Upstream Ag Professional - October 5th 2025

Welcome to the 113th edition of Upstream Ag Professional

Index

1. Corteva to Spin-Out Seed from Crop Protection and Liabilities

2. AGCO 2025 Tech Day Highlights and Analysis

3. FBN Announces Strategic Spin-Off of Global Crop Solutions (GCS), Creating Two Independent Leaders in Digital Ag-Commerce and Crop Protection

4. Gowan Company Acquires Ceradis in Strategic Move to Drive Innovation in Agriculture

5. SwarmFarm Robotics raises $30m to support US growth of its integrated automation technology

6. AgEagle rebrands as CEO sets sights on defense aerospace growth

7. Pivot Bio Evolving Digital Strategy

8. Upstream Ag Professional Book Recommendations

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This week’s audio edition can be found here and covers the following the Corteva to Spin-Out Seed from Crop Protection and Liabilities segment (*Due to some audio errors the first part was edited out so it is an abrupt entry into the coverage.)

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1. Corteva to Spin-Out Seed from Crop Protection and Liabilities - Upstream Ag Professional

Key Takeaways

• Corteva Agriscience confirmed a Wall Street Journal Report from September that it will split into two independent, publicly traded companies: one focused solely on crop protection (that management called “NewCorteva”) and the other on seed (temporarily called “SpinCo”). The board unanimously approved the move, which is expected to be completed in the second half of 2026. Initial leadership roles have been outlined, with current Chairman Greg Page set to chair NewCorteva and CEO Chuck Magro set to lead the SpinCo.

• The market has reacted skeptically so far. Corteva’s share price fell more than 14% since speculation of the split began, reflecting investor concerns around the rationale, execution and valuation implications.

• Corteva’s seed business is higher margin (~26% EBITDA), structurally advantaged, and will be positioned as the only public pure-play seed company in Western public markets. Investors could potentially value it at 18-20x EBITDA, unlocking $10 billion in shareholder value. SpinCo will likely use balance sheet strength to expand into high-value crop genetics and diversify geographically through acquisitions.

• The CP unit faces PFAS liabilities, future regulatory scrutiny, heavy generic competition, and margin pressure. To counter this, NewCorteva will almost certainly pursue M&A, potentially in biocontrol to carve out a differentiated position beyond synthetics.

Business Environment Adaptation: Bundling and Unbundling

Business decisions and structures are shaped by current trends and the environment, including in public companies by expectations of what capital markets view as relevant and strategically important.

Investor sentiment, macroeconomic context, and prevailing narratives all influence corporate structure decisions and how they are rewarded or penalized. Not to mention, changing industry dynamics that pressure integration and disintegration, as thoughtfully illustrated by Charles Fine in his book Clockspeed:

What matters today is not what mattered a decade or two ago, or what will be crucial in 5 years.

Consider that the narrative in 2016/17 was the integration of seed and crop protection along with scale was going to be the only way to compete in the market— the view was for scale and integration in complementary segments. This wasn’t just the case for agriculture, but downstream in Food, or in Media or in Mining, this was the case. The trends have shifted.

The Overton Window is a useful lens to make sense of this, too.

Traditionally it has been applied in politics and it describes the range of ideas that are considered acceptable or valued at a given time. Applied to a business setting, it shows the actions, structures and strategy that companies see as viable and investors see as legitimate and valuable. The window moves, especially when there are trends — like geopolitics and consumer preference rapidly changing.

A structure once celebrated can, over time, go “out of style” or even be punished.

25 years ago, conglomerates sat firmly inside the window. General Electric was the model. Investors valued the stability of internal capital markets — the ability to redeploy cash from mature divisions into new growth opportunities, along with the efficiencies of scale in manufacturing and distribution. Executives were praised for using the breadth of the portfolio to smooth cyclical swings. Diversification was seen as a source of resilience and optionality. We saw this in agriculture too— in Lords of Harvest by Dan Charles there is mention about the thinking that in order to be successful in biotech and crop protection, there was a need to siphon off cash from pharma or chemical segments in order to fund biotech, and we see that in the structure of the industry even today in the German titans Bayer and BASF.

However, that view has shifted on Wall Street.

Conglomerates now trade at multiple discounts with their complexity being viewed as a liability rather than a strength.

Investors prefer pure-play exposures with clear benchmarks and capital allocation discipline, being able to lean into specific strategies and put capital into highest return activities.

Activist investors reinforce this, pressing management teams to break up businesses that blur the growth story. Kraft’s separation into “Global Taste Elevation Co,” consisting of brands like Heinz, Philadelphia and Mac & Cheese and then “North America Grocery Co” consisting of slower growing food segments and focus more on operational efficiency, or Warner Brothers and Discovery splitting into Streaming & Studio’s and Global Networks, illustrate how markets reward the clarity that comes from separating higher-growth businesses from slower-growth ones.

Corteva fits squarely into this shift with Crop Protection and Seed/Trait, too — such as seed moving rapidly towards out-license IP (high margin) vs. crop protection being more about operational execution.

Plus, its seed and crop protection businesses compete for attention and capital against a backdrop of very different supply chains (local vs. scaled), core competencies, go-to-markets, lobbying pressure and competitive dynamics.

By spinning out seed from crop protection, the “SpinCo” is positioned as the only pureplay seed company in the Western public markets and can be judged on its own innovation pipeline, growth potential, and margin profile.

The move aligns with today’s Overton Window and industry “Clockspeed” for corporate structures— where focus and clarity are prized over breadth and diversification and where there are return multiples to be unlocked.

In Corteva’s case, the the specific rational runs even deeper, and it also might be a signal for what is to come within the crop protection and seed segments.

The full article goes deeper into the rationale specifics, an overview of each independent business, a look at what happens next, including acquisition action, and goes through 11 questions that are still interesting to ponder for agribusiness professionals.

2. AGCO 2025 Tech Day Highlights and Analysis - Upstream Ag Professional

Below is an excerpt from the full breakdown:

AGCO Strategic Focus

AGCO's overarching ambition is "to be the most farmer-focused company in the industry," and while I have shared my qualms with that kind of statement, I think they have laid out efforts that do begin to get them positioned well:

AGCO doesn’t share their focus in this way, but I would distill their go-forward efforts as four-pronged:

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