Buddy Seat Agenda

Browse the Buddy Seat Agenda to learn more about both days of the conference!


Tuesday, June 11

Stop by registration before heading out to an afternoon activity. 

Choose a networking activity:

-Golf outing at Suite Shots

-Local brewery tour

Join us back at Brewhalla for drinks, food, and networking as we welcome everyone into Fargo.

Sponsored by AgTrax

Wednesday, June 12

Grab breakfast, coffee, and network with industry peers to start the day.

Jake Joraanstad, Bushel CEO

Hear from Bushel’s CEO as we kick off the 2024 Bushel Buddy Seat Conference.

Jake Joraanstad

Cammie Vaupel, American Plains Cooperative |  Alex Tuttle, Bushel Customer Success Manager

Learn more of Bushel's latest innovations for full-service cooperatives and ag retailers, and how customers leverage the Bushel platform today to enable their ag retail business and provide a holistic view of the customers.

Cammie Vaupel

Alex Tuttle

Colette Bersie, Bushel Product Manager | Zach Jans, Prairie Grain Partners

Bushel’s CRM provides agribusinesses with a holistic view of customer interactions, especially when farmer customers are linked to multiple farm entities. Learn how to provided personalized service and effective sales strategies to drive grain origination and boost ag retail sales.

Zach Jans

Colette Bersie

Moderator: Jennifer Marston, Ag Funder | Jake Joraanstad, Bushel CEO | Patrick Honcoop, Ag-Tech Pro, CEO | Suhas Narayanaswamy, Principal, Lewis and Clark AgriFood

Listen to our panel of agtech leaders on what innovations coming down are going to make the most impact on enabling your agribusiness and empowering your farmers.

Jennifer Marston

Jake Joraanstad

Patrick Honcoop

Suhas Narayanaswamy

Erik Lien, Bushel Enterprise Customer Success Manager | Landon Shroyer, AgTech Partner Officer

Learn more about Bushel's latest innovations for Bushel Wallet for lines of credit, and how agribusinesses can benefit from these partnerships.

Erik Lein

Landon Shroyer

Terry Hinds, Compeer Financial, Chief New Markets & Assurance Officer | Steven Valenscin, GROWERS, Founder & CEO | James Burgum, The Arthur Companies, CEO | Matt McCabe, CoBank, Senior Product Manager  |  Moderator: Erin Haspel, Director of Business Development, FinTech

Do payment processes really need to change? Learn from our panel of agribusiness leaders on the challenges and opportunities they see with moving money within the ag supply chain. Learn what issues do come from paper checks, the generational shift happening that will change expectations, and how making it easier to do business with you includes how you process payments.

Terry Hinds

Steven Valenscin

James Burgum

Matt McCabe

Erin Haspel

Mary Tangen, VP of Business Development, Bushel | Eugene Faller, Head of Tech Development, Marex Solutions | Pat Christie, Senior Executive Officer, RJO Hrvyst | Troy Wood, VP of Customer Support, CQG

Gain the perspectives from other software companies of the Dos & Don’ts of implementing new software. Hear from them tips on how to better manage data and get the most of your software investments.

Mary Tangen

Eugene Faller

Pat Christie

Troy Wood

Dr. Chad Fiechter - Associate Professor, Purdue Department of Ag Economics

Farmers grapple with an incredible amount of uncertainty, like weather and prices. This translates into uncertainty into your own agribusiness. Having farmers better understand the complexity of production uncertainty can inform simple and actionable decision rules that empower farmers to make more confident decisions for both grain selling and input purchasing.

Dr. Chad Fiechter

Network with industry peers, grab lunch and catch up with our team at demo stations to get a hands-on look at the latest from Bushel

Ian Hall, Bushel Farm Product Manager

Learn how you can leverage Bushel Farm to help your farmers make better grain buying and ag retail purchasing decisions.

Ian Hall

Moderator: Kellie Livernois, Director of Farm Success

This fun and interactive session will drive conversation and gain insights from farmers today.

Sponsored by:

Kellie Livernois

Lacey Seibert, Director of Sales Enablement | Audrey Wieser, Flagler Cooperative Association

Learn how the Bushel platform can create a seamless workflow for your staff and a modern customer experience for your farmers.

Lacey Seibert

Audrey Weiser

Colette Bersie, Product Manager, Bushel

Sending payments via ACH is an option that some agribusinesses have promoted to their customers. The problem is that the majority of this information is collected on paper and adoption is typically low (would you add your bank account information to a paper and share it?). Bushel is introducing Direct Deposit with Bushel Wallet. This allows an agribusiness to pay their farmer customers for anything - directly from the ERP.

Colette Bersie

Mike Bjertness, CW Valley | David Gaddis, Skyland Grain | Kristen Hoffman, Maplehurst Farms | Moderator: Benny Andres, VP of Product, Bushel

Working with farmers has evolved over the years. Learn from this panel on how they see farmer engagement trending in the future.

Mike Bjertness

David Gaddis

Kristen Hoffman

Benny Andres

Ryan Raguse, Co-founder, Chief Innovation Officer, and Board member, Bushel

Cheers to a day of learning and networking! Grab a drink on us to wrap-up the conference. 

Ryan Raguse

Join Buddy Seat attendees, the Bushel team, and Cultivate Conference for a night of networking and fun at Broadway Square.

What is AgTech Week, anyway?

AgTech Week is an agriculture and technology focused week hosted by a group of dedicated organizations in Fargo, North Dakota.

This week provides a unique opportunity to showcase the region’s commitment to agriculture, technology and innovation by bringing together the AgTech industry. By doing this, we hope to accelerate the adoption of technology and solve challenges in agriculture.

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