First, just looking at California companies, we see a number of interesting trends. Something that immediately stood out was that these companies are, for the most part, very much ingrained in modern startup culture. The majority of the ag data companies were founded in the past five years in the San Francisco Bay area by white males. For example, of the 17 companies, only two were founded before 2012 and only three have women on their leadership teams. Very few companies expressed any actual farming background. This lack of diversity means that most of these companies have very similar outlooks and values, and, while this is not inherently bad, it can lead to a lack of new, innovative ideas.

Some of the most commonly expressed values for these companies include economic growth (with 88% of companies expressing the value), responsible production and consumption (41%), clean water and sanitation, decent work, and industry, innovation, and infrastructure (all at 35%). The most commonly used words include “data”, “energy”, and “irrigation”. Together, this all paints a picture of companies that are focused on technology advances that help farmers profit and produce food responsibly. Notably, a number of California’s sustainable development problems are represented. For example, it makes sense a significant amount of companies focused on using less water and needing less workers.

In India, a similar story can be told. Surprisingly, more Indian companies predated 2012 with three of the seven companies analyzed, but the majority was still from the past five years. Although companies were represented from across the country, three of the seven were from Bengaluru, the startup capital of India. Furthermore, none of the companies had women on their leadership teams. This similar lack of diversity could also be a problem for finding innovative solutions.

India also shared some similar expressed values. The top values were economic growth (with 100% of companies expressing this value), industry, innovation, and infrastructure (57%), zero hunger, decent work, and reduced inequalities (all at 43%). On average, Indian companies expressed more values as well, with an average of four values per company as compared to three values per company in California. Commonly used words include “farmers”, “solutions”, and “time”. All in all, Indian companies were much more concerned about sustainable development in general and focused on telling a story about farmers problems that are solved with big data rather than focusing on the technology itself. Like California, Indian companies talked more about problems for Indian farmers, such as food security and reducing inequalities.

The two biggest concerns for big data in agriculture are decreased labor and increased inequalities (Carbonell 2016). These were also evident in many companies, but often spun as a positive. For example, Mavrx, a company from San Francisco, advertised, “Scale your labor force without adding boots on the ground”. On one hand, advertising scaling up your farm is a way to get around the fact that laborers could be replaced by these technologies. On the other hand, California does have less migrant and low-wage laborers, so this can understandably be a positive. Other companies are less subtle. Take, for instance, Avanijal Agri Automation, a Bengaluru based company, who writes, “Due to mass urbanization, getting an agriculture labour is big challenge. Even if farmer manages to get the labour, many a times they do not manage irrigation well due to ignorance and/or negligence”. This also explores a trend of decreasing agricultural labor in India while bringing up the imperfection of human labor as compared to automation.

Increased inequalities is another issue that many companies take on. San Diego based Slantrange acknowledges this as they advertise, “The cost of data collection, processing, and information delivery must be drastically reduced so that the benefits of these new types of information can accrue even to smallest farmers in the most remote regions of the world”. Slantrange attempts to take on these international inequalities by providing their services at a bargain. Bengaluru based CropIn Technologies claims, “Meet today’s agri-needs while strengthening resources for the future by creating a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social & economic equity for all. Empowering the agri in the agri-ecosystem by enabling businesses to benefit from actionable insights while empowering farmers through advisory & alerts”. CropIn gets into how their technology empowers farmers and increases profits, but avoids how it might affect those who cannot afford their technology.