Bluegrass AgTech Development Corp, a public-private partnership, was founded to support innovative agricultural start-ups and early-stage businesses poised to advance AgTech in Kentucky.
Innovative, sustainable economic development stems from farms and fields as readily as from any office or factory.
Bob Helton
That proposition has driven Bluegrass AgTech Development Corp, a public-private initiative formed in 2022, to roll out its first challenge grant recipients in a bid to further establish Lexington and Kentucky as the premier hub for agriculture technology (AgTech) companies.
“The horse capital of the world is on its way to a second title: the AgTech capital of the country,” Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton told an audience during a recent event honoring seven start-up AgTech companies that received a combined $625,000 in grants.
Bluegrass AgTech Executive Director Bob Helton puts it more simply: “A good job is a good job,” he said. “And if we’re creating healthy food, that’s even better.”
Bluegrass AgTech is a partnership between the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, and the multinational animal health conglomerate Alltech.
Their goal is to connect innovative agricultural start-ups and early-stage businesses with in-state expertise and capital to grow jobs along with local healthy, environmentally sustainable food. To date, the Kentucky Agriculture Development Fund and the city of Lexington have each committed $1 million to the initiative.
If all goes well, new agri-food and related agri-business companies will both grow from within and locate in Kentucky. Consumers will enjoy a more robust food chain, benefiting from affordable, healthy, and more secure supplies of locally produced, sustainable food.
The architects behind Bluegrass AgTech believe Kentucky is well-positioned to be a hub for future AgTech businesses. So why not help small innovators with big ideas grow?
“They have huge potential to be big players in the future,” Helton said.
The state university system and private sector already represent a sizable body of agricultural expertise upon which to draw. In terms of jobs, Fayette County alone can credit agriculture and the businesses supporting it for one out of every 12 jobs and $2.3 billion in annual output, according to a 2017 study conducted by the University of Kentucky’s Community and Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky.
Detailing exact numbers for where AgTech stands and its future projections is more difficult. Still a new field in the industry, it’s loosely defined and not as well tracked.
While the data may be lacking for precise AgTech employment projections, Jordan Wood, CEO of grant recipient RedLeaf Biologics, is an early adopter. In 2017, he traded a newly minted law partnership at an established Alabama firm to help build the Lexington-based agribusiness founded a couple of years earlier.
Wood chuckles as he recalls telling his legal colleagues that he was going to work for a pre-revenue startup. “I got some hairy eyeballs as I walked out the door,” he said.
RedLeaf is a biotechnology company using proprietary plant genetics and extraction processes to develop a range of phytochemical extracts with applications in health, cosmetics, wellness, and nutrition.
The “red leaf” referred to in its corporate name is a naturally mutated variety of sorghum plant discovered during field experiments by his brother-in-law, University of Kentucky professor Seth DeBolt, who is also director of the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits.
What started in 2009 as a single anomalous plant out of 2 million has been developed into a distinct varietal of the ancient crop, with promising anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
“It just kind of went haywire — in a good way — expressing valuable red compounds throughout the entire leaf,” Wood said.
From this discovery, the company has developed the RedNatural sorghum varietal, a non-GMO row crop that produces high-value compounds throughout the leaf biomass.
A small startup in a multi-billion-dollar industry, RedLeaf currently has 12 full-time employees, a research lab in Lexington, a processing facility in Georgetown, and several hundred acres of red-hued cropland in Central Kentucky.
The main cash product is a powder derived from a proprietary liquid extraction process that’s “counterintuitive to what most of the industry is doing,” Wood said. The powder can be used in a variety of food and beverage formulations, including gummies, pills, and baked goods. It can also serve as a natural coloring dye.
RedLeaf Biologics’ primary product is a powder made from a proprietary sorghum strain, with applications in health, cosmetics, wellness, and nutrition.
Receiving the AgTech grant accelerates RedLeaf’s latest move into human health and nutrition, Wood said, paving the way for University of Kentucky clinical trials of promising new exercise recovery and cognition products.
The company’s greater goal is to offer a proprietary, branded ingredient at scale. In prospering, Wood said, RedLeaf’s story can also be a Kentucky story. “This thing could be big.”
The next call for grant applications is expected to be announced this November. In the meantime, Helton says Bluegrass AgTech will work on expanding its partnerships. “I see vendors and service entities joining in the future,” he said.
Workers at RedLeaf Biologics plant RedNatural sorghum, a non-GMO row crop that produces high-value compounds.
Aside from a second year of seed money, Helton promises future programming, whether it’s research assistance from universities, connecting start-ups with established businesses, or help with grant writing.
Long-term ambitions include better integrating Kentucky agriculture into the farm-to-store process, which would help retain more profits in-state.
“We’re producing all of these products, but we’re not benefiting from the next level of production — be they processors, packagers, wholesalers, or retailers,” Helton said. “The big win is raising the level of Kentucky’s involvement, so we’re creating high-level companies and jobs that reverse the outmigration of our brain trust.”