Upstream Ag Insights - March 31st 2025

Essential news and analysis for agribusiness leaders.

Author

Shane Thomas
March 31, 2025 • Read Time: 15 minutes

Welcome to the 257th edition of Upstream Ag Insights—the most trusted resource for strategic insights by over 20,000 agribusiness leaders. Upstream Ag Insights is written by agribusiness professionals, for agribusiness professionals. Below you’ll find critical industry news, strategic frameworks, and detailed analysis designed to give you a competitive edge and satiate your curiosity.

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Index

  1. Stratus Ag Research: Evolution of Channel Influence Study 2024 Highlights and Analysis

  2. What the Fall of 23andMe Could Signal for Soil Genomics Companies in Agriculture

  3. Syngenta Group FY 2024 Financial Results

  4. Telus Ag and Consumer Goods Business: Is it on the Chopping Block?

  5. CNH Industrial Precision Spraying Strategy: Leaving Out the High End?

  6. Three Shades of Value for AgTech Startups

  7. Enhanced Rock Weather and Eion's New Initiatives

  8. Demand management in Ag is broken: Here’s how to fix it

  9. Fastenal: A Nuts & Bolts Success Story

  10. Other Interesting Ag Articles (9 this week)

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

Rethinking Technology Spend in Agriculture

As agribusinesses scale and diversify their operations, technology costs are becoming harder to manage—and even harder to justify. The shift toward managed services offers a smarter way forward.

Key advantages include:

  • Up to 50% reduction in technology costs through outsourced infrastructure and support

  • Improved system integration across agronomic, retail, and operational platforms

  • Reduced internal IT burden, freeing teams to focus on strategy

  • Scalable solutions tailored to the needs of complex ag enterprises

To see how this model could apply to your organization, consult with the team at FarmersEdge.ca.

1. Stratus Ag Research: Evolution of Channel Influence Study 2024 Highlights and Analysis - Upstream Ag Professional

Stratus Ag Research is an independent agricultural market research firm that delivers data-driven insights to support agribusiness strategy and decision-making. Every two-years, they deliver an Evolution of Channel Influence Report for the Midwest USA, providing a timely and nuanced look at how grower purchasing behaviors and retail influence are shifting— particularly in the context of crop protection (CP) products.

In the full article you will find two macro themes synthesized from their Evolution of Channel Influence Report illustrating the evolution in grower expectations and retail influence throughout the Midwest United States, and what that might mean for crop protection companies and retailers from a strategy perspective going forward.

Digital Customer Experiences: Expanding Opportunity and Competition

Data from Stratus shows that 20% of farmers are using a customer portal provided by their ag retailer.

Customer portals are often positioned as a “purchase experience,” however, I look at them as an augmentation of the entire customer experience— just like when I use my preferred airline’s mobile application, I am using it for more than purchasing a flight. I use it for augmenting the flight that I purchased, such as understanding where my checked bag is, getting alerts about gate changes, flight departure times and checking-in for the flight. I use it to save time, put my mind at ease and simplify my flight experience. The customer experience portals provided by ag retails are the same.

The data from Stratus reinforces the interest in an integrated experience across many areas:

For exclusive access 12 images like the above, including how digital augmentation can improve each point of the customer experience, quantified insights into FBN uptake and influence, a look at retail loyalty by grower including average number of retails purchased from, usage of independent consultants, farmer perception on digital decision influence and AI in the next decade, how influential each point/type of contact is on a farmers decision to buy and what all of this means for the future of crop protection manufacturer grower strategy in the next 5 years, become an Upstream Ag Professional member:

2. What the Fall of 23andMe Could Signal for Soil Genomics Companies in Agriculture - Upstream Ag Professional

“One of the companies in our portfolio is Trace Genomics, which we call 23andMe for soil.”

That’s how Rob Leclerc of AgFunder described Trace Genomics in an interview with Corteva— capturing the hope that genomics could unlock new agronomic insights, just as it had promised in human health.

Fast forward to today: 23andMe announced bankruptcy this week.

The company was valued at nearly $6 billion at its peak. Its DNA test kits once promised to reshape personalized medicine, research, and healthcare. But in the end, its business model never truly evolved beyond a one-time purchase—and its expansion into biopharma never scaled.

The parallels for Trace Genomics, and similar agtech companies like Pattern Ag, which merged with EarthOptics in 2024, are hard to ignore. A common view for these companies was that they eventually reshape crop input decision, product discovery and positioning through data.

I have publicly stated my bullishness for companies like Trace Genomics and Pattern Ag— from an agronomic perspective, I love the concept. A deeper understanding of the soil, particularly surrounding biological parameters and pests has upside.

However, the question to consider from a business perspective is: “At what cost?”

For the full breakdown look at the economics of soil testing, the needs with a data driven business, how workflow and distribution influences soil testing lab adoption and what drives success of labs, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

Your Unfair Advantage in Ag Retail 

AGpilot is an app that utilizes Gen AI to seamlessly integrate grower-advisor interactions with vast troves of both external and internal data. Leveraging sources such as Microsoft's ADMA solution for external data, and proprietary data repositories developed by ag retailers, AGpilot transforms raw information into actionable insights in real-time. By automating research tasks and consolidating relevant data, AGpilot empowers advisors to perform their duties more efficiently and effectively. 

AGpilot enables your organization to: 

  • Increase Revenue: Acquire more customers, expand customer share, and avoid displacement. 

  • Improve Productivity: Quickly view customer info, data, and tailored insights across systems. 

  • Reduce Attrition: Provide best-in-class tools to improve agronomist value, income, and relationships. 

Transform your advisors into loyal, productive, and trusted advisors at scale with AGpilot. 

3. Syngenta Group 2024 Results Highlights - Upstream Ag Professional

Highlights

  • FY 2024 Group sales: $28.8B (-10%)

  • 15% decrease in EBITDA to $3.9 billion

  • Syngenta Groups EBITDA margin % decreased to the lowest of the big 5 crop protection companies.

  • Syngenta Crop Protection FY sales: $13.2B (-13% YoY)

  • Syngenta Seeds FY sales: $4.8B (flat YoY)

  • North America:

    • Syngenta Crop Protection North America sales: -24% YoY

    • ADAMA North America sales: +4% to $0.9B, driven by volume growth and strong Consumer & Professional Solutions demand

    • Seeds: North America Field Crop sales up 3% YoY; soybean sales notably increased

For the full breakdown, including highlights by business segment and region and then a look at the biological business compared to other crop protection businesses and a look at what Syngenta could be doing to illustrate value creation in their digital business beyond “hectares,” become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

Telus Corp. shares sank Friday after a downgrade by Bank of America over concerns that the company could be challenged to reduce its high leverage and meet dividend payout goals in its targeted timeframe.

TELUS has a debt and cash flow issue.

Q4 2024 earnings call, executives stated that to manage it, they would look at “reducing capital intensity.”

This comes ~6 months after I highlighted another TELUS challenge surrounding the value creation of their non-core spinout businesses and IPOs.

For the full breakdown of:

  1. TELUS’ cash demands

  2. TELUS’ spin-out challenges to create shareholder value

  3. The real performance of their Ag and Consumer Goods business

And what that all means for the future of TELUS Ag and Consumer Goods business within TELUS, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

Last week, I read an interview with CNH Industrial CTO Jay Schroeder where he shared a notable comment surrounding their green-on-green initiatives:

Our partnership with ONE Smart Spray delivers green-on-green spraying technology, which targets weeds without affecting crops, reducing both costs and environmental impact. 

CNH Industrial has been very limited in sharing their view of precision spraying as it pertains to green-on-green, especially relative to John Deere and AGCO.

They recently announced SenseApply technology, an enhancement of their Augmenta acquisition that consists of a single cab-mounted camera system that offers multiple in-season uses including: 

  • Selective Spray 

    • Green-on-Brown Spot Spray offers upgraded weed management

    • Base + Boost applies a consistent base rate over the entire boom while boosting individual nozzle sections to a higher rate when passing over areas with higher weed pressure

  • Live Variable Rate Application for:

    • Nitrogen

    • Harvest Aid

    • Plant Growth Regulator

    • Fungicide

For a full look at CNH potential pricing of SenseApply, a look at the value of an integrated tech stack, and a look at what CNH strategy, might be in green-on-green, become an Upstream Ag Professional member today:

For the full Upstream Ag Professional overview, check out the link in the heading.

For more on precision spraying check out the new report:

Over the last 6 months Upstream Ag Insights and my friends at the AgTech Collective dove deeply into the precision spraying segment to create the definitive guide on what’s happening in the precision spraying segment—delivering insider intelligence that helps you understand what is happening in the realm of Precision Spraying.

If you’re in agribusiness—whether a crop input manufacturer, input retailer, agtech company, OEM, equipment dealer, or investor— understanding the companies, technology and where this market is headed is crucial.

In this article, Matthew Pryor thoughtfully conveys that real value in agtech goes beyond technology and unfolds in three phases: identifying, creating, and capturing value. Most startups fail not because the tech is bad, but because they stumble in the transitions between these stages.

This is a really well done article that is worth the read.

Eion today announced a $33 million carbon removal purchase by Frontier buyers. Through this offtake deal, Eion will remove 78,707 tons of CO2 between 2027 and 2030 by applying olivine on farmland across the Midwest and South. To support deployment at scale, Eion has partnered with Growmark. Growmark’s farmer network, which reaches nearly 400,000 customers, provides a pathway for Eion to expand into new geographies and further accelerate the adoption of ERW.

Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) is a carbon removal strategy that also functions as a soil amendment/fertilizer for crop production as well.

I haven’t covered ERW much in Upstream, so wanted to give a baseline overview.

By spreading finely crushed silicate rocks (often volcanic in origin, like basalt or olivine) onto field, ERW accelerates geochemical weathering processes to draw CO₂ out of the atmosphere and store it in stable forms over long time horizons.

The process sequesters carbon and can also enhance soil fertility, making ERW a dual-purpose carbon management and agronomic tool.

For the full look at ERW dynamics, product pricing differences and Eion GTM initiatives, check out the link in the heading.

There are a lot of good points in this white paper. Assessing demand is far from perfect. Technology can help. Process and accountability is still needed to attain positive outcomes. I’d suggest there is also a need to integrate demand management within a control point.

Non Ag Article

Fastenal: A Nuts & Bolts Success Story - Business Breakdowns

There is a lot agriculture can learn from other industries. Fastenal is a fascinating business. Their approach to inventory management for their customer base is notable.

This is a podcast, but there is also a transcript available at the link.

Other Interesting Ag Articles