This week’s audio edition covers the following:

1. Agribusiness Results: Nutrien, Deere, and CNH
2. Bayer Launches newgold® — A New Multi-Crop Seed Brand Designed to Connect Agriculture to the Low-Carbon Fuel Economy

This week’s audio edition and covers the following:

1. The Hidden Economics of Hardware-first Agtech
2. CropX and the case for consolidation in agtech: ‘We are an M&A machine’

This week's edition of Upstream Ag Professional audio editions dives into:

1. Corteva and FMC Results, including the Corteva/FMC settlement and FMC potentially selling their business.
2. Agribusiness Professional GenAI Usage Survey Results

A deep dive into learnings, stories and key takeaways from the book JR Simplot: A Billion the Hard Way.

In this episode of Upstream Ag Insights, host Shane Thomas dives deep into the legendary life and business empire of John Richard Simplot through the book A Billion the Hard Way.

From a fourteen-year-old runaway to the "wildest billionaire in the West," Simplot’s story is a masterclass in vertical integration, commodity market economics, and early technology adoption. We trace the journey of the J.R. Simplot Company from its humble beginnings in rural Idaho to its current status as a multibillion global agribusiness giant.

Learn how Simplot built his first fortune by turning "other people's waste" into valuable products — a playbook he applied to everything from orphan lambs and cull potatoes to the massive dehydration contracts that fed the U.S. military during World War II .

Key Highlights: The Electric Sorter & The Coin Toss: How a 1928 gamble on cutting-edge machinery and a legendary coin flip marked the true founding of the company .

The French Fry Revolution: The story behind the 1967 handshake deal with Ray Kroc that put Simplot’s frozen fries in every McDonald’s worldwide .

Vertical Integration Mastery: How Simplot secured his own supply chains by building fertilizer plants, opening phosphate mines, and pioneering the modern ag retail model with Simplot Grower Solutions .

From Potatoes to Semiconductors: The "unexpected turn" where Simplot's understanding of commodity markets led him to support a Boise startup called Micron Technology, turning a $1 million investment into $4 billion .

References

• JR Simplot: A Billion the Hard Way by Attebery

• The Idaho Angel On Their Shoulders - The Washington Post
• The Simplot Saga: How America’s French Fry King Made Billions More in Semiconductors - Fortune
• From Mr. Spud to Mr. Chips - The New York Times

The January 25th 2026 edition of Upstream Ag Professional Audio Edition covers:

1. What Claude Code and CoWork Buzz Means for Agribusiness Professionals
2. John Deere Rolls Out See & Spray Gen 2 and Upgrades Sprayer Lineup

This week's edition of Upstream Ag Professional Audio Edition covers:

1. Are Farmers AgTech Guinea Pigs?
2. BASF Agricultural Solutions Acquisition of AgBiTech

This week's edition of Upstream Ag Professional audio edition covers:

1. 2026 Ag Equipment Dealer Business Outlook & Trends Report Highlights and Analysis
2. The Great Unbundling of Agribusiness
3. NewLife Biosciences Receives Patent Approval for Remediate for Biological Remediation in Agriculture

This week’s audio edition covers the following:

• Corteva, Hexagon Bio Form Multi-Million Dollar JV to Power Next-Generation of Nature Inspired Solutions
• GROWMARK Expands St. Louis Manufacturing With Biologicals Production Plant

This week's Upstream Ag Professional Audio Edition breaks down the John Deere 2025 Investor Day, including:

• Leap Ambitions KPIs
• AI Efforts
• New product uptake
  • See & Spray
  • Harvest Automation
  • Autonomy

This week's Upstream Ag Professional audio edition covers:

1. Provivi, Syngenta strike major Brazil deal on pheromone pest control
2. FMC at Goldman Sachs Industrials and Materials Conference 2025
3. Harvest Loss Technology
4. 2025 Crop Life 100 Report: Highlights and Analysis