“Software is Feeding the World” is a weekly newsletter for Food/AgTech leaders about technology trends.

Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area. I received significant feedback on last week’s edition on agriculture robotics. Thank you for all the comments. I will do a follow up on agriculture robotics in the next few months. This week’s edition is much shorter, and a set of links to articles I found interesting. I will get back to analysis and trends next week.

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Mark Johnson, ex-CEO of Descartes Labs and Grainbridge, wrote a raw, vulnerable, and from-the-heart article about Descartes Labs’ acquisition by a PE group. He is clearly not happy about the road leading to the acquisition and how the acquisition went down. According to Mark, there are two main reasons for the not-so-great acquisition of Descartes Labs.

There were two main reasons for the mismatch in the actual value of the company versus the price that was paid:

1. The company was burning too much cash.
2. The sales process was run poorly. (i.e., the process of selling the company)

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Bayer acquires a majority stake in lower carbon oilseed producer covercress.

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“CoverCress is a rotational cash crop which combines grain production with the environmental benefits of a cover crop without displacing other harvests. Oil extracted from CoverCress grain is designed to achieve a lower carbon intensity score and can be made into renewable diesel with Bunge’s expertise in oilseed processing and Chevron’s proficiency in fuels manufacturing. This farm-to-fuel supply chain represented by CCI, Bayer, Bunge and Chevron aims to give corn and soybean growers another revenue outlet by providing the world with a desirable fuel product and high-protein meal for animal feed.”

​CoverCress has oil and protein profiles similar to those of canola – it builds soil health, and holds soil and nutrients in place over winter, while also having the unique trait of a very low carbon density. And according to the USDA, integration of the cover crop between corn and soybean rotations has the potential to yield as much as 2 billion gallons of oil per year, toward the goal of 50 billion gallons of biofuels in 25 years.

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​Smart farming will lead to plant by plant management​

Smart farming uses modern technologies to increase the efficiency of agriculture, to use all resources more sparingly, to relieve people from monotonous work and to produce higher yields.

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Palmer likes drought-like conditions.

Although glufosinate-resistant Palmer amaranth populations were confirmed in Arkansas in 2021, Steckel insists Liberty continues to be the last stronghold in post-emergence Palmer amaranth control in Tennessee fields. But Liberty efficacy can depend greatly on weather factors or time of day of application. With product shortages, many producers did not have the luxury of a “do-over” if glufosinate did not work the first time.

“Palmer amaranth is even more competitive in a hot and dry environment than other weeds. As a native to the desert southwest, hot and dry is its ideal climate,” The optimum temperature for photosynthesis in soybean is 86 degrees, while cotton is 91 degrees. In contrast, Palmer amaranth will run at its optimum photosynthetic rate at 97 degrees and stay near that high photosynthetic level up to 114 degrees.

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​Precision planting launches automated and efficient soil test protocol​

Radicle Agronomics was created to transform soil nutrient management with precise tools and reliable agronomic data so that agronomists are better equipped to guide farmers to superior outcomes.

Radicle Lab, the cornerstone of this new suite of tools, is the world’s first fully automated soil laboratory. Its small footprint, self-calibration technology, and the ability to run hundreds of samples unattended, allow agronomists to simplify their workflow. The revolutionary, patent pending Microflow technology built into Radicle Lab removes all human touches which occur during the traditional laboratory process, giving agronomists the confidence to produce a precision soil analysis in minutes without lifting a finger.

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​Deere announces investment in Kenya AgTech company - HelloTractor Deere & Co. announced today it has made a minority investment in Hello Tractor, a Nairobi, Kenya-based company connecting tractor owners with smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia through a farm-equipment-sharing app. The company's app allows farmers to track and manage their equipment, book customers and access financing options. In 2021, I had interviewed Jehiel Oliver, CEO of Hello Tractor in my conversation with Rhishi series.

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​Omnivore, an agritech-focused venture capital investor in India, has executed the largest exit in the country’s domestic sector through the sale of its stake in Eruvaka, a developer of cloud-based aquaculture management solutions, including real-time monitoring and smart feeders, to global animal nutrition and aquaculture leader Nutreco.

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San Diego-based, company-building platform for early-stage ag and food technologies Radicle Growth has announced yet another channel for accelerating the development of early-stage agtech companies.

The launch is being called The Radicle Farm, a global farm-access platform to advance new on-farm technologies. This cohort-style program will identify startups that are in the position of needing access to trial design, agronomic support, and farms in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The Radicle Farm will have the ability to double the speed at which new technologies and business models can be validated and demonstrated in order to secure further funding and new customers.

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CIBO submits US based agriculture carbon project to Verra CIBO, the science-based technology company that provides partners with a complete platform to manage ag carbon and nature-based climate programs, has announced the acceptance of their Project Description Document (PDD) to Verra entitled “The CIBO Initiative for Scaling Regenerative Agriculture.”

Verra is the global leader in voluntary carbon market quality assurance. They have developed over 200 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction and sequestration standards, known as methodologies. Each standard can be used to develop programs that create meaningful environmental and social value with high quality and confidence.

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About me

My name is Rhishi Pethe. I lead the product management team at Project Mineral (focused on sustainable agriculture). The views expressed in this newsletter are my personal opinions.