Agtech Action | Week of 12.11.21 - 12.17.21

Agtech Action is a weekly newsletter highlighting current events in the world of agtech, and some light-hearted commentary

Bayer faces another lawsuit, Kraft wants you to buy less cream cheese and food tech comes to the CES. Key mechanism for photosynthesis is elucidated, poop startups and is indoor ag headed for disillusionment?

The theme of the agtech week, or the year depending on your perspective, is precursor. More succinctly, the activities of the past agtech week are a precursor for 2022 and where food and ag is poised to go. A few more weeks before we wrap up 2021 and there’s so much to talk about in food and agtech. Digest it all in this week’s agtech Friday newsletter.

Food and the World:

Tyson Foods Plans to Spend $1.3 Billion to Automate Meat Plants

What will it take for an emerging patchwork of co-ops, food hubs, and farming collectives to challenge Big Ag?

Biogas from America’s favorite meat: pollution solution or a prop for poultry?

Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers – photo essay

US National Chicken Council submits comments on labeling of cell-cultured meat, poultry

Washington Week in Review: Dec. 9, 2021: House Ag Chair David Scott, D-Ga., on 2022 agenda

Food prices continue surge, White House lashes out at meatpackers

New York State announces milestone in construction of New York State Regional Food Hub

USDA Opens 2022 Sign-Up for Dairy Margin Coverage

Will new bacon law begin? California grocers seek delay

CBO Report Shows True Cost of Biden Administration's Build Back Better Plan Closer to $5T

Mayfield Grain Company Demolished by Rare Mid-December Tornado that Ravaged Rural Kentucky Town

In North Carolina, poultry workers are quitting in large numbers after an unknown chemical was introduced at their plant

Deadly tornadoes (0:05 mark)

USDA Just Announced Relief for Hog Producers Impacted by Pandemic; Here's Who Qualifies

Food prices continue to rise (0:40 mark) to their highest in 40 years

Online shopping for groceries increases (1:10 mark)

61 million acres voluntarily conserved in America, 2020 report reveals

USDA publishes proposed changes to the apple crop insurance policy

Natural disasters cost $105B this year (0:40 mark)

Pork product recall grows (0:40 mark)

Dangerous high winds (0:05 mark)

High winds produce dust storms in Midwest (0:05 mark)

White House has a plan to get more truckers on the road (1:10 mark)

Why we're actually in love with airplane food

China Lifts Embargo of Brazilian Beef

Ag Groups Urge Biden Administration to Grant Travel Exemptions to South African H-2A Farm Workers

Kraft wants you to stop buying cream cheese (1:05 mark)

FDA adds Listeria monocytogenes investigation

Mixed feelings as India farmers vacate protest sites near capital

China to Levy Higher Tariffs on Pork Imports in 2022 Amid Supply Glut

Producer Price Index jumps nearly 10% in November compared with year ago

Agtech in the News:

The Millions of Tons of Carbon Emissions That Don’t Officially Exist

John Deere Invests In Electrification of Its Future

SAS and Cotton Inc. to Enhance Use of Analytics in the Cotton Industry

Greenhouse banana growers in Turkey increasingly popular

Fiberstar Inc. citrus fiber for clean label meat alternatives launched

15 Minutes With… Finistere Ventures

Bayer faces German class action suit over Monsanto deal

Kansas farmers find the worth of partnering with dairies to obtain cow manure for soil health

Benson Hill Finalizes First Commercial Harvest of Ultra-High Protein Soybean Varieties To Scale Production Of Its Innovative Soybean Ingredient Portfolio

New Center of Excellence Aims to Provide Alternatives to Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizer

G7 development finance institutions create platform to boost investment in fragile states

Cassava Technologies & Mitsui Sign a Memorandum of Understanding to Accelerate Digital

Start-ups with a female founder or a founding team made exclusively of women still attract barely any of the funding going to start-ups in Africa

Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund announces first close; fund will make African investments

Israel's 50+ FoodTech Unicorns, Soonicorns and Futurecorns

John Deere Collaborates with Field to Market to Streamline Outcomes-Based Sustainability Measurement in Operations Center

Winners Announced for the $1 Million Wonderful Innovation Challenge

Can farmer facing agtech startups IPO?

Food Tech Comes to CES

Diving into Israel's technological innovation

Key mechanism of photosynthesis elucidated

Supreme Court asks U.S. government for views on Bayer weedkiller case

SDG Leadership Labs: Supporting UN Country Teams to Achieve Agenda 2030

11 Mission-Driven Agritech Startups in Africa You Should Know About

Investments in Poop Startups are Piling Up

Vertical farming is headed for the ‘trough of disillusionment.’ Here’s why that’s a good thing

Motif Foodworks’ New HEMAMI Receives GRAS Status From FDA

Farmers Are Not Guinea Pigs: 5 Mistakes Ag Tech Startups Make

California FarmLink receives a $2 million Wells Fargo grant

Why did Upside Foods fire its co-founder just weeks after his team’s scientific triumph?

Tractor giant John Deere opening office in Fulton Market, hiring up to 300 tech workers

Fun:

NASCAR Great Loves being behind the wheel again

Trash tornado in one CO town (0:30 mark)

The Corporate Cheat Guide to Beating the Innovators Dilemma

Snake spotted in Christmas Tree (1:10 mark) in South Africa

Trust In Beef Joined by U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef

Helpful Resources:

7 Winter Listens for Livestock Farmers

Asia and the Pacific – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021

Crazy, Amazing, Unbelievable: 2021 Farmland Market is One for the History Books

Soil Resilience Needed to Fuel Second Green Revolution

Pension Funds and Private Equity in Nigeria – Dec 2021

PitchBook Analyst Note: Archetypal Investing into Climate Tech

Will You Be Able to Deduct Prepaid Farm Expenses?

Produce stocks underperforming - for now

What is Going on With Fertilizer Prices?

Who were the winners of the 2021 IPO jackpot?

The Future of Biologicals and What Producers Should Be Doing Next (VIDEO)

Interesting Reads:

Integrating Human and Artificial Intelligence

European supermarkets pull beef products linked to Brazil deforestation

Lawsuit against EPA over pesticide-coated seeds cites honeybee die-offs

New China import rules bring headaches for food and beverage makers

Independent Cattle Ranchers Continue Fighting Against National Checkoff Program

Ivory Coast's cashew processors driven into bankruptcy by Asian competition

Netherlands looks set to pursue reduction in livestock numbers

16 Women You Should Know Who Are Creating a More Sustainable Food System

Decolonizing the GMO debate

Tough love: ag’s not perfect and neither are we

Ecuador opens Latin America’s first insect-meal production plant

New chip design could lead to smartphones with week-long battery life

Surgeons successfully transplant pig kidney into a human body

Starbucks workers vote to unionize in Buffalo

President Biden assails Kellogg’s plan to replace striking workers.

Reflections on COP 26

Will Digital Ag, Agtech and a Soil Health Focus Spark a New Farming Era?

Pairwise moves closer to creating seedless berries

ReFED Releases 2022 Food Waste Forecast and Predicts More Than 300 Million Pounds of Food Will Go To Waste This Thanksgiving Alone

United Just Completed First Flight Fueled by SAF, Here's Why Soybean Growers Should Take Note

Airlines get lift from corporate allies in shift to sustainable fuels

‘Spot Market’ Program Aims Pandemic Aid at Hog Farmers

Fast food workers are using 911 call logs to draw attention to a hidden “crisis of violence”

Wild Weather This Week Could Bring Needed Drought Relief to Withered West

White House Points Inflation Finger at Meatpackers

Innovating to net zero: An executive’s guide to climate technology

White House Calls Out Meat Packer Profits

Truck rates continue to push higher

After years of inconclusive data, new evidence suggests that Seattle’s soda tax is working—and it’s working really well

Soil Erosion Trends in the U.S.

Will new bacon law begin? California grocers seek delay

Biden Urges Hearings in Congress on Meat Industry Consolidation

5 reasons why the GMO debate is over

Q&A With Jackie Applegate, Head of Bayer Crop Science North America

Getting youth into farming is the 'first element' of sustainability

Finance:

Yara Growth Ventures invests in leading Turkish agriculture fintech Tarfin as part of USD 8M financing

This Montana investment firm is betting big on ranch land in the West

CIBO and Continuum Ag partner on regenerative ag project

Good Meat’s alt-chicken gets Singapore regulatory approval while Black & Veatch plans cultivated seafood scale-up

Institutional Investors Target Food & Drink Companies to Drive Better Nutrition

Boston nonprofit lands $2M from Gates Foundation for agriculture technology

Agtech Booms as Investors Target Climate-Friendly Technology

A Dutch vertical farming company has just been valued at over $1 billion

Ventures Platform announces first close of its $40M pan-African fund

Levi’s collaborates with Stony Creek Colors for denim dyeing systems

Wonder of fruit waste: Dole targets 2022 commercialization for high-value upcycled products

Australian farmland returns hold steady in Q3 2021 – ANREV

Proterra breaks up Corinella portfolio with A$360M-plus sale to 27 buyers

E-grocer Flink goes from seed to unicorn in less than a year with Series B

Eat Well Group Announces Up to $5,000,000 Marketed Private Placement of Special Warrants

Gresham House hits £200M second close on forestry fund

Amp Americas Triples Carbon-Negative Portfolio Via Two Acquisitions

Proving the link between natural capital and farm profits

Climate insurtech platform IBISA raises a €1.5m seed round led by Insurtech Gateway, alongside Rockstart and other co-investors

BREAKING: Phytoform bags $5.7m to boost crop resilience through genome edits

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Theme of the Agtech Week: Precursor

From the record level of investment in agtech, to the push to build facilities to accommodate new markets like alt proteins and the push for climate and nutrition driving more innovation, food and agtech is showing no signs of slowing down as 2021 comes to a close. You would naturally conclude that this is a precursor to 2022 as another big year for food and agtech, BUT I would say not so fast. While as a whole we could see even more activity and investment in food and agtech, I posit that for some verticals that may not happen. I would point to stories like: Agritecture’s leader indicating indoor/CEA is headed for the trough of disillusionment, coupled with the poor Q1 results from AppHarvest, and maybe appetite for indoor/CEA is waning.

Another vertical that could be headed down that path is alternative proteins; evidenced by Beyond Meat stock performance, slowed alt meat sales overall and poor performance of particular products and brands. The recent news could be a precursor to 2022, which could eventually end up being an overall great year for agtech but tempered expectations for particular agtech verticals. Let’s see how it unfolds!

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for reading.

BD

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Brandon Day is the Chief Operating Officer of the Yield Lab Institute, the global agtech think-tank, non-profit arm of The Yield Lab global network of venture capital funds and accelerator programs.