Natalie Martinkus discovered a deficit of geographic information systems offered to growers in her region. As a result, she jumped in to serve this niche market. Now, she’s moving ag tech forward and helping growers achieve profitability and sustainability. As the owner of Dry Creek Engineering and Geospatial, Martinkus provides mapping, data management, grant writing, and drone services to local growers in Washington state. Martinkus talked with Women in Ag Tech about her journey.
WiAT: Can you share a little bit about your background in agriculture and ag tech?
Natalie Martinkus (NM): I come from a long line of cotton farmers in west Texas. I started out my career as a civil engineer focusing on environmental and water resources projects, working in consulting firms for seven years in Texas, and then Washington.
After the market crashed in 2008, I began looking at different options.
I went back to school with a 1-year-old in tow and got a PhD in civil engineering with an emphasis on biofuels from Washington State University. For two years, I taught at a small university where I bought my first drones and taught classes in water resources and GIS.
The area in Washington where I live is abundant with agricultural operations with growing fruit trees, wine and juice grapes, and row crops.
I saw a need in the market for GIS mapping services, so I started my business in 2018. I work with growers to help them digitize their fields and assets, purchase satellite imagery, train them on collecting imagery with drones, and collect data using mobile apps. GIS mapping is a mix of art, data science, and IT, so I am constantly learning new things as I work with clients.
WiAT: What happened in your life that led to starting your own business?
NM: When I decided to quit teaching and go back into the private sector, I realized that ag consulting companies in my area used GIS sparingly.
I’ve always wanted to start a business, and I saw an area of the market that wasn’t being served but had a large potential.
Being a business owner allows me to have a flexible schedule, which is very important to me as a mom of two boys, now 11 and 15. I work from home and can go to their in-school events and have fun mini-adventures on their days off from school.
WiAT: As a woman, what are some challenges you’ve faced to launch your company and what advice would you give other women?
NM: One of the large challenges I’ve faced is not having a mentor. My husband owns a business as well, so I’ve been fortunate to lean on him for guidance on business ownership and the small milestones that are scary, like sending out my first large quote for work or when a client doesn’t pay on time.
Another challenge is the loneliness that comes from being a solopreneur and working from home. I’ve found that joining a local women’s professional business group is the best way to meet business-minded women and bond over similar struggles in business and personal life.
My advice to other women that want to launch a business is that it is scary, but very rewarding.
Talk to your local Small Business Advisor office (sba.gov). They are a government agency that provides free services for people wanting to start a business but don’t know where to start.
Also, it typically takes around five years to become established as a business, so give yourself a lot of grace and keep making connections in your field because eventually you will start getting referrals.
WiAT: What are some of the biggest challenges growers face when dealing with data about their land and crops? Is agtech helping or overwhelming them?
NM: One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen for growers is being able to justify the cost of the data or service through either saving money (more efficient operations, less inputs, less labor, etc.) or by making more money (higher yields).
There are so many ag tech companies around that growers are drinking through a fire hose trying to decipher which ones will provide a reliable service that leads to measurable benefits. Growers are also concerned about being able to access their data from the software platforms they are paying to use. A lot of data is created that can be viewed through the software’s online platform, but it is near impossible to download the data without having to email and request it.
In my business, I do a lot of handholding with growers because the leap from what they have always done using paper and pencil to viewing their fields in a web format is challenging.
We start with the basics of providing an accurate acreage per field and an accounting of what is currently planted along with what was historically planted, which in many cases is very exciting.
I strive to have my clients input their yields and costs per field as well so they can see graphics of which fields are high performing and which aren’t. They might understand this from a spreadsheet perspective but seeing it graphically can lead to deeper insights.
For ag tech adoption, I’ve had the most success when an organization has someone that steps up and is willing to learn the software. In most cases they have no technology background, but a strong desire to learn is all they need to be successful.
WiAT: What do you foresee the role data analysis will play in farming in the next five years?
NM: As the younger generation takes over their family farms or become new farmers, they are demanding to see farm data on mobile devices just like they do for everything else.
I think some of the datasets, like field boundaries, will become an integral part of their operation and that they will use with other ag tech products, like variable rate spraying for crops other than corn or soybeans or robotic sprayers.
In recent years, satellite imagery has become competitive with drones in terms of imagery resolution and cost. I see this as also becoming an essential dataset for farmers.
AI is quickly seeping into many areas of technology, so I have no doubt that farmers will want to use AI in the near future to analyze their costs and yields to streamline operations and gain deeper insights about how their fields are performing down to the row.
Growers continue to face challenges in global markets, rising labor and input costs, and demands from customers to minimize their environmental footprints. Quick and intelligent data analysis will become a must for them to reduce or eliminate costs to stay profitable.
