I can vividly remember walking through the aisles of ag shows a couple years ago and seemingly stopping every few booths to grab a business card and a brief conversation with an ambitious entrepreneur looking to stake a claim in the ag tech industry.

A report by AgFunder.com reveals that investment in agriculture technology startups reached $3.23 billion in 2016, a 30% year-over-year decline. But it was a tale of two halves as the number of deals closed increased 10% to 580 due to an uptick in seed stage activity.