Upstream Ag Insights - February 3rd 2025

Essential news and analysis for agribusiness leaders.

February 03, 2025 • Read Time: 17 minutes

Welcome to the 249th edition of Upstream Ag Insights—the trusted resource for over 19,700 agribusiness leaders. Below you’ll find the most critical industry news, strategic frameworks, and detailed analysis designed to give you a competitive edge.

Index:

  1. John Deere 2024 Annual Report Highlights and Analysis

  2. 2024 AgTech VC Trends Report

  3. Where Are the Greatest Innovations for the Biologicals Market Coming From?

  4. The Modern Acre podcast team launches AgList: ‘It’s like Yelp for agriculture’

  5. Titan Machinery at the 27th Annual ICR Conference: Transcript Key Takeaways

  6. Ichor Agriculture Announces Matt Crisp as CEO and Suggests New Fungicide Class

  7. ICIG Ventures Invests in Ascribe Bio

  8. GROWERS Revolutionizes Agriculture Loyalty Program Through Use of AI

  9. Non-Ag Article: In Praise of Tacit Knowledge

  10. Other Interesting Ag Articles (6 this week)

This week’s edition of Upstream Ag Insights is brought to you in partnership with Farmers Edge:

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The full breakdown includes:

  1. Introduction

  2. Business and Strategy Overview

    1. Smart Industrial Strategy

  3. 2024 Performance

  4. Outlook for 2025

  5. StarLink Partnership Follow Up

  6. Leaps Ambitions Progress

  7. See & Spray Update

  8. John Deere Dealers and Right to Repair

  9. Employees

  10. Inventory

  11. Financial Services

  12. Research and Development

  13. Dealer Incentives

  14. Final Comments

Most will skim the headlines. The smartest agribusiness professionals will dig deeper—because that’s where the real competitive edge lies.

In the latest Upstream Ag Professional deep dive, I break down John Deere’s 2024 performance, 2025 outlook, and what it all means for the future of precision ag, See & Spray, dealer dynamics, R&D investments, and much more.

  • What’s really happening with Deere’s Smart Industrial Strategy?

  • How is the StarLink partnership shaping pricing for JDLink Boost?

  • What’s behind dealer incentives, right-to-repair battles, and inventory levels and what does that mean for 2025?

If you work in agribusiness, this is the kind of insight that gives you an edge. Become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

Agtech deal values fell 25.6% over the previous year while deal counts fell 24.3%, according to the Q4 24 AgTech Report from Pitchbook:

On the positive side, Q4 signalled the third consecutive quarter of investment growth, albeit a small upward trend (top left). The quarter experienced $1.8B of investment across 149 deals, an 8.9% increase from the Q3 24 and an increase over Q4 23 values.

The median investment value reached $3.6M, driven by the investment skewing towards later-stage startups. There was a decline in early-stage investments, such as pre-seed/seed deals, which saw a 33.7% YoY decrease.

Precision agriculture had $2.1B invested across 238 deals in 2024, the most of any segment.

The USA maintained its position as region with the most VC investment.

Exit activity declined in 2024, with 35 exits totalling $1.1B. This decline isn’t exclusive to ag— all industries are challenged with finding exits. We are at a time when IPOs have cooled and M&A has slowed due to increased government scrutiny, and specific to ag, where the largest acquirers have had poorer results and weaker balance sheets.

In the report, Pitchbook suggests a rebound in agtech investment for ‘25, as interest rates come down along with a growing interest in segments like robotics and biologicals.

If we do not see an increase in investment activity, we will see an increase in agtech startups shutting down. It has been ~2 years since the declining investment activity began and many start-ups raise an amount that gives them 18-24 months of runway. Most companies operating in agtech are not “default alive” which means when the funding stops, so does the company.

The industry has experienced large valuation declines and the shut down of companies in areas like vertical farming and insect protein. Given the outlook of the US farm economy, whether specialty crops or row crops, it won’t be a surprise to see more challenged announcements in ‘25.

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The above article shares executive opinions on what segments of the biologicals are driving the greatest innovation.

I believe that positive industry outcomes are driven by the convergence of technologies. That’s why the comment from Mark Trimmer, Managing Partner at DunhamTrimmer, stood out to me the most:

I don’t see innovations coming from any one area, but from multiple areas. We continue to see new products emerging from innovative companies, whether they’re microbials, new methods of developing plant extracts, new manufacturing processes that will reduce cost of goods and give growers access to more products.

I agree with Mark’s view and because innovation is happening concurrently at various segments of the industry, each subsegment benefits as the other progresses, creating greater potential for bio-based crop inputs on farms.

For the the full breakdown, including a value chain image of what company’s are building innovative solutions in agriculture, what the “convergence” of bio-based technology looks like and why it’s important, along with why a bio investment bubble can actually be a good thing, become an Upstream Ag Professional member:

The team behind The Modern Acre has launched AgList.com, a new platform to help farmers discover ag biological products and see what other growers are using and recommending.

This is a compelling initiative by Tim and Tyler Nuss of The Modern Acre.

The bio-based market is rapidly growing, but the utilization of bio-based inputs is also hampered by the amount of companies along with uncertainty and confusion surrounding the products themselves, all leading to farmer apprehension.

Farmers and advisors are faced with an overwhelming number of products, that claim to improve soil health, enhance nutrient availability, and increase yields. This abundance of options, lacking standardization and transparency of formulation/ ingredients and more, can leave farmers and advisors overwhelmed.

The complexity of the products, including variance of performance by conditions and practices, application systems and storage, along with a challenged observability of effect (in the case of biostimulants) all make them more difficult to navigate compared to other input products.

Without further background on a product or company, farmers can be hesitant to invest in biological solutions.

That’s where AgList comes in. AgList aims to crowdsource farmer and industry reviews on bio-based products.

AgList already has numerous big names in biologicals on board, including Corteva, Pivot Bio, Sound Agriculture and Certis, among others.

Opportunities and Challenges

Several positive things stand out about the initiative from a business perspective, beyond it helping to solve a discoverability problem and transparency problem:

  1. A focused start — Beginning with a specific product segment is necessary to be successful. There are examples of others trying something similar, including PrecisionAgReviews.com and AgTechFinder.com (Australia) but started too broadly which, in my estimation, is one aspect that hindered use.

  2. The AgList.com is a simple and intuitive UX where a user can derive value with only a few clicks (more later).

  3. There is a clear business model — Farmers, agronomists, researchers etc. can engage and benefit from the website for free. Companies that list their product on AgList.com pay a monthly fee of $200 or $300 per month, depending on the number of products listed. The pricing is an inexpensive way for bio-based companies to increase product awareness, plus gain testimonials for other marketing activities. There are >1,200+ bio-based product companies, meaning the total addressable market for bio products is ~$5,000,000 annually (with that revenue model).

  4. Built-in Audience — One trend has been “content creators” launching businesses. The Modern Acre is one of the most popular ag podcasts giving them the ability to drive awareness of and traffic to AgList, lowering customer acquisition costs and overall marketing needs.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the initiative. However, all businesses come with challenges and strategic considerations.

For the full breakdown, including a look at what AgList can learn from Yelp, the needs to build network effects in agribusiness and a look at the competitive landscape, become an Upstream Ag Professional member:

5. Titan Machinery at the 27th Annual ICR Conference: Transcript Key Takeaways - Titan

Titan Machinery is a prominent equipment dealer that sells ag and construction equipment. The company supports primarily CNH Industrial products— 80% of their equipment sales are CNH.

As of 2024, Titan operates 148 full-service dealer locations across the U.S., EU, and Australia. Since 2003, Titan has completed over 60 acquisitions globally.

In 2024, the company had revenue of $2.8 billion.

Consolidation Opportunity

Titan Machinery CFO Bo Larsen (emphasis mine):

If you look at the CNH dealer profile versus the Deere distribution channel, they're significantly under consolidated. And we see that as a continued opportunity to be one of those players to help them to continue to consolidate. There's a lot of smaller dealers in the CNH channel that aren't as well capitalized or aren't as well situated, certainly don't have the density that we do that they can afford to invest in the same amount of trucks, tooling, people, and the like. That really is a flywheel for us back to that customer care strategy.

For a look at Titan Machinery’s Customer Care Strategy, a look at how important parts and service are to their business and strategy to grow it, along with their ERP and CRM initiatives internally, become an Upstream Ag Professional member:

It’s interesting to look at the service emphasis that AGCO had in its 2024 Analyst Day as a comparison: AGCO 2024 Investor Day Highlights and Analysis - Upstream Ag Professional

Matt Crisp was a co-founder and CEO of Benson Hill.

This week he shared a post announcing that he is the CEO of Ichor Agriculture.

Ichor’s Linkedin page says that it is a “green chemistry company focused on developing a new class of fungicides.”

What makes this an interesting post was him stating the following:

With less than $1 million in investment, Ichor has already achieved breakthrough control over some of the world’s most devastating fungal pathogens, which are responsible for over $200 billion in annual crop losses. This innovation brings forward the first new class of fungicides in decades — green, safe, cost-effective, and versatile.

I asked what fungal pathogens the molecule has activity on and what group/mode of action it is, but have not received a response at this time.

The Fungicide Resistance Action Committee (FRAC) does the classification of fungicides into groups based on their mode of action. The most recent class discovered is known as FRAC Group 50, an Inhibitor of Scytalone Dehydratase, containing the fungicide pyriofenone, which was registered in 2021.

ICIG Ventures, the venture arm of International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG), has announced a new venture investment in Ascribe. This investment will support Ascribe’s commercial launch of Phytalix, its flagship small-molecule biofungicide.

The companies will explore opportunities to leverage the global chemical manufacturing capabilities of the WeylChem Group, ICIG’s fine chemicals platform to accelerate commercial-scale manufacture of Phytalix.

International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG) is a privately owned industrial conglomerate specializing in chemical and pharmaceutical businesses. ICIG’s portfolio includes over 20 independent companies.

Ascribe Bio is known for their Phytalix molecule. Plants respond to Phytalix by priming their defense pathways (eg: SAR, ISR) to better overcome disease.

Phytalix is a synthetically derived molecule that is the same (chemically) to a naturally-occurring molecule produced by nematodes in the soil. Ascribe produces the molecule by chemical synthesis in their production facility to manage quality and cost.

That’s where further opportunity arises for Ascribe with ICIG beyond capital investment— scaling their manufacturing and improving cost position.

GROWERS, today announced the results of its customizable loyalty program technology, now enhanced with advanced AI. For 2024, agricultural retailers in the United States using the GROWERS Loyalty Program noted a significant increase in sales among members compared to non-members. In 2025, the company now combines the power of AI-driven insights with fully tailored loyalty initiatives.

GROWERS is owned by ICL.

The company that they are partnering with, AgMatix, is also owned by ICL.

AgMatix has an “AI engine” called Axiom. GROWERS will now use Axiom to equip its program product with predictive capabilities.

Any company operating in the program space in 2025 and beyond will need to have basic AI and computational capabilities to be relevant.

Non Ag Article

In Praise of Tacit Knowledge - One Percent Rule

Tacit knowledge is the jagged edge of intelligence. David Autor resurrects this idea, dubbing it “Polanyi’s Paradox.” Autor observes how our tacit understanding, the driver’s sense of the road, the chess grandmaster’s instinct for a board, the doctor’s diagnostic intuition, eludes even the most sophisticated computational replication. This paradox, a Gordian knot for technology, cuts through debates on automation, labor, and the evolving human role in an increasingly machine-dominated landscape.

Other Interesting Ag Articles