The Organic Center is excited to host a watch party and Q&A panel for the documentary From Farms to Incubators, which paints portraits of women entrepreneurs in the fast growing sector of agtech who are presenting innovative solutions to many of these growing everyday issues affecting our food production. The documentary showing will be followed by a Q&A panel featuring Amy Wu, the award-winning journalist and filmmaker who founded From Farms to Incubators, and Martha Montoya, Chief Executive Officer at Agtools Inc. We will share insights about how women are driving the present day agtech boom, an industry integrating agriculture and technology.

The watch party will complement the Organic Center’s Organic Confluences Event Series focused on Agricultural Technology in organic examining potential opportunities for technology to support the organic sector, pitfalls when it comes to access and equity in AgTech, historical and current examples of AgTech exacerbating the pre-existing structures of racism in the food system, and methods for analyzing AgTech’s fit within organic ideals. Learn more about Confluences here.

Agriculture and technology both have a long history in California, but have rarely intersected. Tech is focused on disruption and innovation, while much of Central Valley and Central Coast’s agriculture is still managed with clipboards and pencils. One commonality is that women and minorities have historically been underrepresented in both industries. Now, a new generation of startups led by minority women are seeking to solve agriculture’s problems with tech innovation. "From Farms to Incubators" tells the stories of women entrepreneurs dedicated to agtech, a fast-growing sector within agriculture.

Amy Wu is the author of “From Farms to Incubators” and an award-winning writer for the women’s ag and agtech movement. She is the Creator & Chief Content Director of From Farms to Incubators, a multimedia platform that uses documentary, video, photography and the written word to tell the stories of women leaders and innovators in agtech. It has a mission of highlighting women in food, farming, and farmtech, especially women of color. From Farms to Incubators includes an award-winning documentary short that has been screened at SXSW, and a best-selling book “From Farms to Incubators: Women Revolutionizing How Our Food Is Grown”(link is external) that was released in May 2021. In 2020 Amy was named on Worth magazine’s “Groundbreakers 2020 list of 50 Women Changing the World” list. She was also a recipient of the Women in Agribusiness Demeter Award of Excellence.  In 2021 she was named by Food Tank as one of “27 Inspiring Women Reshaping the Food System.”(link is external) Prior to starting From Farms to Incubators, Amy spent over two decades as an investigative reporter at media outlets including the USA Today Network where she  reported on agriculture and agtech for The Salinas Californian. She has a bachelor’s degree in history from New York University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. 

Martha Montoya as over 28+ years of worldwide IT, telecommunications, food and agricultural and supply chain experience. From setting up production lines across the world for telecommunications to sourcing ingredients from the Americas to New Zealand, Australia and Thailand. Traveling while delivering projects beneficial for the supplier and customers in over 4 continents, Martha dealt with both small and and industrial size stakeholders or suppliers, government entities and sophisticated buyers. Appointed to the Board of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, served on the Worldwide Advisory Board of Women for Walmart, Executive Board of United States Hispanic Chambers of Commerce and several additional boards.

Martha and her brothers, Gustavo and Oscar, have won the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Microsoft award for Agtools – a worldwide SaaS global food & agricultural financial intelligence data for the Food and AG worldwide supply chain offering trusted official data from around the world, in real-time data for farmers and buyers to manage market volatility, increase profitability, reduce the world’s food waste and CO2, SO2 footprint. With over 500 commodities, 29 years of historical data, 3 billion plus data points and over 50 years of weather patterns worldwide uploading at 1 billion transactions per second.