AgTech Digest: Weekly Agriculture Technology News & Deals

Hosted by iGrowNews

Science News Arts Food

Website RSS feed

Episodes

131

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

About the show

AgTech Digest is a weekly ten-minute briefing on the deals, funding rounds, acquisitions, product launches and policy moves shaping agriculture technology. Every Friday: who raised, who bought whom, which inputs and machines cleared regulators, and what it means for growers, input companies and investors, drawn from the iGrowNews newsletter and database. Produced by iGrowNews. Narrated with an AI voice from a human-edited script.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 30, 202610 min

A Tokyo seafood group bid C$804 million for High Liner Foods to secure its own North American shelf

A Tokyo group that controls access to roughly 26% of the Bering Sea Alaska pollock resource just bought itself a route onto North American supermarket shelves — for about C$804 million in cash. Umios agreed on October 26 to acquire Nova Scotia’s High Liner Foods at C$27.00 per share, an equity value of roughly C$804 million. Closing is expected in January 2027, subject to 75% shareholder approval, Canadian Competition Act approval and U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino clearance, with High Liner staying headquartered in Nova Scotia as the core of Umios’ North American base. Also this week: BloomX closed a $13 million Series A led by Elah Fund, taking total funding to $20 million for its Robee blueberry and Yahav 2400 avocado Pollination-as-a-Service systems; Salesforce agreed to buy 500,000 rice methane credits from Mitti Labs through 2030, following an earlier Google offtake; USDA’s FIELDS programme proposed about $116.9 million for Sedron’s $360 million manure-to-nitrogen project at Fair Oaks, Indiana and Twin Circle Dairy in Kansas, and about $139 million for Intrepid Potash near Carlsbad, New Mexico; What Rebates closed a revolving credit facility to support more than $18 million of grower lighting and HVAC projects; Arevo published 340-plot trials showing 4.3% wheat yield gains from Arginex-coated seed; Yara launched YaraAmplix PROCOTE OPTIMIZE and OPTITRAC in the U.S.; New Holland showed 360–440 hp T7 XD tractors near Woodstock, Ontario; Oishii targets 500-plus U.S. stores in 25 states; Planted Detroit’s vertical farm is up for sealed bids due November 16; and AgriBank named Matthew Basler CEO from February 22, 2027. The paid edition, Tank Mix , compares crop protection activity from January 1 to October 17 across 2026 and 2025: records up from 123 to 173, the base widening from 14 to 19 countries, and headline funding of $930.4 million shrinking to $124.8 million once Tessenderlo Group’s FMC investment and duplicates are stripped out — a 14.2% rise on 78% more transactions. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:35) The Impact Scorecard (02:27) Corporate and Financial Shifts (05:02) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:47) Market Signals and Operations (08:34) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

October 23, 202610 min

USDA opened an $8 billion farm fuel relief program with no crop insurance requirement

Four food-chain companies changed hands in seven days — and Washington put $8 billion on the table for farmers' fuel bills, with no crop insurance requirement attached. The USDA's new Harvest Fuel Relief program will make one-time payments for the 2026 crop year covering part of growers' modeled fuel losses, with payment rates for Title I commodities due in November. Alongside it, the agency added crop insurance and tariff-rate quota measures to its Great American Cotton Plan. Also this week: Lindsay Corporation agreed to buy Brazilian hose reel irrigation maker Setorial Irrigação on undisclosed terms; Mérieux NutriSciences closed its Certified Group purchase, adding 31 labs, about $300 million in revenue and 170-plus regulatory consultants to become North America's largest food testing provider, with Continental Grain Company and Peugeot Invest joining as minority shareholders; Betagro took majority control of Thai ingredient platform Freshket, which serves more than 20,000 foodservice operators; Swander Pace Capital sold SUMM! maker Fine Choice Foods of Richmond, British Columbia to Power Sustainable Lios; IMIO raised $12 million led by Sofinnova Partners with Chipotle's Cultivate Next participating; Ground Up Investing hit a $6 million first close on a $20 million second fund; Niqo Robotics launched the 46-foot, 14-camera RoboWeeder F50 with no software subscription; Kubota moved its Agtonomy pilot to autonomous operation on the M5L tractor; Cairnspring Mills opened its Blue Mountain Mill in Pendleton, Oregon with a $5 million equity stake from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation; and Syngenta sued BASF in Delaware over the newly registered Ridivex corn herbicide. The paid edition, Narrow Rows , compares September 2026 with September 2025: records up from 199 to 227, but recorded agriculture funding halved from $2,802.2 million across 30 actions to $1,403.8 million across 12, with two entries carrying 97% of the capital. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:33) The Impact Scorecard (02:27) Corporate and Financial Shifts (04:56) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:24) Market Signals and Operations (08:30) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

October 16, 202610 min

Greeneye cut non-residual herbicide use 81% across 500,000 acres and is now opening in Kansas

A decarbonization fund just bought the business of baling corn stover — and crop residue stopped being a by-product. Boston-based Ara Partners acquired a majority interest in Pacific Ag, founded in 1998 in the Columbia River Basin and billed as North America's largest crop residue supply and logistics company, for an undisclosed price. Pacific Ag harvests, stores and delivers corn stover and wheat straw to dairies, animal protein producers and mushroom growers across more than 30 states — a thin, local market that now sits inside a waste-to-value investment thesis. Also this week: CarbonFarm closed an oversubscribed $7.8 million Series A led by Colam Impact, with Proparco, Suma Capital, elea, Working Capital Fund, Albo and Bpifrance joining returning backers Serena and Techmind; Terminus Capital Partners took a majority growth stake in farm labor and compliance platform PickTrace; Switch Bioworks signed Bayer Crop Science on engineered nitrogen-fixing microbes already in USDA- and EPA-authorized U.S. field trials; Greeneye Technology opened North American headquarters in Salina, Kansas after spraying 500,000+ acres in 2026 with average non-residual herbicide savings of 81%; TTA-ISO bought the Demtec brand, IP and inventory out of bankruptcy; Koppert launched the Bacillus velezensis fungicide Macan in Brazil, registered for 13 disease targets; CLAAS opened a 44,800-square-foot R&D center in Omaha, Nebraska inside a $100 million North American plan; Signify reported Finnish cucumber growers saving roughly €5,000 per hectare by cutting far-red light; and the John Deere Foundation committed $18.5 million to link farmers with food banks. The paid edition, Grain Elevator , tracks cereals and grains through 2 October 2026: records up from 53 to 127, the country base from 14 to 27, nine priced rounds averaging $9.2 million against three averaging $51.2 million a year earlier, and four dated signals to watch. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:34) The Impact Scorecard (02:46) Corporate and Financial Shifts (05:10) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:48) Market Signals and Operations (08:42) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

October 9, 202610 min

Twenty Italian biomethane plants will each process up to 100,000 tonnes of farm waste a year

Farm waste just became a bankable asset class — and a robotic bee startup got funded by the orchards that will use it. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners made the first investment from its Advanced Bioenergy Fund II, backing Via Verde's 20-project biomethane pipeline across Lombardy, Abruzzo and Campania in Italy, with each plant designed to process 60,000 to 100,000 tonnes of agricultural waste annually. Alongside it, two crop-input groups took full control of businesses: BRANDT bought all shares of Mexico's Agrícola Innovación, now “Altiara, A Brandt Company,” based in Pachuca; and BioFirst Group bought the remaining 14.71% of Brazil's Biotrop from Aqua Capital and Zempar, completing ahead of schedule a 2023 deal valued at BRL 2.8 billion (EUR 532 million). Also this week: BloomX raised a $13 million Series A led by Elah Fund, with Rothschild, OurCrowd, Sadot and kibbutzim Magal, Horashim and Eyal backing its YAHAV2400 pollination platform; Darling Ingredients closed the sale of its CTH sausage casings business to Germany's SARIA Group to pay down debt; Antobot unveiled the U502 UV-C strawberry robot at Fruit Attraction in Madrid with commercial launch in 2027; Pairwise licensed its Fulcrum CRISPR platform to Belgium's Rainbow Crops ahead of the EU's 2028 genomic techniques route; Harvest Singularity broke ground on a $69 million greenhouse in Newberry, Florida, backed by a $5.6 million Florida Job Growth Grant; Napa wineries including Opus One and Dominus Estate pledged $2.5 million to red blotch virus research; Soilytix released its LOAM genomic AI models; iBOI, Acceleronix and Quectel launched an eSIM GPS cattle ear tag in Brazil enabling livestock credit; and the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer fell 12 points to 123, with a record 52% of producers naming input costs as their top concern. This week's paid edition, Low Country , analyses 114 Dutch agriculture and agtech records from 1 January to 26 September 2026 against 104 a year earlier: recorded capital rose from $48.6 million to $170.3 million, though FrieslandCampina's whey protein program accounts for 60.8% of it. Subscribe to the premium edition for the full Trends Analysis and what to watch through 2027. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:35) The Impact Scorecard (02:29) Corporate and Financial Shifts (05:03) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:34) Market Signals and Operations (08:43) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

October 2, 202610 min

Corteva's seed business just spun out as Vylor with a $19 billion crop pipeline

A $19 billion seed pipeline just walked out of Corteva and started trading on its own. Corteva completed the spin-off of its seed and genetics business on October 1, and it now trades on the NYSE as Vylor, led by CEO Chuck Magro from Johnston, Iowa. The company values its corn, soybean and wheat pipeline at $19 billion, plans 12 platform launches over the next decade — including the Xpedite hybrid wheat system and the Vylor One licensing arm — and targets $11.2–11.9 billion in revenue by 2029. Also this week: Hormel Foods agreed to buy Wisconsin chicken processor Brakebush for about $1.055 billion against roughly $1.2 billion in trailing net sales, adding five plants and two R&D labs; Tessenderlo Group paid about $403 million for roughly 20% of FMC Corporation at $13.30 a share, with a board nominee, a standstill and a three-year lock-up; AMVAC picked up US registrations for Syngenta's Caparol, Evik, Prime+ and Agri-Flex, worth more than $7 million in annual net sales; Bi-PA sold EMEA rights to its TEMAP biofungicide to Nichino Europe; Origin Agritech sold its 70.5% stake in Xinjiang Originbo Seed to Hunan Xindaxin for RMB 108 million, raising about $15.0 million; Edible Garden moved to buy its 6.2-acre Webster City, Iowa site for a 100 million-unit beverage line; ADAMA launched Actavan and Rexaro; DeLaval brought DeLaval Plus to the US; BiomEdit won USDA conditional licensure for CPerf LLV; and Corteva settled its 2023 Delaware suit against Inari. This week's paid edition, Under Glass , breaks down greenhouse-sector activity in 2026 versus 2025 from the iGrowNews database: $249.7 million across 12 deals, ownership changes doubling to ten, 44 partnerships tracked, and the activity base widening from 16 countries to 23. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:32) The Impact Scorecard (02:30) Corporate and Financial Shifts (05:02) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:36) Market Signals and Operations (08:52) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

September 25, 202612 min

A nuclear developer priced at $2.4B on Nasdaq in a week when three firms sold divisions

Three companies sold divisions, two merged into one, and the only capital moving at scale was debt — except for the reactor developer that walked onto Nasdaq at a $2.4 billion pre-money valuation. newcleo, the lead-cooled fast reactor and MOX fuel developer, closed its SPAC combination with NewHold Investment Corp III, raising $247 million gross and pushing total funding past $1 billion. It landed in a week defined by subtraction: Titan International agreed to sell its ITM (Italtractor ITM) undercarriage business to Italy's USCO S.p.A. for roughly $285 million in total cash value — a $207 million initial price, up to $6 million of earnout tied to 2026 performance, about $23 million of net asset adjustments and $49 million in dividends — closing early January 2027. Also this week: Standlee and Anderson Hay combined to form Standlee-Anderson in Kimberly, Idaho, terms undisclosed; Vanguard Renewables bought Generate Upcycle's five North American sites to create a 19-site food waste-to-RNG platform, adding roughly 565,000 tons of annual processing, with Pinta Energy taking the seven UK facilities; Anyang Indorama Gases lined up RMB 2.4 billion (about $358 million) from an OCBC-led consortium with Bank of China and China CITIC Bank to roughly double urea output to 2 million tonnes a year by 2029; Form Energy closed a $270 million Barclays-structured facility expandable to $1 billion; Rainmaker raised a $100 million Series B from NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC and Lowercarbon Capital; ADM moved to monetize over 800,000 tons of annual engineered CO2 removal via Puro.earth and Tallgrass; Georgia Power's Nuclear Uprate tariff deal with Google adds about 96 MW at Plants Hatch and Vogtle and is projected to return roughly $900 million to customers; and Kernel added 40,000 tons of modular grain storage as strikes cut Ukraine's export corridors to about 1.4 million tons a month. The premium edition, Under Glass , takes the greenhouse sector apart year to date: 142 records through 22 September against 89 in 2025, deal count up by half with average deal size down 40%, equity and convertible rounds up 42% to $65.6 million, ownership changes doubled to 10, and activity spread from 16 countries to 23. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (01:04) The Impact Scorecard (02:53) Corporate and Financial Shifts (06:10) Innovation and Public Strategy (09:13) Market Signals and Operations (10:35) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

September 18, 202611 min

BASF hired four banks to float an ag unit with $11.1 billion in annual sales

In one week, two of the largest names in crop inputs decided they are worth more in pieces. Corteva's board approved distributing its seed operating segment into a new independent, publicly traded company called Vylor, ahead of an October 1 separation — with the seed platform already forecasting $500 million in North America wheat revenue by 2035, $1 billion by 2040, and roughly $500 million in incremental soybean revenue. Days later, BASF mandated Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan to prepare a Frankfurt listing for its Agricultural Solutions unit, which posted €9.6 billion (about $11.1 billion) in 2025 sales and is roughly 80% carved into standalone legal entities, with a Capital Markets Day set for November 24, 2026 and IPO readiness targeted by mid-2027. Also this week: IDEXX Laboratories agreed to buy CoVetAI for AI-native veterinary workflow tools; BFG Supply Co., a 54-year-old horticulture distributor, set an auction date for substantially all assets after its August Chapter 11 filing with 16 affiliates; Robigo closed a Series A led by Leaps by Bayer with Illumina Ventures, SVG Thrive, Congruent Ventures and Endeavor8; Nature's Miracle Holding agreed to divest its Visiontech grow-light subsidiary; Mazama Energy raised $135 million and Branch Energy $33 million; Crane Company bought Trillium Pumps US for $240 million and ZenaTech closed its 29th roll-up; Pivot Bio welcomed finalized 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit guidance for regeneratively grown corn; The More Life Company reported up to 32.5% potato yield gains in Brazil from licensed Agrarius technology; New Holland launched a retrofit GPS kit for tractors up to 35 years old; and Alveo Technologies partnered with Alliance Global on on-farm avian-influenza testing across Africa, Central Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. This week's paid edition, Cash Crop , covers Holtec Nuclear's IPO push at a roughly $10.2 billion valuation, Franklin Electric's up-to-$400 million purchase of Cat Pumps, Mitti Labs' Google-backed rice-methane carbon deal, and Agreena's record 4.45 million-tonne soil-carbon agreement across Kazakhstan. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:59) The Impact Scorecard (02:42) Corporate and Financial Shifts (05:33) Innovation and Public Strategy (08:09) Market Signals and Operations (09:09) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

September 11, 202611 min

The largest farm carbon deal ever signed covers 4.45 million tonnes across Kazakhstan

Agricultural carbon just stopped being a pilot project: two record offtakes landed in the same week, one of them 4.45 million tonnes. Agreena signed a seven-year agreement to sell 4.45 million tonnes of CO2e soil-carbon credits to an unnamed global commodity trading house — the largest publicly disclosed agricultural carbon deal to date. The credits come from a targeted 1.6 million hectares in northern Kazakhstan's grain belt, Agreena's 21st market, where the move away from conventional tillage is expected to save farmers 40–60 litres of diesel per hectare. Days later, Mitti Labs committed up to 1 million rice-methane credits to Google by 2030, the largest rice-methane offtake on record, across three Indian states. Also this week: Innventure opened Food and Agtech Fund II with ecosystem partners including Bayer Crop Science, Aapresid and Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario; Tellia raised $5 million in pre-seed led by Revent for voice data capture in the field, reporting 80% daily active use at Campos Brothers Farms and Duckhorn; Bayer and Neste finalized a commercial agreement to scale newgold winter canola across the U.S. Southern Great Plains; Corteva and Globachem formed a 50/50 crop-protection joint venture for Europe and the Americas; Amoeba secured exclusive European distribution with Syngenta for its Willaertia-based biofungicide from 2028; AMVAC launched Duro LQ and BioWorks launched BioRain Ax; KUHN debuted the 47-foot GMD 15030 mounted disc mower; Napa Green won a $3 million conservation grant with $2 million passed directly to growers; Flyttr broke ground in San Antonio on the first U.S. large-scale pest-biosecurity platform; and Purdue's Ag Economy Barometer rose to 135 in August. This week's premium edition, Thin Harvest , narrows the ledger to agriculture alone: $670 million flowed into ag in August 2026, a debt-heavy month in which government money and loans outweighed venture rounds and the average check shrank sharply from July — deal by deal, with M&A and year-to-date context from the iGrow Intelligence database. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:36) The Impact Scorecard (02:14) Corporate and Financial Shifts (04:34) Innovation and Public Strategy (06:55) Market Signals and Operations (09:08) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

September 4, 202610 min

Seaweed feed cuts cattle methane by up to 77%, and Japanese investors just funded it

A seaweed additive that cuts cattle methane by 49–77% just took its first venture cheque — in the same week a single Brazilian sugarcane mill changed hands for $148 million. Adecoagro completed its acquisition of the Caarapó Mill from Raízen Group for approximately $148 million, folding it into the company's existing three-mill sugarcane-processing cluster in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The all-cash deal, first announced in July, is expected to be immediately accretive to adjusted EBITDA — and reads as a clear signal that scaled operators are buying capacity from portfolio-pruning majors. Also this week: DN AGRAR signed a binding offer for Romania's Panorganic Vitavit at about €750,000 ($869K), a 14-hectare glass-greenhouse lettuce site in Arad County it plans to scale from 1.2 million to 2.0 million heads a year; Olam's ofi raised $100 million via a five-year private note; Corvus Robotics closed a $20 million Series A-2 led by Catalyst Investors with S2G Investments, Spero Ventures, F7 Ventures and Cibus; Sunshiki raised pre-seed funding led by SBI New Business Investment to commercialise an Asparagopsis feed additive; Bayer began commercialising Plenexos and the Preceon Smart Corn System toward a goal of 10 products with €500 million-plus peak sales each; AGCO's Fendt staged its first U.S. global tractor launch and CLAAS rolled out a new ARION/AXION lineup; Corteva spin-off Vylor projected $2 billion in incremental revenue by 2035 from a yield-stability corn trait; ADAMA launched Ravari in Latin America and Nofence debuted the N3 cattle collar; the USDA unveiled a Data Modernization Plan with NASA; AgriCapture and Google moved 6,000 acres of Trinity River Basin rice to water-saving irrigation; Chobani broke ground on a $1.2 billion dairy campus in Allentown, Pennsylvania; and the Center for Food Safety sued to overturn EPA approval of the PFAS pesticide trifludimoxazin. This week's premium edition, Brand Aid , unpacks how America's indoor farms are pivoting away from produce toward CPG brands, cannabis and software — and what the 2022 boom collapse means for anyone underwriting controlled-environment agriculture today. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:32) The Impact Scorecard (02:50) Corporate and Financial Shifts (04:53) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:10) Market Signals and Operations (08:23) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

August 28, 202611 min

The U.S. cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951, and investors just put $27M behind the platform tracking what's left of it.

The U.S. cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951 — and investors just put $27 million behind the platform tracking what's left of it. Consolidation defined the week. CropX Technologies acquired lab-analysis firm SCIO — its eighth acquisition since 2020 and its largest to date, terms undisclosed — while Indigo Agriculture spun its microbial crop-protection science out as a standalone company, ENAI. At the other end of the cycle, 54-year-old horticultural distributor BFG Supply filed for Chapter 11 with $342.5 million in debt and a $55 million DIP loan, targeting a going-concern sale by October 22 after cutting nearly a third of its workforce. Also this week: Breedr raised a $27 million Series B led by Partech, with more than 2 million cattle listed and close to $500 million in livestock trading this year; Saudi Arabia's NADEC agreed to pay $22.7 million for a six-hectare Pure Harvest greenhouse in Haradh under Vision 2030; TerraBlaster closed a $12.5 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures for its Mars-derived soil-chemistry sensor; VitalFluid raised a $19.9 million Series A co-led by Invest-NL; Blue Radix took an undisclosed follow-on from Navus; AGCO unveiled new Fendt, Massey Ferguson and PTx equipment at the Farm Progress Show alongside lidar plans with GUSS Automation; Solinftec became the first ag-robotics company to sell parts via Amazon as its Solix fleet grew 15-fold to over 55,000 acres; USDA and HHS committed up to $95 million to the Harvest to Hallways initiative; Al Dahra activated a five-year, $500 million wheat framework with Egypt; Reservoir landed a $10 million R&D partnership with John Deere; Halter expanded virtual fencing onto BLM lands in New Mexico and Wyoming with nearly $3 million from the Foundation for America's Public Lands; and three nonprofits sued Driscoll's over its sustainability marketing. The premium edition goes deeper: Big Ag Is Buying Its Way Into Biology maps crop protection's pivot from synthetic chemistry to biology — at least seven biological specialists absorbed into strategic hands, funding back above $500 million in 2026, the first new herbicide and fungicide modes of action in roughly 40 years, and the deleveraging of legacy portfolios at FMC and Bayer. In this episode: (00:00) Cold Open (00:31) The Impact Scorecard (03:21) Corporate and Financial Shifts (04:47) Innovation and Public Strategy (07:17) Market Signals and Operations (09:40) Close Connect with Us! Be sure to subscribe to our other shows: Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen Subscribe to our Newsletters: https://network.igrownews.com/ Connect with us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/igrow-news/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igrownews 🎙️🎙️🎙️ Podcast Production Support provided by https://fullcast.co Discover the best podcast services in the world at The Podosphere: https://www.thepodosphere.com/ Mentioned in this episode: 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report 2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews 2025 Precision Ag Report

Is this your show?

Claim this listing to keep it up to date, reach guests who want to pitch you, and manage bookings with Guestify.

Claim this listing