SBA Recognizes Woodland's AgStart, California Central Valley as Innovation Cluster for Food & Ag

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has awarded California's Sacramento and North San Joaquin Valley region recognition as a Regional Innovation Cluster for AgriFood technologies (AgriFoodTech), designating Woodland's AgStart as the cluster administrator to drive cluster engagement and collaboration, and providing funding to expand support for emerging AgriFoodTech businesses.

The Small Business Administration's Regional Innovation Cluster program helps America's entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses in critical industries with an emphasis on leveraging regional strengths and collaboration. AgStart is a non-profit that has been active California's Central Valley region for over a decade, supporting AgriFoodTech innovators, entrepreneurs and emerging businesses as they work to commercialize their innovations. AgStart moved into their current shared-resource facility on Main Street in Woodland in May 2021, which today includes the Yocha Dehe Wet Lab, the Bayer Lifehub California@AgStart Labs, the Raley's Food Lab, the AgStart Event Center, reservable meeting rooms, co-working office space, and dedicated office spaces.

"The SBA award recognizes the tremendous strengths of our Central Valley region as an innovation hub for AgriFood technologies", asserts John Selep, board chair of AgStart.

California's Central Valley region houses our country's largest, most-diverse, and most-productive agricultural economy, with over 400 different crop commodities. The fifteen counties encompassed in this cluster region represent some of the most productive agricultural lands in the country, contributing to California's $50B annual agricultural production, at raw 'farm-gate' commodity value. The region also includes a well-established industry of fruit, nut, and vegetable processors, as well as dairy and beverage processing to transform raw agricultural production into value-added food and beverage products sold throughout the country and the world. UC Davis, our nation's number one research university for agriculture, forestry, animal science, and veterinary medicine, and a leader in food science, biological and agricultural engineering, and human health, invests over $1 billion annually in sponsored research and innovation. The region also houses established clusters of global AgriFoodTech companies, including vegetable seed research facilities for nearly all of the global seed and crop protection companies, and a concentration of biological crop protection and emerging microbiome companies. The region also houses a number of collaborating institutions providing entrepreneur support including mentorship, connections, laboratory space and kitchen space, as well as funding and entrepreneurial training programs. "Our region has the size, scale, technology and crop diversity to be a leading innovation hub for AgriFood Technologies, and this SBA award recognizes this potential", says Selep.

The "Food Frontier" AgriFoodTech Innovation Cluster encompasses a fifteen-county region covering the key agricultural counties of the Sacramento Valley and North San Joaquin Valley regions, from Butte County in the north, to Merced County in the south. Through the support provided by the SBA, the Food Frontier AgriFoodTech Innovation Cluster will be able to provide more focused resources and connections to AgriFoodTech innovators and entrepreneurs, helping these emerging businessesn accelerate their path to commercialization and bring their innovations to growers, food processors, retailers, restauranteurs, and consumers, as well as drive increased employment and innovation-led economic development to the region.

About AgStart

AgStart is a regional non-profit with a mission to accelerate innovation in our global food system, and has been active in California's Central Valley region since 2012. In addition to the non-profit's physical facilities, a shared-resource wet-lab and incubator in Woodland, California, AgStart regularly hosts community-building events and provides other services to strengthen the local AgriFoodTech entrepreneur community. AgStart is a founder and host of the nationwide AgTech Nation collaborative of leading AgriFoodTech entrepreneur-support organizations, which efficiently connects entrepreneurs to the people, resources, and insights they need to succeed. Learn more at www.agstart.org.