James Schnable’s Conflict of Interest Disclosure:

I have equity interests in three startup companies: Data2Bio (provides genotyping services and breeding decision support), Dryland Genetics (using genomic selection to breed higher yielding varieties of naturally water use efficient crops), and EnGeniousAg (sells sensors to help farmers measure nitrogen and other nutrients in plant stalks, soil, and water). An immediate family member also owned an equity stake in a company called DecisionPx which helps companies analyze phenomic datasets and design phenomic experiments but is now defunct. That same family member also owns an equity stake in Look Ahead Breeding, which uses principles from genomic selection and operations research to help breeding companies deploy resources and make breeding decisions.

I have served as an external advisor to the scientific advisory boards of Syngenta AG and Indigo Agriculture, and in both cases was compensated for my time. I have participated in GeneSeek scientific advisory council meetings (GeneSeek is owned by Neogen) and was again compensated for my time. In 2015 I gave a talk to scientists at Monsanto in St. Louis and received an honorarium for doing so. I’ve also received honorariums for giving talks at public and private universities both in the USA and outside of the USA.

Research in my lab is supported primarily by federal and state funds. However, at various points, I have also received research support from both commodity boards (Iowa and Nebraska Corn Growers Associations), and from private industry (most notably a research contract with ConAgra, now expired). In addition my lab received an in kind donation of microbiome data generation from Indigo Agriculture as part of our role in the Genomes to Fields Consortium. I have a currently active grant on which a major private company is a collaborator providing services at no cost and I can prohibited by a NDA signed by my employer from saying which company it is. This paragraph and the previous one should not be considered an exhaustive list of all my interactions with industry.

Through index funds I own stock in essentially every publicly listed major agricultural company.

-James C. Schnable

Conflict of interest disclosure up to date as of 9/17/21