.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We have one of the farmers we work with, she said, she really does believe that they come from dinosaurs, which I think makes sense.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    She says, if I lay down too long next to them, they'll peck my eyes out.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They don't care.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They're terrifying type of animals, which is not what you usually think about when you look at chickens.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:43 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Your background, though, let's give a little more detail about your background, because I find it fascinating how you got from your background to where you are here.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:49 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So let's talk about your background.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, thanks.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:51 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I started a bunch of companies all in technology.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    My first company, I started as a senior in undergrad.

    ‍ ‍

    00:08:56 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It was a cool television technology company, did a bunch of others, did a lot of work around digital transformation, which is just a fancy way of saying, how do you bring like cutting edge technology to legacy industries?

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:05 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    None of the industries like being called legacy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:07 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We learned that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But I also used to import avocados from Mexico at one point.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it was the reason, like,

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:13 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    seeing what the food supply system was like, seeing what was coming along in terms of technological changes and knowing what was happening with climate change that we said, we think we can do something really special in this space and launch Telios.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it was really kind of a, I saw the need, it's there, so we're going to go for it to launch this company rather than like, oh, this is going to be a really cool profit-driven thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:34 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It was like betterment of humanity kind of, we need to do this, needs to happen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:38 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, we're really, I mean this apolitically, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Like we really ****

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    kind of climate change, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We have to get used to living in a world that is 2 to 3 degrees hotter.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:47 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, we hit that threshold recently.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But if I say it's two to three degrees hotter, that means at the ends of your distribution, there's some really wonky stuff happening.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:56 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it's already wreaking havoc on your food supply system.

    ‍ ‍

    00:09:59 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you know, our job is to provide you with technology to predict where those disruptions are happening, predict how the prices are going to change, so you can decrease the level of food insecurity.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's pretty brutal otherwise.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Hey, everyone.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thank you so much for listening and sticking with me these last few weeks.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm sure you've noticed that things have been a little quieter on the upload and download front of the podcast.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Well, that's for a really good reason.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:30 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I got married.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I just want to say how much I appreciate all the congratulations, messages, and well wishes that came in from around the world.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You all are super duper wicked incredible.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And speaking of incredible, we just passed 13,000 downloads.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:48 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That milestone means so much to me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Every listen, every share, and every kind of comment helps keep these conversations going.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:55 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And again, I appreciate it when you tell me you're a listener.

    ‍ ‍

    00:10:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If you're enjoying the show, please remember to like, share, and leave a quick review.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It really helps more people find us and join these important discussions about food and agriculture.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thanks, and let's get back to the show.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Which is huge because people don't realize actually how insecure a lot of these places in the world are, especially the ones that really have had the most effect by climate change.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:21 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I find it really interesting too, because people, when they think climate change, they think of like polar ice caps melting, and they think of polar bears, they think of no other displacement with wildlife.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And yes, absolutely think those things because there's important to think about.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But also how we manage agriculture and where we do it and how we do it and what can grow where.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Great example I have, which is kind of a funny example in a way,

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    is the southeast of the UK actually has fantastic sparkling wine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:48 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that is because of climate change.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It actually rivals champagne.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I realized anybody in France who's listening probably just like threw me across the room and I apologize.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, but the Brits are cheering you on.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:58 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They're very excited about this.

    ‍ ‍

    00:11:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I've had it and I've been there and I've been to the vineyards and they're amazing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's so inspiring to see how people are trying to overcome climate change issues and make good things happen from it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Now, this is what we have to do is adapt.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's what's going to happen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:14 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But in some places, we won't be able to adapt because it will just be gone.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm thinking about like fisheries and things like that is really complicated.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And again, not to praise the UK, but they are doing some really great things when it comes to fisheries because we just reached a capacity of overfish or other issues that have happened.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:30 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I find it really interesting to see what other really cool, innovative ways we're going to kind of overcome this and realize one, isn't going to sustain the world.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It helps, but it's not like the thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It would be interesting to see if we're going to turn towards more

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    greenhouse or if we're going to turn towards more urban farming and things like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it'll have to be a combination.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:47 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, it's exactly to your point on how to adapt.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There's a really cool article we wrote on growing mangoes in Italy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:12:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's increased, I think, tenfold over the last few years because the climate in the Mediterranean has gotten so much hotter that it's more similar to the places around India, Peru, where you typically grow a lot of these mangoes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so they said, well, we can't grow some of the things we used to grow, olives and olive oil, but we can start growing mangoes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think we need

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    to start thinking about that at a global scale.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    How do we adapt our global food supply chain so that you can start growing things in places that you didn't use to?

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:19 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But also, this is really difficult to accept that you're not going to be able to harvest certain crops in places that you're used to.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Think cocoa, right, and the Ivory Coast and Ghana, as an example.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Oranges out of Florida.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:30 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Florida used to have 200 million boxes of oranges.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's down 98%.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's not coming back.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What can you start growing in Florida that will thrive in this new climatic environment

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    that they're feeling.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:43 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I realize that some people are going to get a little bit weirded out when I say like, this is why genetically monomatified food is a good thing at times, because if we're going to keep certain crops on the ground, we need heat resistant.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That goes for the slip gene for cattle, that kind of, all those things.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm not saying yes or no to it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:13:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm just saying this is the innovation that's happening.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You have your opinions about it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's what we're going to have to do is more innovation ultimately, and it's going to require tech and data.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I completely agree.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:07 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, I mean, it's really hard, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:09 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We're really close to a lot of like regenerative agriculture.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    departments across major CPGs.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:15 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And even the folks that are doing really incredible work, right, your Unilevers, your Nestles, they're very aware that you're not getting the yields you need if it's just regen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:23 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then you need that level of genetic innovation, whether we like it or not, right, for some of these crops to be able to adapt or you're just growing fewer of them and they're naturally all more expensive.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And that's, I am not a fan of saying like food just needs to be more expensive.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I don't, I think that's a very incorrect and relatively privileged point of view.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:41 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:41 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    For the vast majority

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    people like food should not be more expensive, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We should try and make food as available and as cheaply as humanly possible.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    This is where people can eat.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Exactly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Otherwise, it'd be chaos.

    ‍ ‍

    00:14:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Also, where you were talking about the Italy mango situation, I was thinking about how closely we identify our cultures as humans with food.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We basically just said that at the beginning of the show with, you know, favorite food, favorite food memory, and how people are going to have to change their, let go of their identity as it relates to certain things in order to thrive and to push through.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it seems like a very,

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    simple thing to do, but it's not.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:14 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's hard.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If you associate yourself with this is my cultural standard for what food is to me, that's going to be difficult.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's going to be generations to get through that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Absolutely, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:24 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And what does it look like if we live in a world where you can't have certain fruits and vegetables available year round?

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Maybe you can't have blueberries whenever you want them because this is relatively new, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Think of how wonderful it is that you can go to the supermarket at whatever you want at whatever point in time because you have this beautiful global supply chain.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:40 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's what's at risk now.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:41 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It is

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    also so interconnected.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Remember, the United States had a pretty bad raspberry crop, I think two years ago.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:49 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so American buyers went over to Europe and bought basically all the excess raspberries to freeze it, right, to bring it back.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:56 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so the prices of raspberries kind of skyrocketed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:15:59 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    In Europe, it was pretty problematic.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:01 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's something that if you thought about the business, right, no one in Europe is thinking, God, it looks like the Americans had a really bad harvest.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:07 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I guess my prices are going to go up.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But that's how interconnected the food supply chain is now.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And that's

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    how we have to think about it really at that global level and the different levers that happen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, and I think we kind of get too originalized a lot with our food supply, and it really is very much a global place.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:21 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, we get food from everywhere, like you just said, and people are constantly moving food and buying food overseas and coming over.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:27 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, we were talking a lot about, you know, I crave things from places I haven't been in a while and how I would have to probably ship certain things over if I wanted them.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's not always a viable thing, let alone to do, because it may not be able to be transferred.

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    transported or would it be safe for me to get it that way?

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:45 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    The other thing too is to think about is if we're moving food so many places and so fast, but do you track invasive species as well and just how that interacts like on a ship, a bug or whatever and brought this way or vice versa the other way?

    ‍ ‍

    00:16:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Is that something that also you account for in your pricing and data?

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:02 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Partly, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We scrape 250,000 sources every 15 minutes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:07 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Wow.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's extraordinary.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's pretty cool.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:09 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's insane, actually.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's global and you can do it in

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    a bunch of different languages.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:13 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Basically, we built a multi-agent Gen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    AI platform that looks across 250,000 news sources, is picking up the right articles, is scanning them, tagging them, then looking at other type of metadata, and then using that analysis.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    At one point, we had a really cool avian flu dashboard that allowed us to track in real time, you know, when people started to talk about avian flu, where it was spreading, what the geographic locations were, and how that was going to start impacting the prices of eggs.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:39 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Because chickens typically, the price of chicken is most correlated to the price of feed, except for when you have avian flu issues.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so it is interesting, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:47 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's almost like not a one-to-one correlation, they're pretty close.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:49 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's sort of like being a detective in a way.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:51 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Granted, the AI is doing the heavy lifting in this regard, but it's sort of putting the pieces together to understand, because it's all systems thinking.

    ‍ ‍

    00:17:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's how we are going to interact with this sphere that we live in.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Everything is a cycle.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Nature is a cycle.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:02 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I find it really fascinating.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    This fascinates me because I know as I deal more with cybersecurity issues,

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    food and agriculture, this is just going to break the system in so many other ways.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And if I'm thinking about this, the bad actors are thinking about this, the hackers, the nation states, the people want to do harm to each other or just disrupt and be jerks anyways.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And they must be looking at similar data points as well.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it's interesting to me that like force of good and force of bad, when I'm saying that to you, I'm thinking in the back of my head, what do you think has actually kind of broken our system and we need to really start looking at?

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think the focus is wrong in the way we talk about climate change.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think every co-op that happens, COP

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:39 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:39 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Every climate week that occurs, 95% of the stuff that comes out is just garbage.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's totally useless.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We are recommitting to these targets that we're never going to fulfill.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And regardless of the amount of money and energy and attention that we've spent over the last 20 years, we have not gotten better at reducing our CO2 emissions per capita, period.

    ‍ ‍

    00:18:58 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it's only going to get worse with artificial intelligence because it needs a lot of energy to do well.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:02 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And that's not going away.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it is just astounding to me that you have all of these senior people and the professional conference circuit, the people who are out there and I don't really know what they live off of, but they're always at the conferences and they're always doing their thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:17 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's always the same.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:18 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Well, we have to recommit and we really have to think about greenhouse gases.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Nothing's changed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Nothing's going to change in the next 20 years.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:23 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's only going to get worse.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    None of the conversation is about how are we adapting to live in this new world.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it is just extraordinary to me that you're not having the conversation about where should you be building new homes?

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    How should you be thinking about your global food supply chain?

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What are the things that you should no longer be harvesting, you should no longer be planting?

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:40 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    How should you think about it much more broadly?

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There are people who are going to have to move because the places they currently live in are not sustainable anymore.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    How do we support those people through that transition?

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    None of those conversations are happening at scale.

    ‍ ‍

    00:19:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And it is just astounding to me that instead you're spending hundreds of billions of dollars and all of the attention on trying to do something that we've already failed at and is only going to get worse.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:02 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I find that just absolutely

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    absolutely the wrong thing to focus on.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Even if you look at like Florida, right, going back to that example, the state government is paying farmers now not to sell their land to real estate developers, but they can't grow oranges on that anymore.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:15 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What they should be doing instead is paying them to be able to do that transition.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:18 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You can't grow oranges anymore, but you can grow pomegranates or passion fruits.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Great.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's a whole, but to your point, Kristin, then people have to get more excited about maybe having pomegranate juice or passion fruit juice for breakfast.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'd be excited about it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:31 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's okay, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Those are the conversations that I think need to happen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think that that's going to come down to a lot of the marketing of these CPGs and other various companies that they're going to have to encourage the consumer to choose differently.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:45 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We get on a whole soapbox about this, but consumer behavior is very much driven by these organizations.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Whether you believe it or not, it's very true.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You are marketed all the time.

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's difficult because you have to make the choices, but what information are you given?

    ‍ ‍

    00:20:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Do you believe that orange juice is the best option for you?

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    for breakfast.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:02 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    No, I mean, I don't personally.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's a lot of sugar for me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I can't do it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, occasionally there's a mimosa situation, but that's different.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's a celebration moment, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, not every day.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, if I ever live that lifestyle, come find me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm probably doing really well.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But how do you change that behavior and how do you encourage the margins of different items to change?

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You have to get people to realize that they can try something else.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think this is why it's going to be really important to lean on things like social media and the internet in general is get people to

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    to be excited about seasons again.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like, we're going into fall, it's apple season, woo, like get really excited about it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Or it's strawberry season because it's summer, whatever particular thing is for you.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think when I, and I have a degree in environmental management, my new listeners know this.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:46 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So when I became environmentally conscious and when I started to realize, oh goodness, we have no seasons in the grocery store, I should buy seasonally, I should buy local as much as I can, or encourage local, because you can buy local in the grocery store, it's there.

    ‍ ‍

    00:21:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There's little signs that say it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And realizing that

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's something that I need to do as a consumer to help, because where your money goes, the trends follow.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's really hard.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:08 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And understanding the volatility of the system and understanding how it goes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And the more I talk with farmers and the more I'm there with them and realizing that, wow, we have failed them on so many levels and we have failed our system on so many levels, that the climate change issue is the one of the biggest ones, because if we had gotten that in order, we wouldn't have these conversations now.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We would have a different conversation of how do we sustain it?

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's frustrating.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Just your point, I mean, you vote with your dollars, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It is the most effective way for you to force companies to change behavior.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:39 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    If you are buying more local, more organic, et cetera, you know, farmers will provide for that, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Because they see that the market exists.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    If you start drinking a lot of pomegranate juice for breakfast, people will start planting more pomegranates.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:51 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There is a beauty, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    and the way the market reacts to that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    To your point, you have to be really conscious about the choices you're making.

    ‍ ‍

    00:22:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Like almonds, in my mind, are one of the most interesting problems that we have right.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:02 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They're incredibly water thirsty.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    The vast majority of the almonds that we grow in California, we're going to China.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So what you're basically doing is taking a state that already has a water crisis and you're shipping that water to China.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then we have almond milk and all that stuff.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You probably shouldn't be, you know, eating that many almonds or drinking that much almond milk if you care about the water crisis.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's okay if you do.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Right.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We're not going to tell you what you should eat and not eat.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:24 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    No, nobody should be shaming anybody.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, but you should at least be informed of the decisions that you're making and the impact they have on the environment around you.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And I think to your point, that's why it's so important to be able to make informed decisions about what are you eating, what are the impacts, what's in it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, totally.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's such an interesting thing that you say that because people don't have no awareness of what their food is and how it gets to them and what's the actual supply chain length of the situation and where it touches and what it doesn't touch or what's happening.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And what's the cost, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What's the labor cost?

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What's the human cost?

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:55 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What's the environmental cost?

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Exactly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:23:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And farmers know because they're dealing with it every day and they can't win.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They can't make both sides happy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They can't make the consumer happy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They're blamed for prices.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's not their fault.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They just grow.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:08 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They're just the person, you know, that's it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it becomes this moment where you start to realize that, oh, I need to make better choices for myself and for my family and for people that I love around me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That doesn't mean that you need to like put solar panels on your roof and

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    put a wind turbine out in your backyard or have a victory garden, a gentleman's garden, whatever you call it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, feel free to grow vegetables if you want.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:30 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It doesn't mean you have to turn into something that you think is an extreme one way or the other.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There's A halfway point.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You know, I have vegetables and herbs in my garden.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's just part of my garden.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:40 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's just something that I have there.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:41 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You know, changing our mindset about what we choose to drink.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Why are we drinking it?

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Are we drinking it because we have an allergy or is because we think it's healthier?

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:48 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Okay, so what are the other options that are around that?

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    The interesting thing about almonds that you brought up is

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    The bees.

    ‍ ‍

    00:24:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We've got a bee problem and we don't have enough bees and we truck our bees all over the country and we ship them in from Australia to actually pollinate these almonds.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's crazy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But the fact that we have to truck bees from one end of the country to the other seasonally for almonds and cherries and other fruits and vegetables is wild to me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And then now we don't have any bees here because we've got a colony collapse disorder that we still don't understand that we're shipping them in from Australia.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So now Australia has to give us bees.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:21 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's like the system is

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's so complex that it starts to like hurt.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It starts to hurt a little bit.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:27 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's exactly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And I think that's why people often will just give up.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I want to take a moment to talk about something close to my heart.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Food security.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's no secret that I live in the United States.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, I think we all can agree on one thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    No one should ever go hungry.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    As we head into the holiday season, I'd like to encourage you to help where you can.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:55 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Donate to a local food pantry.

    ‍ ‍

    00:25:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You could find one through findhelp.org, or call a local farm and ask if you can sponsor a farm share for a family in need.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    A great place to start would be localharvest.org.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Reach out to your local schools and see if there's a way to support breakfast or lunch programs, or you could be a grocery store buddy or somebody nearby who needs help.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Food insecurity isn't just an American issue, it is a global one.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And while I'm not sponsored by any of these organizations, I believe in using whatever tools we have to make sure everyone has access to food.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thank you for caring, and now back to the episode.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    In fact, we visited, we spend a lot of time on farms, and I was visiting a lettuce manufacturer, processor, and farm in California recently, and they showed us these two plastic bags, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:47 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And they said, what is the difference between these two plastic bags?

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:49 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    One is, and you look at them and they basically look exactly the same.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    One is recycled, it costs two or three times as much as the other one, but we're talking about cents, so it's okay.

    ‍ ‍

    00:26:59 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And the other one is non-recycled, but it's just perfectly clear and it's a lot cheaper.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And they said we would be more than happy as a processor to put our

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    lettuce into this recycled bag, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, it costs a little bit more, but really it's not enough to make that big of a difference.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But you can see it's, you know, like 18% or so less clear.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:17 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so people won't buy that produce because it looks a little less ugly next to the perfectly clear, non-recyclable bag.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But that's a customer preference where you're like, yeah, I want recyclable, but let me go get the really clean, very beautiful like packaging for my lettuce.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Or, you know, we want

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Romaine, I don't know if you've ever been to a romaine farm.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:38 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It will break your heart because you're collecting these beautiful romaine lettuces and you're cutting at least 50% of it off to only keep that really shiny core for no good reason, just because customers prefer kind of a particular color.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, because they're very floral looking, aren't they?

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Very floral, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:27:58 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you could probably cut, I don't know, 15, 20% of it, not 50% of it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so if you go to the field, it's just a field of romaine

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    tons of romaine, if you will.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:09 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But no one is buying it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's incredibly wasteful.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's so frustrating to think, again, this is maybe why people need to grow their own vegetables, because you would see how an actual head of romaine looked.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's kind of like broccoli looks very floral and colic for it looks very floral, but people get the little tight bulbs essentially at the store.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You and I are both of the generations that we remember when things weren't wrapped in plastic in the grocery store.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:30 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I know that people are going to have feelings one way or the other about plastic or whatever.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:34 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm not here to tell you right

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    or wrong.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:37 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's not this episode, maybe another one.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:40 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But I will say that it's really maddening that we have to wrap things in plastic now because of food safety.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And ultimately, that's what it comes down to because of the way we've done certain things and certain regulations haven't allowed us to change.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There should be no runoff going into a field that should be fixed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:28:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But then again, if a farmer's doing it correctly, it won't be a problem anyway.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:02 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it's so interesting to me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And also, there's dirt on your stuff.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It came from the ground, has dirt

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like, I need to get over it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And yeah, just clean it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's so funny how we.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Sometimes there's a few little bugs.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's all right.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:14 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, whatever.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's fine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's okay.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's funny how we get so twisted up and weirded out when we find a bug on our food or anything like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's not pristine.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's wrong.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's just if you were hungry.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:27 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It is remarkable, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That you're like, you don't expect any insects on your food, on your fruits and vegetables, but they're grown outside, surrounded by insects.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, I understand that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    with mold and things like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I get that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    obviously, you don't want to eat things with mold.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:40 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    and I think it's funny that we-?

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    This kind of cheese is pretty moldy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, yeah, it's smelly, but yes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:46 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's so interesting that we've kind of, and I appreciate that there's other companies that are out there that are trying to bring back like ugly fruit food and misfit food or whatever it is.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:55 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Misfit foods and stuff.

    ‍ ‍

    00:29:56 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, I appreciate that because we need to love on like wonky looking food because it's still food, it's still edible, it's still delicious.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And this is why a crop sharing association is really cool to join.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    and didn't be part of.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I've had the privilege of it a couple of times, and I always got weird food, and it was like, choose your own adventure eating.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It really was.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:15 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, exactly, right.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We could just load it in.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Take a picture of it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:19 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What do I do with this?

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:20 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You know, you take a picture of your pantry and whatever the CSA sent you, and you'll end up with a pretty decent recipe.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, there are many nights where I'm like, I have these three items.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:27 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You need to make me a meal.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like, there's been many of that going on.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:30 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It might be that tonight as well.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:32 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I don't know, because chicken something seems to be a very common dish for us.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like, what are we making at chicken something?

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:37 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I don't know yet.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:37 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But it's so interesting because you're a company that is ultimately trying to predict what the prices are going to be.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But it's so many factors into that, social, cultural, climate change for sure, other aspects that are coming, weather, which is tied into, you know, obviously climate change, you know, that's what I was saying really goes without saying.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:56 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But it's so interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm finding it so interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:30:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But was there something about the data when you started getting into it that you were like, whoa, this is really interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    This is fascinating when you originally started.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's a really good question.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:08 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think the most, when we first started, we set out to just be able to predict agricultural disruptions.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:13 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We said, all right, we can build a platform and we ingest, we basically, we took the world, we broke it down into 14 million hexagons.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:19 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Each hexagon is 2.3 kilometers per side.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We take daily weather data from each of those hexagons.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:24 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We have that data historically for 20 years, and we forecast it out.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:27 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then the interesting part was, you know, then we built these like machine learning models that were specific to each of the crops.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It was interesting that it was possible to predict the

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:36 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    disruptions.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But the way we had to do it is one, there was no database of all the places in the world that are growing these commodities for export.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So we had to build that from scratch.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then there's no database of disruptions.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So we had to ask our customers, because for any model, right, you need your output variable.

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What is the outcome that you're training it against?

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:54 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    If you're training it against disruptions, what is your list of disruptions?

    ‍ ‍

    00:31:58 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So we had to build both of those in order to be able to train our models and say like, hey, did you catch 90% of the disruptions?

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Great, well, what's the list of disruptions?

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    surprising for us was just how more prevalent disruptions have become over the last few years.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:13 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you miss it in the nuance.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:15 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so if you look at, if you just look at average precipitation, you'd say, oh, it's still broadly in line.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But what we're seeing in a lot of regions is, let's say your average precipitation is 30 inches a month, just to make it easier.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you'd say, all right, well, on average, we're getting an inch a month or, you know, 2 inches every 15 day, every second day.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What's happened is instead you're getting like 15 inches

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    on day one, 15 inches on day five, and nothing for the other 28 days.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And that's driving a ton of the disruptions that we're seeing globally.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so you always focus on temperatures.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:49 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    droughts and stuff, and that's important.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But it is this new erratic precipitation that makes it incredibly difficult for non-irrigated crops to grow.

    ‍ ‍

    00:32:58 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And even the crops that are irrigated, you're just spending a lot more money watering when you didn't expect to.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There's a big, I mean, we know we talked about the UK.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:06 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There was a huge potato issue in the UK two seasons ago where, you know, the potatoes, they had an okay season.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Potatoes are very hardy, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They had an okay season.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:14 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    They were, toward the end, it was perfect.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You're going to get these grade A potatoes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:17 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And you know what you do with the highest

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:18 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    quality potatoes, you make them into french fries.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    That's interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then there was just a ton of rain.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:23 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so you couldn't harvest because the fields had become muddy.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then the potatoes got really fat and bloated.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so you lost a percentage in the harvest.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:31 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then when you got these like overly large bloated potatoes and you put them in storage, you lost another 4% to mold.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so it was really interesting that you were really starting to see kind of really negative impacts to this erratic precipitation in ways that people don't typically talk about on a climate change perspective.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Well, most people don't even

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:48 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    realize, again, it's just, it's, we have no idea that two years ago was like biblical flooding.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It was, it was awful.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:56 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They could not harvest and they lost their crops.

    ‍ ‍

    00:33:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Most everybody, I think everybody kind of lost that year in the UK for the most part in those regions that were hit the hardest.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it was devastating.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Really?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    What do you do?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You have to buy, do you have to buy potatoes from somebody else?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You know, that's the only way to do it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:11 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Kristin, exactly.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    What if that starts to happen instead of every 20 years, every five years?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We have a huge farmer we support and

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:19 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We don't typically work with farmers, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:20 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We make, we work with the people who buy and sell the commodities, but we have partnerships with farmers.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:25 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    A big one of our partners in Brazil, they have, I think, 10,000 hectares of coffee trees.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, we're talking about like, these are like helicopter, you have to fly from one into the other farm, it's that big, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Twice for him, he's planted new 5,000, 5,000 new hectares of coffee trees, twice the trees have died because of unexpected frosts.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:43 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Takes five years to get your money back from a coffee tree.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And so his big thing is like, this used to happen once every 10

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    10 or 15 years, and I knew I could get my return on the investment.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And now I've lost 5,000 hectares of coffee trees twice in five years.

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:55 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Is this the new normal?

    ‍ ‍

    00:34:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And if it is, how do you possibly keep planting coffee trees?

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:01 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    On top of that, why would you keep doing it?

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's like failure on failure.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's not good for your mental health and your well-being, let alone your family and all these other things you've got to keep up.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    As a farmer, that to me is, you've got to deal with loss.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Like that is, that's a hard human emotion.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, grieving is one of the worst things we do as humans next

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    shame.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And how do you pick yourself up and keep moving?

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:22 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, well, and, you know, from a financial perspective, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's interesting because it's incredibly expensive to lose your crop.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:29 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But also financial institutions will only loan to you if you are growing the same crops on the same farm that you have historically.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:37 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So he tried to go to the bank and said, I should no longer be growing coffee here, I should grow something else.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:42 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And the bank said, that's really cute.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We will loan you the money to buy more coffee trees, but not to do anything else.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Yeah, you

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We need those financial incentives for it to work, right.

    ‍ ‍

    00:35:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Hi, we're Ans and Sage.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And if you're in food production, agriculture, and even running a zoo or an aquarium, you need to talk.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Because let's be honest, your operation relies on a lot more technology than most people realize.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    drain dryers, hatchery controls, life support systems for animal habitats, all connected, all critical, all often overlooked when it comes to cybersecurity.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:22 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's where we come in.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:24 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    At Anson Sage, we help industries that grow, feed, and inspire the world.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    manage cybersecurity and operational risks.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Without the fear tactics, the fluff, or the 200-page audit, you'll never read.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Whether you're producing milk, processing seafood, or running life support systems, we focus on what matters, keeping your operations safe, your people protected, and your business running, even when things go sideways.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:48 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And hey, we know not everyone on your team speaks cyber.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:52 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And because not everyone on your team speaks cyber, we've created a free resource library at AnsonSage.com.

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Inside, you'll find sectors

    ‍ ‍

    00:36:59 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    specific infographs built for teams in agriculture, seafood, zoos in aquariums.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    They're clear, practical, a little witty, and designed to help frontline teams understand their risks without needing a translator.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    No logins, no e-mail required, no catch.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There's usable tools that make cybersecurity stick.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If you're responsible for keeping food moving, animals safe, and systems online, Ans and Sage is your partner in real-world resilience.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Visit AnsandSage.com to download your free infographs, book

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Consult or just learn more about how we're helping critical infrastructures secure what matters most.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:34 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Anson Sage, helping the industries that grow, feed, and inspire the world manage cybersecurity and operational risks.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So we're going to have to create coffee tree strains that are, can handle frost essentially is what the only way he's going to ever be able to keep up really with this?

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:51 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    All he's going to be able to do is, yeah.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    But to your point, if you have regular flooding, maybe you stop growing perennials and maybe you start growing rice.

    ‍ ‍

    00:37:59 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Hey, we're going to have flooding in this year.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:00 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Let's grow rice.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:01 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And then suddenly you're not just.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You're doing champagne in the UK, you're doing rice.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, I don't really think the UK is going to like that since they're very big on their potatoes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:10 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I feel like that's going to hurt A lot.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So again, this goes about changing your culture to rice from potatoes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:15 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I just don't see that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:16 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    No, fish and chips.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:17 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Fish and rice is the new thing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Well, we could talk about fish all day long.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    However, I know that you aren't doing proteins as of yet.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:23 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Not yet.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:24 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But you will be.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And then there's a whole new world that will open up and it will just be even more wild because the way we do proteins is going to change to the way we adapt and move things.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    around like that is insane as well.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:34 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Not to mention that the majority of the things that we grow also go towards protein.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So that's really fascinating about too.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:41 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So if we can't grow food to feed the animals that feed us, we're in a bigger problem too.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:46 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's not just like we can't get almonds.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:49 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We literally can't get feed to these animals and we require protein if you eat meat.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's really interesting.

    ‍ ‍

    00:38:55 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And as you're talking, I'm thinking about all these disruptions and I'm thinking about all the cyber disruptions that I know about and the ones that even the ones that aren't

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    publicized that I know about.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And this is going to become a bigger problem too, because this is how we go into attack each other moving forward.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And this is how we're going to better way to say it is war.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:12 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's already happening.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And we're seeing it in real time right now, unfortunately, and how corporations will compete with each other and things like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:18 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's going to be just another layer of data that's going to help your company explain and predict, but also another way that's going to drive prices.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Because we've had cyber interruptions and disruptions already, especially this year, and it's been detrimental.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    and pricing and things like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:35 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Somebody's going to make up the loss.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Is it going to be the consumer?

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And if we go in through, God help us, if we go through another pandemic, that's going to drive prices again.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    There's so many factors to this data.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:44 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm super fascinated.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:46 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm super fascinated.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I hope everybody hears that because this is fascinating information.

    ‍ ‍

    00:39:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    But as we're wrapping up, I know this has been a little bit gloomy and doomy a little bit, but I want to know, so you've done, you know, geopolitic risk, you've been in conflict zones, you've been, you're an author of a book, which I'll definitely like in the show notes, and now food systems.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So is this work about really about peace or is it more of like a new battleground for you?

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:07 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it's about solving problems.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    When I, so I'll give you three different examples.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    When I was in grad school, I was doing some really cool research on radicalization in refugee camps in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:19 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And when I went to visit and did the study, it turns out that there's very few university scholarships, refugees basically that are in the camps.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:26 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    There's a lot of support for primary, secondary education.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:28 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So a lot of folks said, why would I ever go to high school and graduate from high school?

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:31 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Even if I make it to university, there's no

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    for me to get there.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:34 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So I started an NGO that I ran on the side that was giving university scholarships to these refugees.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:39 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So they could go to university and then go back to the camps and teach and it created this really nice life cycle.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You know, you identify the problem, you come up with the solution.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:46 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    For where it's almost totally different problem I had.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:49 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I read the news.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:50 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    This was before podcasts were really big.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:52 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    On my phone while driving, I almost crashed into a lamppost.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:56 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And I said, you know, it'd be really good.

    ‍ ‍

    00:40:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We could just get a text-to-speech engine on top of an RSS feed.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:01 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I created a mobile app that did that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:02 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It was called

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    hear your news and you could pick and choose the articles you wanted from the different RSS feeds that you subscribe to and it read to you in different voices.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:10 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    And I think for Helios, it was the same, right?

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:12 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We knew that there was a problem around agricultural disruptions, price volatility, and I felt that we could build a solution that would really address it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:21 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think that's what I'll probably do for the next 50 years, just keep finding some interesting problems and trying to solve them.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think that's great.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:27 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I love how you've taken your background in a way and pushed it into your present because it's all the knowledge you had before.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    or troubleshooting your aptitude and thoughts around how people processes work together in a system.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's very clearly established here.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:41 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It makes sense.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:42 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And also the agricultural bit makes sense to me too, because it all flows in the same sphere.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:47 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Because if people can't eat, they're going to cause problems and then there's going to be issues.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:51 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I think we're in a really pivotal time, not just with climate change.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:55 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think geopolitically, we're in an interesting time frame globally.

    ‍ ‍

    00:41:58 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm not picking on any country specific.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think that in this new digital world between

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    AI and all these other things.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think we're in a really pivotal time with cyber since we still don't have great protections in place with different things, especially in our food and ag sector.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I think that this is going to be, I guess, watch this moment.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:14 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I feel like I said that a lot on the show.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We're just going to watch the moment.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We're here, but we can't troubleshoot until we see what's going to happen.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And it's going to be really interesting moving forward, especially in the next probably five years, really, ultimately, how things are really going to play out.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:27 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I was just going to say there is a lot of hope with what we're seeing, at least from an AI perspective.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:32 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I know we're worried

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:33 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    about job losses and that's definitely something we need to worry about.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:35 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We're really worried about climate change, but there is so much potential with artificial intelligence across not just getting better yields with the existing crops you have because you can irrigate better and you can do different fertilizers.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:48 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    You can do new genetic sequencing for new, you know, strains of crops that we hadn't thought of before.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:53 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    So it really might, I mean, I'm a techno optimist in that sense.

    ‍ ‍

    00:42:57 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    We really are at that pivotal moment where like, despite some of the things we look at that we go, well, it could be a really bad

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:03 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    next 10, 15 years.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:04 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    I think it might be an extraordinary 10, 15 years where we're able to solve a lot of these problems that we have with technology.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:11 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And like you said, if we can change how we do certain things and adapt and adjust a little bit, we can have really high yields in different aspects.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Sure, you may not have something specific on whatever date you need it, but that doesn't mean you won't get, at least it will still be available at some point in the year.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I think that's the goal right now, is to make sure you can still have it at some point.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:29 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You just may not have it right when you want it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I think people need to

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    adjust to that and that will cause some tensions and some stress for sure, which I think is such a privileged moment because if you really understood food insecurity, then he wouldn't have a problem with that at all.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:43 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Same with water and things like that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:45 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And that's actually something that I'm interested to see what AI is going to predict around water because that is drought as a problem.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:50 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    We only get one water cycle and it's a big problem.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:53 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And I think AI will be able to start predicting how it can help us with that.

    ‍ ‍

    00:43:57 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Not to mention water is used to cool the data centers that AI is in.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:00 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    So it's quite an interesting

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:03 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    time we live in, honestly, I still think there's a lot of hope.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:06 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I'm not saying there's all gloom and doom.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:07 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I just really want us to go thank farmers more and be in that moment and be present with it and be really grateful for the food that's on your table.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:16 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Really have that moment with it because it is special.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:19 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It is special every time.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:20 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I mean, a lot of people sit down and they pray before their meals or they have their religious moments in front of it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:25 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thank the farmer while you're doing it.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:27 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    That's the important moment.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Or when you go out to a really amazing meal, thank the chef.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:31 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thank the people that made your food.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    that are responsible for because they're part of the chain.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:36 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It's all one big connected group.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:38 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thanks so much for being here.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:39 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    This is like a super fascinating conversation.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:41 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    I feel so enlightened, like, yes, this is great.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:44 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    Thank you so much for having me.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:45 Francisco Martin-Rayo

    ‍ ‍

    It's been such a pleasure.

    ‍ ‍

    00:44:54 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    A huge thank you to Francisco for joining me and sharing how his company, Helios AI, is using technology to make our global food systems more resilient.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:04 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    And to you.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:05 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Thank you for listening, for sharing, and being part of this community.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:09 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    If you enjoyed today's episode, remember to like, comment, and share.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:13 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    It really does help others find the show and keeps these conversations growing.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:17 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    You can also check out my Substack and the Bytes & Bytes podcast website for additional content, behind the scenes, stories, and updates from our guests.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:26 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Link is in the show notes.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:28 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Until next time, stay safe, stay curious, and we'll see you on the next one.

    ‍ ‍

    00:45:33 Kristin King

    ‍ ‍

    Bye for now.

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Ep. 039 - Third-Generation Farmer Jake Leguee on Technology, Risk, and Feeding the World