Agtech Action | Week of 01.27.24 - 02.02.24
Agtech Action is a weekly newsletter highlighting and commenting on current events in the world of agtech
CA sued by several ag orgs, a new bill to impact livestock labels, and USDA expects food inflation to slow in 2024. Downtown Houston landmark to become a vertical farm, AI’s role in consulting and agtech startups continue to raise capital.
A few weeks ago ADM announced it was putting its CFO on leave amidst an SEC investigation into the accounting practices of its nutrition business. This story, and how it unfolds, will have ramifications on agtech. How? We dive deeper into that and more in this week’s newsletter.
Food and the World:
Farm bill debate will continue into ‘the meat’ of 2024 election
Argentina growing regions turn hotter and drier
Is the ship leaning too far to one side?
‘A real risk’ for U.S. ag sector in talk of higher tariffs, confronting China
Poet ethanol facilities to join Summit carbon capture pipeline
Economic Uncertainty in China Slows Demand for U.S. Corn and Soybeans
Food price inflation to slow in 2024, USDA predicts
USDA report highlights results of pesticide residue tests in food
Seeking free trade for ag goods
An emerging food fight in California
2023 Land Report: Who owns the most land in the United States?
American Farm Bureau, others sue California over climate regulations
Agtech in the News:
LanzaJet opens world's first ethanol-to-SAF production facility
Bayer Unveils New Operating Model
Oaken Launches Landpartner CRM Application to Aid Farmers in Relationship Management
Gene Editing Technologies In Plant Science: Between Controversy & Promises
Climate and Tech Expected to Affect Ag Most This Year
Study Confirms Facial Recognition Technology’s Success in Disease Prediction
Regional Investment Corporation Implements Infosys Finacle Digital Lending Suite
Start-Ups Moonsyst and PitSeal Announced as Winners of AgTechUCD’s Third Accelerator Programme
FBN’s Refined Focus: One-On-One With Its Interim CEO
Fun:
Ohio Woman in Ag Ties Teaching and Farming into One
Wisconsin bill would limit local control over animal welfare
A Simple Checklist to Evaluate ROI on Your Farm
Helpful Resources:
Is it a good idea to use paid-off land as collateral to purchase land?
Cut the middleman out of your beef operation
Are take-privates taking off again in 2024?
Q4 2023 Information Security Report
Q4 2023 Carbon & Emissions Tech Report
Interesting Reads:
Bill would label livestock rivals as ‘imitation’ or ‘lab-grown’ meat (transparency)
Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso quit ECOWAS, testing regional unity
Live Chick-Hatching in the Age of Plague
When You Can’t Take It With You
Some of Oregon’s Irrigation Systems Are More Than 100 Years Old, and It Shows
Sticky bun with Benadryl lures pig on the run Kevin Bacon back home
How meat and milk companies are racing to ease your climate guilt
Don’t come for my chocolate milk (agreed!)
These Dogs are in Crisis. Who Looks After the Guardians?
The Green Revolution is a warning, not a blueprint for feeding a hungry planet
Finally, A Grocery Cart That Can Save Me From The Horror Of An Ad-Free Moment Of Existence
How One Dairy Farmer Found Herself on the VERGE of the Climate Conversation
Why Ag Economists Think Net Farm Income Could Fall to Lowest Level in 3 Years
Damned By Data: State Destroys Farmer’s Yield, Pays $810,000 Damages
Startup monitors grape growing conditions in Napa Valley
Downtown Houston landmark to be transformed into a vertical indoor farm
Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
Indigenous languages are founts of environmental knowledge
Farmland Values Are Holding Up, But There Are Hints of a Reset at a New Level
Finance:
Elo Life Systems Closes on Oversubscribed $20.5M A2 Round For Molecular Farming Platform
Protealis Closes Oversubscribed Eur22M Series B For Sustainable Plant Protein Seed Solutions
Where has the most venture capital been invested in aquaculture?
Australia’s Virescent Ventures targets A$200M for Fund II
InspiraFarms Cooling receives $1 million investment from CEI Africa to tackle food wastage
US farmland: Scrutiny of foreign investors expected to continue
Hatch Africa Secures $9.5M Investment for Poultry Expansion
VCs go vertical in backing specialized AI
Amid private wealth push, investors raise concerns about cherry-picking
Exemplary Forestry launches impact fund and makes 3,000-acre acquisition
Ukraine’s EU membership and the future of Black Sea grain
Stafford Capital Partners raises $635M towards $1B target
Inari Secures $103M in Latest Funding Round
Saga Robotics Raises $11.5M to Expand AI-Powered Farming Robots
Agrow Analytics Raises $703k to Advance Precision Irrigation
Nuveen raises more than $550M for farmland and forestry funds
Theme of the Agtech Week: Ramifications
The ADM story slipped through the cracks, in my opinion, and demands more attention from the agtech world. Let’s set the stage first and provide context. ADM is one of four largest global commodity traders. They buy crops from farmers, process them into products like animal feed, biofuels and food ingredients. Moreover, ADM has made a concerted push towards more nutritional, functional and higher margin products and ingredients with its commercial activity (see acquisitions of Wild Flavors, Neovia and supplying ingredients to pet foods and plant-based products). These strategic plays has led to the nutrition division increasing its contribution towards ADM profits from 2018 to 2022. When they announced that their CFO was put on administrative leave while the SEC investigates their accounting practices and procedures for the nutrition business, ADM’s stock dropped 24 cents per share. This is a big deal!
What is really going on? If you read between the lines,
Faulty assumptions made in their financial reports
Claims made about their nutrition business that are fundamentally flawed
Projections do not align with the market reality
Why pay so much attention to this story? Because of the following:
New and emerging market(s) that utilizes existing global ag ingredients/inputs
Relies on dynamic, new accounting practices and reporting
Fundamental unit economics are ever evolving
If you see where this is going, our buddies in climate, carbon, food, fuel, wellness and nutrition will be paying close attention to how this investigation unfolds. Remember those claims of ‘climate-smart' this or ‘low-carbon’ beef? Or ‘buy my nutritional or functional product’ at premium X.
You better believe that how the SEC treats the nutrition division of one of the largest publicly traded ag commodity companies will have huge ramifications on the big, small and everyone in between—from a marketing, branding, financial reporting, and pricing perspective. Pay attention to how this one goes.
The big announcement for the Soy Innovation Challenge is a week away so subscribe and share our newsletter or you’ll miss that! 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.