FoA 273: Designing the Seeds of the Future with Ponsi Trivisvavet of Inari

Inari: https://inari.com/

"From Farms to Incubators" book: https://bookshop.org/books/from-farms-to-incubators-women-innovators-revolutionizing-how-our-food-is-grown/9781610355759 

We have on the show Ponsi Trivisvavet, who is the CEO of Inari, the SEEDesign company that uses predictive design and advanced multiplex gene editing to unlock the full potential of seed to build a more sustainable future for the food system. 

Ponsi joined Inari in 2018 when they were just over a year old. Since that time they have grown from a 35-person company to a 190-person company. Before Inari, she held a number of leadership roles at Syngenta, most recently as president of Syngenta Seeds North America. 

Today’s episode talks about some of the potential for gene editing for the future of our most widely grown crops, the approach Inari is taking to commercialize this technology, whether or not consumers are accepting this more than they did with GMO’s, and what impact this could have on farmer profitability and overall sustainability. 

This interview with Ponsi was coordinated by today's co-host, Amy Wu, who is the author of the new book “From Farms to Incubators: Women Innovators Revolutionizing How Our Food is Grown”. Ponsi is one of several women innovators featured in the book and I highly recommend you pick it up. You’ll recognize other former guests of this podcast like Pam Marrone, Fatma Kaplan, Sarah Nolet, Mariana Vasconcelos, Christine Su, and others.