Executive summary

California’s Central Valley produces over 25% of the nation’s food supply, and yet water allocations for a broad range of the agricultural districts have been reduced by as much as 50-75% in recent year. Groundwater restrictions under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are expected to permanently retire hundreds of thousands of irrigated acres in the coming decade. As a specialty crop grower has told us, “We’ve always had droughts, but they used to feel like ‘bad years.’ Now, they feel like the ‘new normal.’” Water scarcity is no longer a a pattern that corrects itself it is the new norm. This threatens farm profitability and long term survival. Garden Tech solves this issue through AI powered smart greenhouses that reduce water consumption while stabilizing crop yields in rough environments. Our system uses (IOT) sensors that continuously monitor soil moisture, humidity temperature, and plant health. This data is fed into am AI optimization engine that autonomously controls drip irrigation, ventilation, and climate variables in real time. Compared to traditional open field irrigation, our closed loop system can reduce water usage while improving consistent yields. Unlike typical sensor systems that require human monitoring our system is set up to do the analysis and execution for you, minimizing labor input and maximizing water efficiency. Our target market consists of 8,000 water constrained specialty crop farms in California’s Central Valley that produce high quality crops such as tomatoes, nuts, and fruits. These are typically mid sized, family owned and operated farms. These farms are actively looking to invest in efficiency and risk mitigation technologies. With increasing regulatory practices and water volatility, these producers are looking towards the future with new long term sustainable strategies. Garden Tech’s monetary structure is built on a hybrid hardware plus software revenue model. Each smart green house is sold as a fully integrated system that includes climate controls, (IOT) sensors, and automation infrastructure. The Consumer gains access to a limited trial of our AI optimized platform, after which continued access to autonomous irrigation and climate management is provided through a recurring subscription. Garden Tech’s competitive advantage can be found in its hardware/software ecosystem and water optimization algorithms that are trained on the Central Valley climate and soil data. As water scarcity intensifies and SGMA enforcement becomes more prominent demand for our automated systems will continue to rise. Garden Tech is not a niche agricultural bi product, but a solution to an ever-evolving unstable future.