Upstream Ag Insights - August 28th 2023

Essential news for agribusiness professionals

August 28, 2023 • Read Time: 11 minutes

Welcome to the 183rd edition of Upstream Ag Insights!

Index for the week:

  1. Illustrative AgTech Insights: AgTech Investment on the Decline and What That Means

  2. The Fertilizer Institute Introduces Certified Biostimulants Program - Will it help the biological space?

  3. Eiwa Announces Integration With Spacesense and Infrastructure Wars in Agriculture

  4. Trace Genomics and Taurus Agricultural Marketing Partner - Soil-as-a-starting point and the technology to enable

  5. The People v. Tech: Forecasting the Future of Farming through The Lumps of Labor Fallacy and the Jobs to Tasks Frameworks to Navigate the Impact of Automation in Ag

  6. Solinftec and the Solix Autonomous Platform: Reimagining Farming from First Principles Follow up As Solinftec Onboards more Retails and Announces Factory in USA

  7. Cibus Reports Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results and Provides Business Update

  8. Bushel® Secures $26 million to Accelerate Digitization in Agriculture

  9. America’s Farmers Are Bogged Down by Data

  10. The Ultimate Guide to the Jobs-to-be-done Framework

My name is Shane Thomas and this is my ag industry newsletter for agribusiness professionals. If you've received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

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Your Competitors Already Are.

One of my biases has been writing to convey a point.

I have long known that people, on average, learn better through a well-constructed image—after all, the saying is, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”; however, I have poorly acknowledged this with action.

Moving forward, I will be doing a regular series (no set cadence, though) where I will be highlighting images, graphics, and charts that I think convey a useful insight and story surrounding the world of agribusiness and agtech.

This week, I am pulling on the thread of AgTech Investment on the Decline: What does it mean? brought to life through a series of images and data sets and what the implications are for the industry.

The next three Illustrative AgTech Insights will include the following:

  1. AgTech Knowledge Gaps in Farmer-Trusted Advisors

  2. Bigger is Faster when it comes to AgTech Adoption— Age is Irrelevant

  3. Spend of Agribusinesses on IT Infrastructure and Systems

For all of the images and analysis and key insights, check out the Upstream Ag Professional member-only link!

TFI officially announced that it was introducing the Certified Biostimulants Program. This is a voluntary evidence-based program that will award biostimulant companies a label indicating that their products meet industry recognized standards for efficacy, safety, and composition. The program is based on the U.S. Biostimulant Industry Guidelines.

This effort from The Fertilizer Institute is a good thing and I commend them for putting the effort in place. However, I think it is a minor contributor to improving the biological marketplace.

For an extensive overview of the challenges ahead and what TFI needs to do in order to make this initiative valuable, become an Upstream Ag Professional member.

3. Eiwa Announces Integration With Spacesense and Infrastructure Wars in Agriculture - EIWA

Eiwa, an AgTech that is fast becoming the preferred data cloud for farm input companies, is thrilled to announce a significant new integration in Eiwa Vault analytics library. The company has successfully integrated SpaceSense, a geospatial AI tool, into its platform, increasing Eiwa Vault’s capabilities and allowing customers to go even further with enhanced insights and data.

This singular announcement in and of itself isn’t overly notable as a stand-alone. It becomes more interesting when looking at it in the grand scheme of the industry, cloud-based company strategy, and how Eiwa fits in.

What has become increasingly difficult to ignore are the infrastructure wars within agriculture.

For more on what the infrastructure wars on, what they mean and who is a part of them, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today.

Trace Genomics (Trace), an industry-leading provider of science-validated soil biology insights, and Taurus Agricultural Marketing (Taurus Ag), market-leading distributor of agricultural products in Canada, announced an international partnership today. As part of a multi-year plan, Taurus Ag will be the exclusive Canadian provider of Trace soil diagnostics, bringing the most comprehensive insights and actionable information on soil biology to retailers, consultants, agronomists, and growers within the market for the first time.

Upstream Ag Professional members get access to a dive into why this is an important approach from Trace and Taurus, what Taurus might do next, and why it differentiates them.

The linked article goes into what happens to workers when new technology emerges and the benefits for the ag value chain.

The Upstream Ag Professional edition shares how the Lump of Labor Fallacy fits into this article, and breaks down how the Upstream Jobs to Action Framework can be applied to anticipate what jobs will look like in the future and how to determine what high-value responsibilities might arise.

Solinftec, established partnerships with three American cooperatives at the beginning of August. Co-Alliance, Carroll FS, and Premier Ag completed the acquisition of additional Solix units after testing and experiencing the benefits provided by the Sprayer solution on their crops.

Last week, I shared a deep dive on Solinftec and the Solix Platform:

If you are interested in complimentary access to the Solinftec and the Solix Autonomous Platform: Reimagining Farming from First Principles Upstream Ag Professional article, send an email titled “Solinftec” to [email protected] and I’ll provide you access.

The Upstream Ag Professional edition dives into how the news from Solinftec, along with the trends in generic products can re-establish how margin accrues within the value chain among different industry players.

Solinftec also announced a factory expansion to meet their increasing demand:

Following a factory expansion in Indiana, the company can now produce as many as 800 robots a year in the US, matching the 800-a-year capacity already installed in Brazil, Chief Executive Officer Britaldo Hernandez

First transfers of Cibus' three developed traits to customers in their elite germplasm. The first trait transfer was Cibus’ pod shatter reduction trait in canola, which was transferred to Nuseed in its elite germplasm. Following that transfer, in April 2023, Cibus transferred its HT1 and HT3 traits in rice to Nutrien in its elite germplasm.

They also signed an agreement with Bayer to explore what Cibus can bring to them:

As part of our breeding collaboration programs, Cibus is pleased to share that it has recently entered into a collaboration agreement with Bayer Ag to evaluate Cibus’ Trait Machine, its high-throughput (gene editing) breeding platform, and capabilities. Cibus will leverage its Trait Machine process anchored by its patented Rapid Trait Development System™, RTDS®, to evaluate new techniques applicable to Bayer Ag germplasm.

Bushel, successfully closed an oversubscribed $26 million funding round led by The Banc Funds Company with further support from new and existing investors. In addition to The Banc Funds Company, other investors in this round included The Andersons, Inc., Cargill, Germin8, Lewis & Clark AgriFood, The Scoular Company, Conti Ventures (an investment group within Continental Grain Company), and 50 South Capital, the general partner of the North Dakota Growth Fund. 

I did a deep dive on the Bushel’s raise two weeks ago before they announced it and broke down their strategic challenges and future efforts.

An article on the challenges of digital and data in farming. It is good to see agricultural technology talked about in such a prominent, mainstream publication.

I was interviewed by the journalist and appeared in the article.

Non-Ag Article

The Jobs to be Done framework was one that changed how I viewed products— from positioning to marketing to product evolution and more. The framework is simple, but it’s not always obvious how to best implement it, at least for me. I found this podcast to be incredibly valuable for rethinking how to use the framework.

Bob Moesta is the co-creator of the framework, which makes him uniquely positioned to talk about it!

Other Ag Articles