Associate Farm Editor, Reagan Calk, caught up with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau rural economic development coordinator, Amarie Bartel, and talked about the latest update on the Oklahoma Rural and Ag Business Accelerators program.
The program is a collaborative rural development initiative from the Oklahoma Farm Bureau along with national and state-level partners that develops Oklahoma-based innovators by creating ideas, technologies, and products that create economic opportunities in rural Oklahoma.
There are two parts of the program: Cultivate Oklahoma and Activate Oklahoma. Cultivate Oklahoma, a pre-accelerator, provides an agriculture-focused curriculum powered by OKFB partners, AgLaunch, to bring innovations that have on-farm applications to reality through a farmer innovation model. Activate Oklahoma connects rural entrepreneurs and innovators with resources from Oklahoma’s world-class business development community to build an even brighter future for rural Oklahoma.
“Our Cultivate Oklahoma program, which is our ag tech pre-accelerator, actually recently wrapped up,” Bartel said. “We finished their mentorships and programming, and then they made applications for a national agricultural business accelerator called AgLaunch 365.”
The goal with Cultivate Oklahoma, Bartel said, is to prepare the best applicants for AgLaunch 365.
“We had some folks apply for that program, and they are still in the application pipeline, so we are cheering for them and hoping they get to the national stage,” Bartel said. “We think that will be a big win for Oklahoma agriculture and Oklahoma innovation.”
Regarding Activate Oklahoma, the rural off-farm cohort, Bartel said the ag entrepreneurs are preparing for an upcoming demonstration day where they will have the chance to pitch their business to investors from across the state.
On January 1, Bartel said applications for Cultivate Oklahoma and Activate Oklahoma will open. The application window for those cohorts will close on March 1, Bartel added.
“We are hoping we will see so many great agricultural and rural innovators come to the table during that application process,” Bartel said.
Bartel said anyone from a community of 50,000 individuals or less is welcome to apply to these programs.
“Everything from an idea on a napkin to something that is on store shelves, we are here to help with,” Bartel said.
For more information about these programs, visit https://www.okfarmbureau.org/accelerator/.
