Upstream Ag Insights - October 16th 2023

Essential news for agribusiness professionals

October 16, 2023 • Read Time: 21 minutes

Welcome to the 188th Edition of Upstream Ag Insights!

Index for the week:

  1. The Shortcomings of Large Language Models for Agronomy

  2. The Challenges of Nitrogen Fixing Microbes and What it Means for R&D and Commercial Efforts in the Industry

  3. Notable Biological Commentary Round-Up

    1. Bioherbicide Gap and Potential in Market

    2. AMVAC’s Bob Trogele Interviews Pacific Agriscience’s CS Liew About Biorational Company Successes and Advice for CEOs

    3. FMC Reveals Insights on Biologicals Market Growth in Latin America

  4. The Big Seven of the CropLife 100: The Evolution of America’s Largest Ag Retailers

  5. Nitricity Commissions New Pilot System

  6. Farmers Business Network Accelerates Work with ADM to Expand Regenerative Agriculture

  7. Creative Precision Spraying Image

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This week was the release of the Upstream Ag Professional September Video Summary.

Upstream Ag Professional members receive access to exclusive videos, including monthly reviews of the most important news, events, research, and deep dives from around the agribusiness and agtech landscape.

For September’s summary, the topics include:

  • AGCO Acquisition of Trimble Assets and Joint Venture

  • Indigo Ag’s $250 million raise

  • Psychology and Incentives: In Inputs and AgTech Adoption

  • Rantizo’s $6 Million Raise and Ambitions for Automation Orchestration

Be the best-informed agribusiness professional in the room and become a member to check out the full video and previous month’s review:

This week, I read the following research paper on using LLMs to pass agriculture based exams and thought it was really well done:

To demonstrate the capabilities of LLMs, we selected agriculture exams and benchmark datasets from three of the largest agriculture producer countries: Brazil, India, and the USA. Our analysis highlights GPT-4’s ability to achieve a passing score on exams to earn credits for renewing agronomist certifications, answering 93% of the questions correctly and outperforming earlier general-purpose models (GPT-3.5), which achieved 88% accuracy. On one of our evaluation datasets that had published student scores, GPT-4 obtained the highest performance when compared to human subjects.

I think it is worth exploring what the implications are for agronomists and farmers given this sort of capability.

In May, my friend Rhishi Pethe had similar curiosities to the researchers as to whether a Large Language Model could pass the certified crop advisor exam. It grew my interest as to whether LLMs could pass the CCA exam. I passed the CCA exams in 2015 and dug into some old practice tests to see how ChatGPT would do.

In a much less scientific matter and with a smaller data set than above, I asked ChatGPT (on model GPT-3.5) ten questions— it got seven right or 70%, which would typically be enough to obtain CCA accreditation in any given year— but still lower than all of the examples in the paper.

As the paper states, the “study offers a unique perspective and contributes to the understanding of AI’s potential impact on agriculture by providing a baseline for future benchmarks about the use of large language models to solve agricultural problems.” It does not attempt to call out a replacement for agronomists, but I think it’s worth highlighting why that’s important.

Any CCA will tell you the exam establishes that you have a baseline understanding of crop production. There is, however, extreme nuance when making real recommendations to farmers.

For that reason, I asked ChatGPT follow-up questions to dig deeper into some of the questions it got right.

In this example, the number it suggests is relatively low compared to generally accepted numbers, and I found the same with other follow-up questions. The answer fell short of the needs a farmer would have (though does deliver some other interesting insight). This illustrates that when it comes to making specific recommendations, it still has room for improvement.

Knowledge is useful, but being able to apply knowledge in a practical way is where value is created by agronomists. This is why I find it interesting to think through why it would be challenging for an LLM to ever move beyond an assistant or “co-pilot” for the agronomist.

There are several reasons there will be challenges for an LLM to ever move beyond an assistant for an agronomist:

  1. Human Trust

  2. Edge Cases

  3. Contextual Awareness

Become a member, to see a breakdown of these three reasons and what the implications are for use cases of LLM’s in agronomy, along with what it means for changing up the role of agronomists in the future.

For more on LLMs, their shortcomings, and where there might be a fit, check out these previous Upstream Ag Professional installments:

A new journal article from Trends in Microbiology was released touching on the dynamics of nitrogen fixing organisms in agriculture, pointing out the significant challenges that companies are working to overcome to deliver commercially viable N fixing products into the market. I think there are points in this article that contextualize why many products see inconsistent responses in a field setting.

Crop-agnostic, nitrogen-fixing biological products have huge potential in agriculture.

Crops like corn or wheat fixing even a portion of their Nitrogen needs can increase yields and quality, decrease deleterious environmental impacts and streamline logistical costs and time across a farm operation by minimizing application needs.

The agribusiness and venture capital world knows the potential.

The maker of nitrogen-fixing product ProveN 40, Pivot Bio, has raised over $617 million to date and is on millions of acres.

Sound Agriculture, the maker of Source, has raised over $170 million.

Kula Bio (an organization that is pre-commercial), has raised over $74 million.

Corteva Agriscience purchased biological company Symborg in 2022 ( for an undisclosed amount), a company whose most prominent product has the active ingredient Methylobacterium symbioticum, a nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Developing a crop-agnostic, nitrogen-fixing product is incredibly challenging, though. As early as 1917, scientists attempted to cultivate the rhizobia from legumes and inoculate these into other crop species. To date, however, none of these attempts to transfer the complex root nodule to non-legume plants has succeeded.

There are many significant challenges to overcome before we see a point where crop-agnostic, Nitrogen-fixing microbes become a standard application. Even though strides have been made with several commercial products above, they are still imperfect at delivering a response consistent with expectations and economic demands, as an NDSU study highlighted earlier this year (I dove into the dynamics of it here: Upstream Ag Insights - April 30th 2023).

The above study highlighted in depth some of the specific challenges surrounding diazotrophs (N-fixing bacteria) I called out in April.

Just like all living organisms, N-fixing microbes have many challenges that need to be overcome, like the ones highlighted here:

If we ignore points #1 and #2, I think the paper linked above sheds some very useful light on points #3 and #4, specifically around these two aspects:

  • Getting nitrogen fixed by the microbe into the plant efficiently.

  • Microbe “fitness” and their ability to compete in a hostile environment.

There are opportunities to improve in both of these areas.

In the full Upstream Ag Professional article linked above, I go into both of the above aspects in-depth, including the science behind and what the implications are for company R&D and commercialization initiatives, along with highlighting what a start-up is doing to navigate the realities of fitness penalties in nitrogen-fixing microbes. Become a member today to access all the images and insights:

3. Notable Biological Commentary Round-Up

Here are a few brief highlights from three articles on biologicals:

Development of microbial manufacturing processes for examples, mean microbials with or without their associated metabolites can be produced cost effectively now.

Botanical extraction has similarly advanced, with the ability to identify, fractionate, and separate compounds of interest, lowering costs.

Biological crop protection has been more prominent in fungicides, insecticides and nematicides. Herbicides have lagged behind in terms of products coming to market on a global basis.

One of the biggest reasons has been the cost of producing the molecules.

A couple of call-outs in the article highlighted above allude to the technological advancements within the manufacturing and extraction process of various molecules/organisms, which has been leading to more than 250 bioherbicide substances being investigated, more than 45 patents filed, and more than 45 products registered.

An area that I think has value is the startups in the biorational space. There are lots of them under distress because they can’t get funding and are running out of cash. Keep a lookout for those good technologies in the biorationals and also post-harvest sector.

In June, The Mixing Bowl released the 2023 Ag Biologicals Landscape. They identified over 1,200 companies! If any area of agriculture is ripe for consolidation, it is the bio space.

One thing I look at within biological companies is not whether a company has a good active ingredient or two but whether they have a platform for discovery and whether they have “horizontal” IP— meaning the ability to be an enabler of all other biological companies through formulation, packaging or performance enhancement for example. These groups are a small portion of the 1,200.

Many of the 1,200 companies are either undifferentiated at all (eg: using some quasi-generic strain of bacillis subtillis), or they have one or two unique molecules, which is good, but they will be challenged to gain meaningful distribution or farmer adoption without a more robust portfolio.

On the post-harvest front, CS Liew is likely alluding to the horticulture space (eg: applied to fruits to increase shelf life), but I do think we will see an increasing interest in post-harvest products in row crops, too. As we see trends in “regenerative” practices and soil health we will see less tillage and, therefore a need to manage the breakdown of crop residue. This is a more “blue ocean” opportunity for input companies to grow their business and can go along well with a seed and fertilizer/soil testing discussion.

″On-farm″ production is a trend in Latin America, especially Brazil, where it represents more than 15% of the entire country’s biological market.

LatAm is a hot spot for biological efforts. The biological market in LatAm is one of the fastest-developing sectors in the input industry. Brazil is the largest market for biologicals in Latin America, with more than 500 biological products having been registered and an estimated $850 million annual market.

To see a breakdown of the benefits of distributed production and a view on one of the companies operating in on-farm production capabilities, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

This is a really neat article going through the history of ag retail plus a bit of market information surrounding the “Big Seven— CHS, GreenPoint Ag, Wilbur-Ellis, GROWMARK, Simplot, Nutrien, and Helena Agri-Enterprises :

Collectively, these “Big Seven” companies account for almost 70% of all crop inputs/services provided to grower-customers annually and do business either in large swaths of geographic territories or, in a few cases, nationally across the lower 48 states. Combined, the number of retail outlets doing business under these seven company names represents 59% of all of the facilities tracked in the annual CropLife 100 listing.

Notably, these companies make up 70% of annual sales in the market while making up 59% of the storefronts— a sign that a retail outperforms their competitors on selling inputs to farmers (Note: Without financial numbers, it is challenging to see actual performance, but it is a general directional indicator of performance).

Part of the history is going through the consolidation:

In the business world, it’s a basic fact — if your chosen marketplace is flat, the only way to grow your company is through consolidation. Buying up smaller competitors not only eliminates market competition but, in theory, adds scale and scope to your own operation. This allows for more market growth going forward.

I would also add that as your suppliers consolidate, along with your farm customers, the need for heft increases, increasing the desire to consolidate.

I have broken this down before in Ag Retail and Porter’s Five Forces.

In the article, there is a notable quote from Jeff Blair, President/CEO at GreenPoint Ag:

Despite their size compared with the rest of the ag retail marketplace, Blair thinks that bigger companies such as his need to remember the basic principle that has shaped the entire industry since its inception — service — to remain successful.

“The key differentiation for retailers is service, not just the products being offered,” he says. “Ag retailers need to recognize this to grow their businesses. If we are simply a ‘box’ where growers can pick stuff up, we are just Farmers Business Network with a crappier website!”

I tend to agree, as my bias has always been more towards the full-service emphasis view as well.

But what this article also points out is that there is a competitive disadvantage for most other retailers (outside the aforementioned seven) trying to be like these big players— they are competing with a group with more scale that is already eating up a significant portion of the input sales in the market.

In the Upstream Ag Professional version I breakdown my view on the strategic approach retailers can take to differentiate, along with sharing examples of what that could look like:

Nitricity’s new pilot system is capable of production rates 5x greater than previous prototypes, which represents a significant advancement in Nitricity’s technology development. Over the next few months, the technology will undergo rigorous performance testing, producing calcium nitrate to be applied on Olam’s test plot of young almond trees.  

I covered Nitriticty about a year ago in an October 2022 Upstream Ag Insights Edition.

What does Nitricity do?

Nitricity electrifies and distributes the production of nitrogen fertilizer. The Nitricity approach uses a new technology for regionalized nutrient production using low-cost solar or wind.

Essentially, using air, water, and electricity, they can produce nitric acid, a core component used in the production of nitrogen-based fertilizers in small distributed production facilities, directly on farm.

This leads to a less carbon-intensive process than traditional Haber Bosch methods, enables smaller-scale production that makes economic sense, eliminates transportation costs (and other supply chain constraints), and enables the potential for more frequent application in the instance of irrigation settings, leading to higher nitrogen use efficiency.

The realities of this being commercially viable to provide all nitrogen for large-scale row crop farming operations in North America in the next few years are very low. But this increase in efficiency announcement is really compelling, and they are obviously focusing more on smaller horticulture-based operations to start.

To read more on what Nitricity assets are capable of producing daily and what Wright’s Law means for future improvements, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

In 2022, FBN and ADM launched a collaboration allowing ADM customers to leverage FBN’s innovative digital farm business management platform, Gradable. This collaboration successfully enrolled 1,500 growers and covered over 1 million cultivated acres of farmland, rewarding producers for conservation practices like cover cropping, conservation tillage, and emission reductions. In 2023, this program will continue to grow.

FBN and ADM are growing their partnership after what they seen as a successful launch, touching more than 1 million acres.

Through FBN’s Gradable platform, farmers can incorporate sustainable practices into their operations. Farmers then submit data through Gradable to validate their practices and then calculate the environmental outcomes. FBN via Gradable enables ADM and farmers to access voluntary and regulatory opportunities within the supply chain through practice and outcome claims.

They are expecting the collaboration to more than double in 2024 via more crops, more geographies and increasing incentives:

Growing acres of conservation activities in more geographies: More than 2 million acres spanning across 18 states in the US and three provinces in Canada will participate in the programs

Growing farm participation across more commodities: More than 3,000 growers will participate in re:generations programs designed for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, peanuts, and more

Growing incentives: Participating farmers stand to earn rewards up to $25 per acre

Image of the Week:

I stumbled on this image via Kevin Shearer’s Linkedin, where Aberhart Farms (based in Saskatchewan, Canada) and SAIRS created this prescription application of glyphosate, applied it and then took an NDVI drone image ~10 days later to illustrate the accuracy of John Deere’s precision product:

As a side note, I am not sure there are questions regarding the precision capabilities of John Deere’s See and Spray (or any other company in the space). The questions I continue to hear tend to be regarding costs to the farmer (and therefore consistency of ROI) and capability in hitting very small (<0.25”) sized weeds that may be in the field.

Non-Ag Article

The last two weeks there has been a resurgence of LLM and generative AI themes within Upstream — last week with Artificial Intelligence and the Supply Chain in a World of Converging Agribusiness Software and this week The Shortcomings of Large Language Models for Agronomy.

The above article provides some frameworks for thinking through how generative AI infrastructure could fit into vertical software, aka agribusiness software and where it might be a fit.

Other Ag Articles