Welcome to the 174th Edition of Upstream Ag Insights!
Index for the week:
Bayer Crop Science Innovation Summit Highlights and Analysis
2023 Ag Biologicals Landscape
Guardian Agriculture Nets $20m Series A
Digital Battlegrounds: Bushel Emphasizes Ag Retail Offering
First Mid Bank & Trust Joins the GROWERS Platform
Corteva Agriscience Receives First USDA Verification for Biostimulant
Omnipower Future is Not Here Yet
Benson Hill Co-Founder Steps Down, Company Seeks New Permanent CEO
State of Deep Tech
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If you are new or were forwarded this e-mail, my name is Shane Thomas and this is Upstream Ag Insights, a weekly newsletter for agribusiness leaders making sense of the newest innovations and business dynamics in the agriculture industry.
1. Bayer Crop Science 2023 Innovation Summit Highlights and Analysis - Upstream Ag Insights
On June 20th Bayer Crop Science held an Innovation Summit in New York City where their leadership team went through not only their pipeline of products for the next 10+ years but unveiled their new positioning around this pipeline, emphasizing the enablement of regenerative agriculture with their products and systems.
The enormity of Bayer’s pipeline and what they went through would be challenging to cover in its entirety, so as usual, I focus primarily on the news that impacts the North American industry with extrapolations elsewhere when possible. Because of the breadth of topics, products, and areas, I have done my best to keep it flowing, but there is an index below if you prefer to navigate to one specific area.
To go through the entire Bayer presentation, see here:
Bayer Crop Science Innovation Summit Materials - Bayer Crop Science
Upstream Ag Insights Coverage Index:
Strategic Priorities
Strategic Summary
Seed: Breeding and Traits
Preceon Smart Corn System
Hybrid Wheat
Biofuel: CoverCress
Crop Protection
Protein Degraders
Biologicals
Nitrogen Fixation
Digital Agriculture
Farm of the Future and Retail Enablement
Miscellaneous and Interesting
Big Seed: A Divergence in Corteva and Bayer Strategy
Summary and Final Thoughts
Please note, the Bayer Innovation Summit Highlights and Analysis is very long. My aim was not to highlight their points but dive in deeper.
Given the influence of Bayer Crop Science on farming I think there is a wealth of insight from them about how they will be evolving their offering which will influence competitive dynamics across not just other input manufacturers but all areas of the industry, from finance, to insurance, to equipment companies, retailers, digital companies and more.
Related: Corteva 2023 R&D Innovation Update Highlights and Analysis - Upstream Ag Insights
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2. 2023 Ag Biologicals Landscape - The Mixing Bowl Hub
Along with the Western Growers we released our Ag Biologicals Landscape 2023 at the Salinas Biological Summit. Led by Chris Taylor, with support from Franziska Schottler, Rob Trice and Michael Rose we identified 1,200 companies with “Products derived from naturally occurring from micro and macro organisms, plant extracts, and other natural materials used to enhance crop production”. Around 400 companies appear on the Landscape.
The biological landscape is large, fragmented and complex to decipher.
In order to navigate the space myself over the past few years I have put together a list of hundreds of biological-based companies. However, what Western Growers and The Mixing Bowl Hub have done is an incredible layout to help decipher an ever growing space.
The layout is incredibly thoughtful too, working to group companies by living and non-living as well as biostimulatory (crop/soil health) and biocontrol.
As someone who has struggled to label my list of companies for myself, I commend how well put together this is.
Walt Duflock has already alluded to the potential of evolving the landscape in the future too.
One area for future iterations is around augmenters and enhancers.
For example, Jord BioScience (not shown) technology is intended to enhance the consistency of performance of other biologicals. Or 3Bar Bio (under biopesticides), which has the capability to increase the biological survivability of products through the supply chain. Meristem Crop Performance (not shown) has unique delivery technology. There are others, and depending on where the line wanted to be drawn, it could extend to fermentation / still manufacturing companies.
I have benefitted from The Mixing Bowls’ great landscape maps in the past and have already derived utility this past week in identifying companies I was not aware of.
If you have any interest in the area of biologicals I encourage you to check out the landscape. There is a high resolution download option within the heading link.