Agtech Action | Week of 01.06.24 - 01.12.24
Agtech Action is a weekly newsletter highlighting and commenting on current events in the world of agtech
Iowans rally against eminent domain, yoga on the farm, and island agriculture. A new CEO at a prominent agtech startup, $18 Big Macs, and coal-to-protein livestock feed.
There’s a lot of noise in agtech. It can be difficult to sift through that noise and uncover what is real, what is organic. We will examine how to identify organic—the theme of the agtech week—innovation give some tips on how to generate organic reach and adoption.
Food and the World:
Assume normal weather in 2024 for marketing
New Survey Shows Labor is Serious Challenge for Ag Industry
Rainfall set to continue in Mato Grosso
Agreement on spending limits may prevent USDA shutdown
USDA has spent $1B fighting bird flu
Global Economic Slowdown Will Influence Grain, Dairy and Hog Markets in 2024
Judge Orders Wind Turbines Removed from Osage Nation
Lower commodity prices point to belt-tightening for corn and soy growers
Appeals judges: Iowa ‘ag gag’ laws do not violate free speech rights
Iowa eyes tougher enforcement of land ownership rules
As inflation falls, ‘backwards pressure’ on food prices, analyst says
Mexico to see blueberry production bump
Why there's a storm brewing about global food aid from the U.S.
USDA has spent $1B fighting bird flu
Inflation pushes higher in December
Iowa Farmers Want Trump, Despite Talk of Trade Wars
Farmland Values Remain Strong, Expected To Stabilize In 2024
January WASDE: Higher domestic corn and soy stocks, lower South American Production
Bipartisan effort hopes to freeze H-2A wages
Agtech in the News:
HydroGreen's Irish Market Entry and China's Greenhouses Emissions Study
Enhancing The Organoleptic & Nutritional Properties of Cultured Meat
New West Genetics Announces Amplify™ Hybrids Granted Certified Seed Status By Aosca
AcreTrader and Peoples Company Partner
Is cultured meat friend or foe? What farmers think (it’s a nothing burger)
Intelligent Agriculture Management System to Predict Rainfall & Monitor Plant Health
Coal-to-protein livestock feed uses 1/1000th as much land as farming
AgriNovus boss Mitch Frazier recounts a decade of change for Midwest agtech
Data drives farmer decision making for 2024 growing season
Serra Ventures Partners with Grondex International to Establish A Food & Ag Tech Fund
RuralWorks Partners Announces Strategic Investment in American Unagi
SenesTech Expands Evolve in Open Field Agriculture
Pivot Bio Latest News: Appoints New CFO
Bayer Crop Science Announces Executive Leadership Changes
Iowans rally at State Capitol against eminent domain for carbon pipelines
New Ways to Address Healthcare Issues Are Needed For Rural Americans
Sollum Technologies Partners with Delphy For LED Pepper Trial
Bionema Group Unveils a Tender for Marketing Its Biocontrol Products
EarthOptics passes one million physically mapped acres, leads digital soil revolution
Finland’s foodtech landscape and funding trends unveiled in Tesi’s study
Scientists Are Gene-Editing Chickens to Resist Avian Flu
Imagine dairy gets FDA approval to introduce animal-free dairy proteins to US market
Fun:
International's engineering genius
The World's Largest Hat Collection You Have to See to Believe
Om on the Range (yoga farmers)
Helpful Resources:
Q4 2023: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor First Look
Creativity will be key to private equity's success in 2024
2023: Annual Global PE First Look
BRAIN 3.0 For African Deeptech Startups
Q1 2024: PitchBook Analyst Note: Vertical Opportunities in a Reopened IPO Window
Coinbase leads crypto VC dealmaking retreat
2023: PitchBook Benchmarks (as of Q2 2023)
Interesting Reads:
Is Foreign Farmland Ownership Putting the Future at Risk in The ‘Land Of The Free’?
Where do purple cows come from?
Microdroplets could minimize poultry pathogens
Are GMOs Safe? Breaking Down the Science of Science-ified Foods
Despite a YoY drop, a core group of resolute investors confirmed their commitment, while the continent continued to attract newcomers. (Africa deals in 2023)
The New York Times wants OpenAI and Microsoft to pay for training data
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs could win approval next week after last-minute application updates
Trump leans into climate denialism (interesting headline)
Study: Blockchain to save food industry $31B by 2024
Former Tyson CEO Becomes Indigo Ag’s Third Leader
Ceres Solutions and Co-Alliance Merge to Form Keystone Cooperative
Arkansas: a case study on enforcement of foreign farmland ownership restrictions
Searching for America’s First Chicken Finger
Why Dairy Farmers Dump Their Milk
Chick-fil-A’s Closed-on-Sunday Policy Prompts a Highway Rest Stop Revolt
New proposal pays Utah farmers to send water to Great Salt Lake
Merry Christmas. I Got You a Tiny Cow.
Are $18 Big Macs the price of falling inequality?
As agriculture has evolved in Mississippi, the state is losing its ‘middle class’ of farmers
Can $3B persuade Black farmers to trust the USDA?
Finance:
CAP backs Mozambique timber company with export plans
FA Bio Secures £5.3M in Investment
Centuria Agriculture Fund acquires A$21.5M South Australian horticulture facility
Forward Consumer Partners closes debut fund on $425M
Burro’s Series B Funding Round
How high will climate fundraising lift agrifood and forestry dry powder?
GeneNeer Secures $1M in Seed Funding to Revolutionize Crop Seed Innovation
DXA Invest Leads a Series A In A de Agro
Qorium Announces Key Investments from Brightland Venture
M&G Investments Makes $75M Investment In Biobest
UniFHAS Closes On Seed Funding to Advance Bacteriophage Technology For Ag And Food
PEI’s Atlantic Aqua Farms receives $3.4M for triploid mussels breeding program
Peoples Company completes national expansion with two hires
Theme of the Agtech Week: Organic
In the startup world, it’s often that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In other words, the loudest innovator is usually the one that gets the press, funding and attention. But that does not mean that their innovation has true reach, that it has organic impact. Organic is not just measured in the number of clicks it gets on LinkedIn; it’s much more. How do we measure organic impact of agtech? I have some ideas.
Do you remember the last thing that you really wanted to buy? Did you buy it because someone else recommended it? Was it the new thing that everyone wanted? There is something compelling about a product that everyone is talking about and more important that everyone is buying! For the purposes of our exercise, you can measure that organic reach by:
The number of people (organizations, companies, etc.) talking about your product/technology. In sales, this is known as leads because it demonstrates interest in your technology.
The number of people who purchase your technology. This is known as revenue. Sales don’t lie.
The number of people who buy your product over and over (e.g. repeat customers). This is known as sales retention.
These aren’t novel concepts but they are overlooked when we evaluate agtech that has true, organic impact. How can agtech improve its organic reach?
Go out and talk to actual people! Real people, not people on your computer screen. Actual human beings.
Make sales calls. Talk to people, ask them if they will buy. If they say no, politely ask why. The insights from these conversations are invaluable.
Ask questions and listen. People will often tell you what problems they need solved. And if your technology can do that, then sell it to them! If it can’t, then thank them for their time and move on.
Forgive the brevity and bluntness, but we need to hammer this point for agtech. We get too caught up in likes, shares, articles and online virality that we forget the basics. The basics are ag technology needs to solve real problems; real people need to use that technology; and real people need to be willing to part with their hard earned dollar to buy it. It’s simple.
Go make some friends, build something and sell it. Rinse and repeat. Thanks for reading.
BD
Brandon Day is the Chief Operating Officer of The Yield Lab Institute, the global agtech think-tank, ecosystem builder, non-profit arm of The Yield Lab global network of venture capital funds. The views, opinions and commentary expressed are solely those of Brandon Day.