Yeshwanth Raj discussed his start-up wrkFarm, a crop modeling company which maps the entire life cycle of a crop from sow to harvest, at the forum. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons
By Olivia Byers
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jashvinu Yeshwanth Raj, an MBA student in the Penn State Smeal College of Business, recently spoke at the U.N. Technology Science Innovation Forum in New York City about his startup company, wrkFarm, which was developed in part in the College of Agricultural Sciences’s Youth Food Lab.
WrkFarm is a crop modeling company that maps the entire life cycle of a crop from sow to harvest. The goal is to analyze the physical properties of any crop in a week-by-week cycle as it reaches its ideal expected output. With this model, any issues causing deviation from the expected output can be identified and corrected.
At the forum, which was attended by food and agriculture liaisons and ambassadors from around the world, Yeshwanth Raj presented wrkFarm as a way to make advanced tools like remote sensing and AI accessible to small farmers in places like Thailand, India and Pennsylvania.
The company concept was inspired not only by Yeshwanth Raj’s own farming background, but the changing climate affecting farmers worldwide.
“Farmers are among the people who can best attest to climate change, because the way they grew crops five or 10 years ago is no longer the same,” Yeshwanth Raj said. “It’s not just about changing seeds or pesticides — unpredictable weather now affects when they plant, how much water crops need, and how quickly stress or disease can show up in the field.”
WrkFarm can help farmers detect disease or stress earlier, target treatment to specific spots instead of applying expensive solution to their entire acreage, and reduce unnecessary pesticide or fertilizer use by using satellite and ground-sensor data rather than guesswork, he added.
Yeshwanth Raj said attending the forum marked an important moment, giving him the chance to present the company’s mission in front of a high-level international audience.
“Being the youngest speaker amongst leaders in the food systems space at the U.N. Forum was a huge moment for me,” he said. “It gave me the chance to share wrkFarm’s mission on a global stage and make meaningful connections with people working to improve food systems around the world.”
The forum primarily brings together governments, researchers and innovators to collaborate on the advancement of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. The central message he wanted to communicate about wrkFarm was that farmers’ priorities should be shifted from maximization mindset to optimization on their own fields.
The College of Agricultural Sciences’ Youth Food Lab was a pivotal part of making wrkFarm a reality, Yeshwanth Raj said. It connected the team to key partners through the World Food Forum and the Food and Agriculture Organization network, gave them access to scientists and industry guidance, helped them make the product more usable for stakeholders, supported funding, and helped them build their ground sensor system.
Maria Spencer, director of Penn State’s Youth Food lab, said Yeshwanth Raj’s work is an example of how important innovation is to solving some of the problems facing the world today.
“Seeing Jash’s progress has been extraordinary, and I couldn’t be prouder of what he’s built,” she said. “His work is a powerful reminder that young innovators are essential to solving global food security challenges. When we equip them with the right tools, mentorship and opportunities, they don’t just participate in the system — they help transform it.”
Most importantly, Yeshwanth Raj said the lab helped connect him with around 4,500 farming families.
“The Youth Food Lab was a pivotal part wrkFarms’ expansion,” he said. “We’re working with farmers, but as a comp sci major myself, we needed people from the industry for advice and guidance in terms of how to make this technology the most useful and impactful it could be.”
Yeshwanth Raj said it was vitally important to him that the whole supply chain is transparent for both farmers and consumers. The idea is that consumers and buyers should be able to see how food was actually grown, with less artificial inputs and more verifiable data behind organic and sustainability claims.
“Since we work with these farmers on the ground level, we want to know exactly what goes into the process and then give this data to buyers,” he said. “Everyone benefits from knowing how sustainably this produce is being grown, and keeping this digital layer of information can help farmers grow.”
Katie Bohn
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