{"id":125146,"date":"2025-08-07T02:12:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125146\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T02:12:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T02:12:18","slug":"2-iowa-companies-advance-in-national-ag-entrepreneur-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125146\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Iowa companies advance in national ag entrepreneur challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten agricultural startups will go head-to-head for the top prize of $100,000 in the\u00a02026 Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge<\/a>. The American Farm Bureau Federation, in partnership with Farm Credit, aims to encourage agricultural innovation through the challenge.\u00a0The competition is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to present to a panel of judges their emerging ideas and businesses in the agricultural industry, with a chance to earn $100,000. Farm Bureau is offering a total of $145,000 in funding throughout the course of the competition. Two Iowa companies, Terraform Tillage and Renner Ag Solutions are among the 10 semifinalist teams, who will participate in a virtual pitch competition.\u00a0Terraform Tillage<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>of Eldora was founded by Josh Jeske in 2020. His patent-pending\u00a0SmartProbe System<\/a>\u00a0technology makes traditional soil penetrometer mapping more efficient and effective.\u00a0Renner Ag Solutions<\/a>\u00a0of Klemme is an ag safety company founded by Caleb Renner that is developing a replacement for bin sweeps that saves farmers lives and limbs. The net automatically unloads a bin and the farmer no longer is required to enter during the load out process.\u00a0The four teams advancing to the final round will each receive $10,000 and will be announced on Sept. 10. The four teams will compete on Jan. 12 at the AFBF Convention in front of a live audience of Farm Bureau members, investors and industry representatives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other semifinalist teams are:<\/p>\n