Heritable Agriculture CEO Brad Zamft is on a mission to make biology move faster. His company has built an AI‑powered platform that integrates genomics, multi‑omics data analysis, machine learning and gene editing to effectively make plants “programmable.”
“Our vision is to lower the costs and accelerate the timelines of crop improvements in order to open up all the things you can imagine biology doing,” he told AgTechNavigator at the recent World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco. “If you can lower the costs and accelerate the timelines, you can unlock unimaginable benefits in a sustainable way.”
Major untapped potential for digital twins
Zamft believes there is major untapped potential for digital twins in plant breeding. “Breeders are swimming in a sea of varieties, and they don’t know how those varieties are going to perform in a given environment,” he explained. “The winners are in there; it’s just too much of a statistical problem to find them.”
Heritable’s solution is to create digital twins of crop genomes – either existing varieties or simulated crosses – then run virtual field trials anywhere in the world.
“We can decrease field trials by 80-90%,” he said. “That’s both cost and time.”
Beyond phenotypic predictions, the company’s computational platform also helps researchers cut through the thousands of unknown genes in many high‑value crops.
“Once you move out of corn and soy, it’s the Wild West,” he said. “Most people have no idea what these genes do or how they work. Testing them isn’t tractable. Our tools identify the right genes and even the right basis of traits.”
Zamft says Heritable’s technology is finding wide demand that can address a host of unmet needs across the industry.
“There’s a lot of breeders and vertically integrated fruit and vegetable entities that need to simulate their operations, move into new markets, and mitigate climate and geopolitical risk,” he explained. “We have found that even placing existing varieties is a major unmet need in the industry.”
Partnership momentum, from global seed giants to forestry
Heritable Ag has been steadily stacking major collaborations.
Recent partnerships include German plant breeding giant KWS, which aims to accelerate genetic improvements in feed crops using AI-driven gene discovery.
It is working with tree‑seedling company ArborGen on the development of superior loblolly pine trees. It is also collaborating with Syngenta Vegetable Seeds to harness AI technology to determine the best vegetable varieties to offer growers.
A strategic partnership announced in early 2025 with Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti and Red Sun Farms is aimed at transforming indoor strawberry production in Canada.
It also secured a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance climate‑resilient crops for smallholder farmers across Africa and other low‑ and middle‑income regions.
For Zamft, that project – thanks to the potential impact – is personal. “It’s my life’s dream,” he said. “We’re in it to make the world a better place and society more sustainable. This is one of the major efforts in years.”
Impact at scale
Unlike those who might see impact and commercial success as separate tracks, Zamft insists they are mutually reinforcing.
Building a unicorn would be “wonderful”, he admitted. “Building a scalable, breakthrough, profitable agriculture business is my laser focus. But it really is a proxy, or a means to an end, which is impact – making people’s lives better, improving the lives of farmers, and bringing nutrition and ecosystem services to every corner of the world.”
The Gates grant is a “shortcut straight to that”, he said. “We don’t have to worry about profit or business model. We can focus on bringing better genetics to those who do not have access right now.”
This, he says, reflects Heritable’s “expansive mindset” – working across as many segments of agriculture as possible to improve outcomes for growers and consumers.
AI‑driven quality is creating new value for retailers
One shift enabling Heritable’s growth, Zamft believes, is changing consumer expectations – particularly in produce.
“Retailers are seeing that consumers are prepared to pay a premium for higher‑quality fruit and vegetables,” he said. “You can build brand value, and you can have differentiated products.”
In Canada, Heritable’s indoor strawberry partnership is already demonstrating this.
“If you make sweeter, prettier, better‑architected strawberries, people are willing to pay for that. Retailers care about quality; it’s no longer just price. And with AI we can optimise multiple things at once. You don’t have the same trade‑offs that you do with a statistical model. That means we can optimise grower traits like disease resistance and yield, and consumer traits like flavour and colour.”
Investment lows: ‘We need wins’
When asked what keeps him awake at night, Zamft didn’t hesitate.
“It’s no secret that investment is way down in this industry, and that’s holding everything back,” he said. “We need wins so investors can come back and be excited.”
But he sees optimism in one area: large seed companies are becoming more open to external innovation.
“I used to say that willingness to source innovation externally was an issue. But we’re seeing a shift. The large seed companies are open for business.”
