Agtech - So What?23 Mar 2022

Investing Beyond the Farmgate with Ben Barlow, New Edge Microbials

Biologicals in agriculture have a wildly exciting future. It’s a segment responding to innovation in science, changes in markets, and the urgent pressures of adapting to climate change. New startups coming into the space are generating plenty of buzz, but there are also established players with products in the hands of farmers today.
Ben Barlow is a veteran executive and the Managing Director of New Edge Microbials, a company that has been supplying farmers with legume inoculants and other biologicals for over 20 years. Growing a business in the biologicals space has been just one more step on Ben’s path from his early days as a bank teller with a front-row seat to new opportunities both on and off-farm, and through to expanding his investment thesis to include companies along the value chain globally.
While Ben has plenty to share about the realities of corporate agribusiness for founders and executives, his story as a family farmer investing beyond the farmgate has lessons for producers as well.
In this episode, Ben shares:

How farmers can diversify their portfolio to manage for the seasonality and cyclicality of farm production
Trends in the biologicals market, and what it takes to succeed in a sector with high barriers to entry and costs for R&D
What it takes for globalized agribusiness to succeed in local markets where people and communities are
What will be needed for Australia to avoid having a massive disadvantage in biologicals in the coming years

For more information and resources, visit our website.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(215)

Why Good Agtech Doesn't Always Get Adopted, with Chad Godsey

How do you know when a new agtech product is actually ready for the farm? Growing up on a family farm in Colorado over the declining Ogallala Aquifer, Chad Godsey has spent his career searching for w...

22 Jul 0s

The future of food is in taste, with futurist Mike Lee

What if the future of food isn't about convincing people to care more about sustainability, but rather focusing on what can improve taste? In this episode, Tenacious’ Dr. Maddie Mitchell speaks with f...

8 Jul 42min

Why soil health and profitability are deeply connected, with Nic Kentish

With the surname “Kentish,” Nic carries his family’s potato growing legacy. While it's one of pride, the journey has certainly not been easy. After returning to the family farm in South Australia, he...

24 Jun 42min

Can dairy’s waste stream power beef’s future? with Daniel Carson

What if one of agriculture’s most controversial “waste problems” is actually its most overlooked opportunity? Daniel Carson is an entrepreneur based in New Zealand, who wants to transform the beef ind...

10 Jun 36min

Business Model Breakdowns with Shane Thomas: The Monsanto Playbook

Monsanto is one of the most influential and controversial companies in the history of global agriculture. But beyond the headlines, what can its evolution teach us about how value is created and captu...

27 Mai 47min

Can biomaterials compete on price, not just purpose? with Tina Funder

Some of the most transformative innovation in agri-food is happening downstream of the farm, in the materials, products, and industries that agriculture ultimately feeds into. In this episode, Sarah N...

13 Mai 34min

Better Outcomes, Not Lower Costs: rethinking agtech in horticulture, with Mark Trzaskoma

While agtech often celebrates breakthrough technologies that can slash costs for farmers, what if the real value of innovation lies somewhere else entirely? In this episode, Mark Trzaskoma joins Dr Ma...

29 Apr 33min

Business Model Breakdowns with Shane Thomas: Co-Ops and their future in Ag

Co-operatives have a long and sometimes colored history in agriculture, across the Western world. What role will they play in the future of agriculture? As agriculture becomes increasingly shaped by d...

15 Apr 38min