Agtech - So What?

When it comes to leveraging capital to fund climate action in agriculture, few ideas get as much play as regenerative agriculture. The idea of production that can not only be sustained but that can actively help renew resources has captured imaginations within the sector and without, giving life to events like the Regenerative Food Systems Investment Forum, where the faithful share strategies to incentivize investors to sink their resources into these solutions. Sarah is headed to the RFSI Forum this year (October 9th and 10th in Denver, Colorado), and to get a jump on the valuable discussions, we’ve invited conference speaker Calla Rose Ostrander, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Terra Regenerative Capital, joins us today to talk about her journey to the important and challenging work of investing in regenerative ag opportunities.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

There are many parts of the US that are at risk for severe drought and heat in the next 30 years due to climate change. But then there’s Kansas, where some growers pull irrigation water from a particularly vulnerable part of the gigantic Ogallala aquifer, which according to the latest science, may well be fully depleted by 2050. Western Kansas isn’t exactly the heart of the corn belt, but farming in the region does support substantial nearby livestock industries, including large confined dairy and beef cattle operations. If feed becomes sparse, or must come from more expensive, more distant geographies, the regional economic disruptions could be vast.

Dan Northrup, part of Galvanize Climate Solutions’ Science and Tech team and an Associate Professor at Iowa State University, joins us today to talk about the risks, and opportunities, that this kind of water vulnerability introduces, and where he thinks public and private investors can act now. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Despite challenging conditions in financial markets the world over, ambitious entrepreneurs find a way. There are few sectors where that is more true than in agriculture, and despite the industry’s reputation for convention and conservatism, challenging times call for creative measures, and farmers are nothing if not creative. 

To learn more about innovative farm business models and the cutting edge of farm financial strategies, we invited Quint Pottinger, Owner of Affinity Farms in Kentucky, USA. Quint is not only bringing in hedge fund investors, he’s selling all his crops– corn, soybeans, wheat, and rye– into specialty markets and finding hefty premiums for doing so, all while improving his local community’s sustainability and creating a transformed future food system where his farm will thrive.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

We’ve been thinking (and talking, and writing) a lot lately about the forces that are shaping the future of agriculture. There are the more obvious ones– artificial intelligence and mandatory climate disclosures– to the less obvious, like the ubiquity of remotely sensed data and geoengineering. All of these forces, and others like them, are not only acting on ag and the institutions the industry depends on, they’re also acting on one another, evolving and compounding all the time.  

We investigated these forces, and four critical scenarios that they might create, in our latest report, Navigating a Future of Cross-Sectoral Forces, commissioned by AgriFutures Australia. This week, Tenacious co-founders Sarah and Matthew are joined by research collaborator Sarah Mock and Shane Thomas, author of Upstream Ag Insights. Together, they discuss: 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

When people talk about the impacts of climate change on agriculture, they usually use the future tense. The reality, though, is that climate change already is, and has been, changing global conditions enough to cause meaningful shifts in agricultural production. Case in point, where Florida was once known both nationally and globally as the US’s citrus powerhouse, today the groves are moving North, where farmers in Georgia are starting to establish citrus production with aplomb.

To learn more about this story of adaptation and resilience, we invited Lindy Savelle, self-proclaimed Orangepreneur at JoNina Farm and a founder and leader of Georgia Grown Citrus.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

Not too long ago, we co-published a paper on the future of AI called “Yield Maps Killed AgTech Software, Can AI Save It?” and got a ton of great responses from across the industry. One such responder wrote in from his seat at the Syngenta Group, where he’s helped the organization go from zero to 250 million acres digitally served in just five years. Feroz Sheikh, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Syngenta Group, offered some incredibly nuanced responses to the limitations and opportunities in this space, and we knew we wanted to have him come on to talk more about his internal perspective on evaluating AI, advancing digitization goals in a legacy ag organization, and what he see in the future of ag software. 

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

This week, we’re breaking down the freshest announcements from the agribusiness, agtech, and broader policy and tech worlds to share insights and ask “so what?” Sarah and Matthew are joined this week by Shane Thomas, author of Upstream Ag Insights.

For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

For better or worse, the biologicals space is still in the process of repairing a reputation that was marred by years of over-promising and under-delivering. Yet big advances have been made in recent years, helping improve agricultural productivity while reducing the industry’s dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers. 

But discerning between new wave innovation and their more snake-oily predecessors isn’t always easy– so we wanted to sit down with an expert who’s been doing this work for decades. (Note: if you’re new to learning about biologicals, check out “Biologicals: snake oil or science, and how do we know?” before you dive into today’s episode for important background.) 

This week, our guest is Joel Lipsitch, Founder at Blair Road Consulting and an expert in biological products and businesses. Joel guides through his thinking on topics including:

• The red and green flags he looks for when evaluating biological companies, from the science to pricing models
• How to expect companies to bridge the gap between the lab and the field, and what it looks like when they succeed
• The biological go-to-market strategies that have proven the most successful, and where future business model opportunity is likely emerging

Useful Links:

• Biologicals: snake oil or science, and how do we know?
• The challenges & opportunities for biologicals in ag
• Biologicals and chemistry: finding ways to commercialize the science
• Investing Beyond the Farmgate with Ben Barlow, New Edge Microbials
• The Tricky Business of Scaling Soil Tech - Adam Litle, CEO, Sound Agriculture
• Generics, Biologicals, and the Volatile Farm Inputs Market with Sam Taylor, Rabobank
• The Battle for the Future of Crop Protection

For more information and resources, visit our website.

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

We are certainly not alone in our interest in how artificial intelligence will shape agriculture in the coming years. We’ve been learning out loud about both the tech that might emerge, but also about how AI might shape existing tools, especially agtech software. In our recent report, Yield Maps Killed AgTech Software, Can AI Fix It?, we put forward some of our research and theories, and we got a ton of great feedback. Today, we’re going to respond to some questions and discuss further learnings from the report. 

Joining me in the task is both my co-founder Matthew Pryor and Rhishi Pethe, author of Software is Feeding the World. For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.

As the US works to hammer out requirements for sustainable aviation fuel tax credits, the potential for the airline industry to open a huge new market for oil seeds has watchers in the sustainability space wondering what’s next. Will the opportunity for agtech to provide producers with the tools they need to meet production requirements and prove sustainability credentials be substantial?

The sustainable aviation fuel market is evolving rapidly, and we wanted to know more. This week, our guest is Cris Handel, Global Sustainability Officer at Valent Biosciences, Fractional COO at New West Genetics, and Former COO at Covercress. For more information and resources, visit our website. 

The information in this post is not investment advice or a recommendation to invest. It is general information only and does not take into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision you should read the information memorandum and seek financial advice from a professional financial adviser. Whilst we believe Information is correct, no warranty of accuracy, reliability or completeness.