Agtech - So What?

Biologicals in agriculture have a wildly exciting future. It’s a segment responding to innovation in science, changes in markets, and the urgent pressures of adapting to climate change. New startups coming into the space are generating plenty of buzz, but there are also established players with products in the hands of farmers today.
Ben Barlow is a veteran executive and the Managing Director of New Edge Microbials, a company that has been supplying farmers with legume inoculants and other biologicals for over 20 years. Growing a business in the biologicals space has been just one more step on Ben’s path from his early days as a bank teller with a front-row seat to new opportunities both on and off-farm, and through to expanding his investment thesis to include companies along the value chain globally.
While Ben has plenty to share about the realities of corporate agribusiness for founders and executives, his story as a family farmer investing beyond the farmgate has lessons for producers as well.
In this episode, Ben shares:

• How farmers can diversify their portfolio to manage for the seasonality and cyclicality of farm production
• Trends in the biologicals market, and what it takes to succeed in a sector with high barriers to entry and costs for R&D
• What it takes for globalized agribusiness to succeed in local markets where people and communities are
• What will be needed for Australia to avoid having a massive disadvantage in biologicals in the coming years

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have been making waves across the global economy, but it’s not always clear how these language creating tools can make a difference in industries like agriculture. While companies everywhere are scrambling to develop their own proprietary AI tools before they even know what they’ll use them for, many in ag are left wondering– should I be using ChatGPT too?

Today we’ve asked Marc Arnusch, President of Arnusch Farms, to share his experiences using ChatGPT in farming, negotiation, and more. He’s had the opportunity to use the tool for tasks big and small, and has witnessed some exciting outcomes, and some that leave him worried.

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 is given, except for liability under statue which cannot be excluded.

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.

We’re digging back into waste in the food system this week, but to narrow the focus, we’re zooming in on Australia. Australia is a country that has set specific targets on waste reduction, but so far, is largely on track to miss them, and companies all along the value chain are contributing.

Alongside our broader discussion of overall waste targets in the country, we take a more focused look at a food system case study: a meal kit delivery company that deals with a diversity of waste streams– from ingredients to packing to fuel.

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Despite its importance to both agricultural and environmental outcomes, irrigation has not been a terribly successful subsection of agtech. We have our theories about why that is (we wrote a whole report about it, The agtech adoption dilemma: Irrigation), and many others have also spotted the challenges in this space.

But when Jairo Trad and his team dug in, they saw an opportunity for business model innovation. Their path, via Argentinian agtech company Kilimo, has been far from smooth, but where they’ve ended up seems to be a unique unlock for adoption and value capture.

This week, we’re sitting down with Jairo, CEO and Cofounder at Kilimo, who’s spent the last 14 years expanding the boundaries of the ag-water system to find the right answer to the question “who pays for water efficiency improvements.”

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.