UC ANR Connect is a grower-informed commercialization program for companies with commercially available agricultural technologies. Through customer discovery, direct grower feedback, industry engagement and live field demonstrations, participating companies strengthen their California market approach, build relevant relationships and gain a clearer understanding of what adoption requires. Operated by UC ANR Innovate in partnership with Farmhand Ventures.
Join a Connect cohort
Each cohort focuses on a crop and a set of challenges growers want solved. Tell us about your technology and we'll let you know when a cohort fits.
About the program
Technology can work and still miss the market
California agriculture is diverse, specialized and relationship-driven. A technology can work exactly as designed and still struggle to gain traction if it doesn't fit a grower's operations, economics, timing, equipment or service expectations.
UC ANR Connect helps companies understand those realities before they try to scale. Each cohort starts with a challenge growers want solved. Selected companies go through customer discovery and candid feedback, then demonstrate their technology in the field. Along the way, growers and agricultural professionals see relevant technologies up close, ask detailed questions and shape how companies approach their industry.
In its first two years, Connect has worked with 55 companies across 8 program cycles and brought more than 1,000 participants to its field days. The model works because growers and companies both take something from it. Companies learn what adoption would require while they can still adjust their approach, and growers evaluate new tools in the field and put questions directly to the people building them.
Benefits
What participating companies gain
Understand operational fit
Learn how growers evaluate implementation, workflow, economics, timing, service and value.
Strengthen your California market approach
Clarify your value proposition and communicate more effectively with the people who may use, recommend or support your product.
Build relevant relationships
Engage with growers, UC Cooperative Extension advisors, researchers, commodity groups and agricultural industry partners.
Demonstrate with purpose
Show your technology in an agricultural setting, answer practical questions and receive immediate feedback around a grower-identified need.
How it works
From grower need to field demonstration
Each Connect cohort begins with growers and ends in the field. Growers and industry partners name the production challenges, UC ANR Innovate selects companies whose technologies address them, and those companies prepare through customer discovery and feedback before demonstrating at a live field day.
Identify priority needs
Growers, advisors and industry partners identify production challenges that could benefit from better solutions. Those priorities define each cohort and are named in its call for applications.
Select relevant technologies
Companies apply to crop- and challenge-focused cohorts. UC ANR Innovate evaluates commercial readiness, relevance to the cohort and readiness to engage with California agriculture.
Learn and prepare
Selected companies participate in customer-discovery conversations and feedback sessions. They refine their market positioning, grower-facing communication and field-demonstration plan.
Demonstrate and connect
The cohort culminates in a live field day where companies demonstrate their technology, answer questions and hear directly from growers, researchers and agricultural professionals. They leave with practical feedback and relationships they can continue to develop after the program.
Eligibility
Is Connect right for your company?
Connect is built for companies with commercially available agricultural technologies that are working to establish or expand in California.
A commercially available agricultural technology
Connect is for products already on the market. Teams still developing a technology may be a better fit for UC ANR Build.
A clear use case connected to a California agricultural need
Cohorts are organized around crops and challenges growers have named, so your technology should address one of them.
A solution that can be demonstrated safely and meaningfully in the field
Field days take place in working agricultural settings with growers and advisors on site. Your technology should run safely around visitors and show what it does.
Capacity to participate in program activities and a live field day
Plan time for customer-discovery conversations, feedback sessions and preparation ahead of the field day itself.
A willingness to listen and respond to candid feedback
Expect growers and advisors to be direct about what fits their operations, and be ready to adjust your approach based on what you hear.
Connect alumni
Meet the companies from past Connect cohorts
Connect participants have developed technologies spanning weed control, equipment automation, irrigation management, mechanical pollination, disease detection, harvest assistance and crop intelligence.
Questions?
Not sure whether your company is ready for Connect, or interested in participating as a grower, advisor or industry partner? Contact the program team.