Rural universities are teaching AI to power the next wave of farming innovation 

Universities have long launched startups in fields like software and biomedicine, but many are now taking increasingly prominent roles backing entrepreneurship around farming, food, and agricultural technology.

Part of Purdue’s Applied Research Institute, DIAL Ventures hosts a fellowship aimed at digitizing the agriculture and food industry. The “venture studio” connects fellows with startup experience to corporate partners and university experts who help them hone businesses addressing real market needs, says Professor Allan Gray, the program’s executive director.

“The problem is our incumbent companies who feed the world—they’re not digital-native, and so for them to innovate in the digital space is actually quite difficult for them,” he says. “That’s where DIAL Ventures steps in.”

So far, the program has backed companies in areas like farmland management, rural logistics, and agricultural equipment maintenance as well as a digital marketing platform for farmers as content creators called Make Hay.

They are coming to market as experts say burgeoning technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and drones can help address long-standing issues in food production, thanks to innovations from automated harvesting and pest control to data-driven crop yield and logistics optimization. Gray says he expects multiple successful exits by startups within the next few years.

Funding in the U.S. “agrifoodtech” sector grew 14% year over year in 2024, according to a recent report from venture firm AgFunder. But tech meant to handle real-world crops and food, not just abstract bits and bytes, can’t be built from isolated offices in Silicon Valley. A key part of Purdue’s role, Gray says, is ensuring technically adept entrepreneurs learn from the experts on the agricultural side.

“You’ve got to be open-minded and really be careful about listening to what the industry is telling you is the challenge that’s in front of you,” he says.

Of course, at universities serving rural communities, it’s not unusual for students to arrive with their own agricultural expertise, often from working on the family farm. And many of those schools are now helping those students sow their own business ideas. 

At Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a program called Start Something includes a Student Incubator that supports work in emerging areas like soil analytics and drone pesticide application. One student doubled his drone business from one summer to the next, bringing in more than $200,000 in revenue, says Kevin Kimle, Start Something’s director. Kimle’s own son, Iowa State alum Jackson Kimle, runs a business harnessing innovative water filtration technology for a novel kind of Iowa livestock: fresh shrimp. 

More than 1,200 students participate in Start Something programs every year, including roughly 200 who take the program’s capstone class, which culminates with business plans presented to real investors and entrepreneurs. Kimle envisions adding programming for high school students interested in agricultural entrepreneurship, which can in turn help recruit them to Iowa State.

Successfully pursuing new ideas can help graduates thrive in rural areas while giving back to the community, Kimle says, and entrepreneurial ventures can make it easier for family farms to stay viable for a new generation.

Other ag-minded schools, including many that are part of the historic U.S. land-grant program with its long ties to farm and food innovation, boast similar programs, often backed by successful founders among their alums. The U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which promotes entrepreneurial education, has a subgroup for agricultural and rural entrepreneurship, and student startup hubs have launched at schools like the University of Nebraska, North Carolina State, Texas A&M, and Pennsylvania State University. 

Penn State offers support for entrepreneurial students throughout the campus, including the College of Agricultural Sciences, which launched an Entrepreneurship & Innovation program in 2012. Today, it includes offerings like Ag Springboard, a Shark Tank-style student pitch competition that draws hundreds of entries and works with students from a range of majors, says teaching professor Mark Gagnon, cofounder of the program.

“A good number of our students from [the College of Information Sciences and Technology] and computer science come over the ag space, because these are some big challenges to solve, to figure out how to feed the world and reduce the impacts on our footprint,” says Gagnon.

Students have launched companies like Phospholutions, which has developed a soil additive that makes phosphorus fertilizer use more cost-effective while reducing its environmental impact. Perhaps equally important, undergrad innovators train their startup muscles for later use, says Gagnon. “Having that experience at 20 years old is incredible,” he says. “Because when they’re 45 years old and they have the connections and the capital and they see an opportunity that has value and is scalable, they’re just that much further along.”

This story is part of Fast Company and Inc.‘s 2025 Ignition Schools awards, the 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society through entrepreneurship and innovation. Read about the methodology behind our selection process.

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