Rare Today, Relevant Tomorrow: Lessons From an Old Barley Experiment
The Composite Cross II (CCII) barley experiment, started in 1929 at UC Davis, has been sown and harvested for 58 generations, creating a century‑scale evolutionary breeding dataset. Recent genomic analysis shows natural selection quickly narrowed genetic diversity, especially in flowering‑time genes, while doubling field yield. A doctoral thesis demonstrated that moving the population to a contrasting environment in Bozeman caused rare alleles to surge, illustrating a potential "genetic rescue" mechanism. These insights suggest new strategies for crop adaptation and genebank management.
Trader PhD Survey Highlights Fertilizer Price Impact on 2026 Crop Year
A Trader PhD survey of more than 800 U.S. producers shows 76.5% have pre‑booked fertilizer for the 2026 growing season, with the Midwest leading at 83% and the South lagging at 68%. Despite higher input costs driven by the Middle‑East conflict,...
Seven Certified B Corps Launch a Global Coffee Coalition
Seven Certified B Corporations spanning Brazil, Switzerland, the United States, Singapore, Denmark, Australia/New Zealand and Kenya have launched the B Corp Coffee Coalition. The coalition will begin with working groups aimed at farmer prosperity and workforce development and is open to...
Supply Rebound Pushes Prices Down as Uncertainty Clouds Outlook
European olive oil production rebounded sharply in 2024/25, rising 37% to about 2.1 million tonnes, driven primarily by a 66% surge in Spain and strong gains in Greece. The surge pushed extra‑virgin prices down from a peak of €8.3 ($9.1) per...
ADAMA Launches Marathon Herbicide in Australia, Its First Pyrasulfotole-Based Product
ADAMA Ltd. has introduced Marathon®, its first Pyrasulfotole‑based herbicide, to Australian wheat and barley growers for the 2026 season. The product uses a patented high‑load EC formulation that incorporates the safener Mefenpyr‑diethyl, delivering broadleaf weed control with lower application volumes...
Ever.Ag Unveils Everett, an Agentic AI Decision Engine for the Agricultural Supply Chain
Ever.Ag introduced Everett, an agentic AI decision engine, at the ADPI Annual Conference in Chicago on April 27, 2026. The platform initially targets dairy processors, embedding AI into cheese yield optimization, transportation planning, and sales‑and‑operations planning tools. Built on Ever.Ag’s...
Viewpoint: The Herbicide Glyphosate Isn’t Perfect. Banning It Would Be Far Worse.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Monsanto v. Durnell on April 27, 2026, a case that could set precedent for thousands of glyphosate lawsuits. While plaintiffs argue the herbicide caused non‑Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the EPA and most global regulators still deem...
How Farmers for Forests Is Rethinking Tree Planting
India’s recent heat wave highlighted the climate cost of deforestation, prompting a spotlight on Farmers for Forests (F4F). The nonprofit has scaled agroforestry from 50 to 5,000 acres in six years and secured funding to reach 40,000 acres within three...
New Bird Flu Vaccine Shows Promise Against Multiple H5N1 Strains
University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers have unveiled a nanodisc‑based vaccine that protects mice and dairy calves from multiple H5N1 bird‑flu strains. The platform uses a prime‑boost regimen combining intramuscular and intranasal delivery to generate systemic and mucosal immunity. Preclinical trials showed...
Bayer Crop Science Advances Performance Turnaround Amid Litigation Progress and Portfolio Reshaping
Bayer Crop Science is in the second year of a two‑year turnaround, reporting 2025 sales of €21.6 billion (about $23.5 billion) and a 13.2 % rise in corn seed and traits. The division targets €2 billion in savings and is reshaping its portfolio toward...
Understanding How Plants Pause and Restart Growth Can Help Develop Climate‑resilient Crops
Researchers identified the genetic switch that lets plants pause growth during cold, salt or drought stress and resume within roughly 24 hours once conditions improve. Using Arabidopsis roots as a rapid assay, they pinpointed Cyclin‑dependent Kinase A;1 (CDKA;1) as a...
Brainfood: Clonal Crops Edition
Recent research underscores both the ancient roots and modern challenges of clonal crops such as grapevine, olive, and date palm. Ancient DNA analysis reveals 4,000 years of grapevine diversity in France, confirming vegetative propagation since the Iron Age. Machine‑learning now streamlines...
Zimbabwe Moves to Cut Fertiliser Costs by 40% with $1 Billion Coal Projects
Zimbabwe’s finance minister announced fast‑tracking three coal‑to‑fertiliser projects valued at over $1 billion to counter a 30‑40% surge in fertilizer prices. The $500 million Norton plant, led by Chinese partners, will produce more than 300,000 tonnes of urea annually. Palm River’s $200 million integrated...
Awareness, Accountability, Action: This Week's Regeneration in the Headlines
This week’s Regenerative Insights highlight a surge in U.S. climate concern, a shift from corporate greenwashing to “greenhushing,” and the rise of activist‑driven business models like Dr. Bronner’s. The piece spotlights Patagonia’s $1.55 M investment to convert Ventura County farms to regenerative...
Middle East Ceasefire Fails to Ease U.S. Fertilizer Price Pressure on Farmers
The April 8 ceasefire in the Middle East did not restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving vessel traffic about 88% below pre‑conflict levels and cargo volumes down over 90%. Consequently, U.S. nitrogen fertilizer prices kept climbing, with urea up...
Disrupted: Food Supply For 3.5+ Billion Depends On Nitrogen Fertilizer
The ongoing blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has halted shipments from the Persian Gulf, which produces roughly 35% of global nitrogen fertilizer. With no strategic stockpiles and the northern‑hemisphere planting season underway, farmers face a sudden shortfall of this...
A New Initiative To Map Coffee Farms And Fight Deforestation
The EU Deforestation Regulation, set to apply to medium and large firms by end‑2026 and to smaller firms by Q3 2027, threatens coffee imports unless producers can prove their beans aren’t from post‑2020 forest land. To address this, JDE Peet’s and major...
Advanced Growing Resources Raises $2M From NASA and NSF to Diagnose Crop Afflictions a Week Earlier
Advanced Growing Resources (AGR), an ag‑tech firm in Rochester, NY, has secured $2 million in contracts and grants led by NASA and the U.S. National Science Foundation to accelerate its AI‑powered crop‑diagnostics platform. The system combines satellite‑based AI imaging with the...
Ridder Partners with RED Horticulture to Integrate Greenhouse Lighting and Energy Management Systems
Ridder and RED Horticulture announced a strategic partnership that integrates RED's MyRED lighting software with Ridder's Hortimax Pro climate computer via the open‑standard Horticultural Lighting Protocol (HLP). The link enables automated, real‑time exchange of LED energy data, eliminating manual calculations...
Topcon Agriculture Brings Precision Spraying and New GNSS Receiver to Agrishow 2026 in Brazil
Topcon Agriculture is debuting a suite of precision‑farming tools at Brazil's Agrishow 2026, running April 27‑May 1. The lineup includes the CM‑20 V spray controller for coffee and citrus, the modular XR‑1P GNSS receiver, and a pre‑commercial sugarcane yield‑monitoring solution....
Mycophyto Opens Morocco Subsidiary
Mycophyto closed a €16 million Series A round—about $17.4 million—to fund its first African foothold, launching a wholly‑owned subsidiary in Morocco. The move aims to accelerate deployment of biostimulants that have delivered up to 15 % higher tomato yields and 37 % better water retention...
Lotus Foods Releases 2025 Impact Report Highlighting Climate and Farmer Livelihood Progress
Lotus Foods unveiled its 2025 Impact Report while announcing a major expansion of its Thailand rice‑Ramen supply chain. The new network links nearly 3,000 farmers across nine provinces, with women comprising 53% of the base, and lifts sourcing volumes by...
Beat the Heat with Seeds
The FAO‑WMO joint report on extreme heat and agriculture highlights how rising temperatures threaten crop productivity and expose gaps in agrobiodiversity strategies. While the report outlines technical and strategic adaptations, it omits any reference to ex situ conservation such as...
Blake Croegaert on the Ag Tech M&A Reset and 2026 Outlook
The precision‑ag M&A boom has sharply corrected as farm economics weaken and OEMs such as Deere, AGCO and CNH report 20‑30% revenue declines. Buyers now insist on profitability or sizable revenue, pushing valuations from high revenue multiples to lower earnings...
Premier Tech Enters CEA Market With Launch of Premier Tech Controlled Culture
Premier Tech has launched Premier Tech Controlled Culture, a new business unit focused on controlled environment agriculture and vertical farming. The launch is underpinned by the acquisitions of Inno‑3B, a Canadian modular vertical‑farm manufacturer, and Artechno, a Dutch supplier of...
J. Huete Greenhouses Completes 3.2-Hectare High-Tech Greenhouse in Almería
J. Huete Greenhouses has finished a 3.2‑hectare high‑tech greenhouse in Almería, a key European horticultural hub. The structure comprises 16 bays with a 5.5‑metre gutter and 8.75‑metre ridge, delivering robust climate stability. Integrated systems include active air recirculation, a CO₂...
Wild Bioscience Expands Milton Park Operations
Wild Bioscience, an Oxford spin‑out, closed a $60 million Series A round in October 2025, led by the Ellison Institute of Technology. The funding enabled the company to enlarge its Milton Park campus to 16,000 sq ft, adding a CL2 gene‑editing lab and tripling plant output....
Minerva Foods Study Shows 50% Methane Reduction in Cattle Using Rumin8 Feed Additive
Minerva Foods and Australian climate‑tech firm Rumin8, together with ESALQ/USP, completed a 120‑day study on Nellore cattle that showed a 50.4% cut in enteric methane emissions and a 5% boost in feed conversion efficiency. The additive was tested in both...
Anaergia Secures C$8 Million Contract With Vanguard Renewables for Fourth Anaerobic Digestion Deployment
Canadian waste‑to‑energy firm Anaergia has secured an approximately $5.9 million contract with U.S. partner Vanguard Renewables to build a fourth anaerobic digestion facility in Minnesota. The deal includes Anaergia’s full suite of technologies—process design, proprietary permanent synchronous magnet mixers, and the...
The New Fight Against GMOs – Where Is Everybody?
The UK’s Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, passed in 2023 and followed by secondary regulations in 2025, legalises the commercial use of gene‑edited crops. This framework eliminates mandatory labeling and weakens protections for farmers who want non‑edited seeds, sparking a...
Container Farms and Food Security: How Schools Are Growing for Cafeterias and Food Banks
Schools across the United States are turning hydroponic container farms into dual‑purpose assets, feeding cafeteria menus while donating fresh produce to local food banks. Programs such as Epic Campus in Colorado give students hands‑on experience from seed to plate, integrating...
Cargill Opens Regina Canola Facility With Capacity to Process One Million Metric Tonnes Annually
Cargill announced a comprehensive sustainability overhaul of its cocoa supply chain, spanning West Africa to Europe. The plan installs biomass boilers, solar farms, electric barges and circular packaging, aiming to cut supply‑chain emissions 30% per ton by 2030. Site‑level upgrades...
BiomEdit Secures Patents for Probiotic Delivery Platform Supporting Lead Poultry Biologic BE-101
BiomEdit announced the issuance of foundational U.S. patents covering its engineered Lactobacillus reuteri probiotic delivery platform, which underpins its lead biologic BE-101. BE-101 is a probiotic‑vectored antibody designed to neutralize Clostridium perfringens toxins and prevent necrotic enteritis in broiler chickens....
Pairwise Partners with Ball Horticultural Company for Ornamental Crop Gene Editing
Pairwise has licensed its Fulcrum® genome‑editing platform to Wild Bioscience Ltd., giving the AI‑driven agritech firm access to proprietary CRISPR tools, enzymes and trait libraries. The agreement covers both research and commercial applications across a broad portfolio of row crops....
GreenTech Amsterdam 2026 to Feature 80+ Sessions on Future of Horticulture Under PURE Theme
GreenTech Amsterdam 2026 will convene horticulture leaders June 9‑11 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, offering more than 80 knowledge sessions under the PURE theme. The program spans five dedicated stages covering CO₂ supply, substrate innovation, AI‑driven data integration, cannabis genetics,...
The Seeds of Tropical Fodder Grass Development
Bajra–Napier Hybrids (BNH) combine pearl millet and Napier grass to deliver 200–300 tonnes of green fodder per hectare, far exceeding typical tropical forages. Their high biomass, perennial growth and 8–14% crude protein make them a premium feed for smallholder dairy systems....
Government Backs Fertiliser Imports, Farmers Gain Certainty, Taxpayers Take the Exposure
The Australian government has introduced an underwriting scheme to backstop fertilizer imports amid supply disruptions caused by tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. The policy guarantees losses for importers who lock in cargoes at high global prices, shifting downside risk...
Market Morsel: Northern Premiums Ready to Wake
Australian grain pricing is increasingly driven by domestic basis rather than global futures. Drying trends and falling subsoil moisture in northern New South Wales and Queensland are tightening local supply. As El Niño risk grows, buyers are moving earlier, creating emerging...
You Can’t Build Proximity to Cows From SoMa
The post argues that while San Francisco remains the hub for foundational AI, the most valuable startups now blend software with physical assets and are locating near those assets. Companies like Halter in Auckland, Starcloud in Redmond, and Mariana Minerals across...
NY Sun Works Research Finds Hydroponic Classrooms Drive Measurable Civic and Climate Action
NY Sun Works showcased two new research analyses demonstrating that its Hydroponic Classroom program drives measurable climate and civic outcomes in K‑12 schools. A peer‑reviewed Cornell study linked hands‑on hydroponics to transformational education, sustainability solutions, and civil‑society engagement, while an...
Wagyu Numbers Ease
Australia’s feedlot sector trimmed its average days on feed from 164 days in 2024 to 155 days by the end of 2025. The shift was driven by a 25% drop in Wagyu cattle on feed, falling from over 300,000 head...
Middle East Conflict Revives Concerns Over Fertilizer Dependence in the U.S. and Brazil
Recent hostilities in the Middle East have restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for roughly 30% of global fertilizer shipments. The United States, which supplies about 60% of its own fertilizer, still relies on imports for 95%...
UK Government Backs £50 Million Push to Bring AgriTech to British Farms
The UK government has unveiled a £50 million National Action Plan to accelerate agri‑tech adoption and cut pesticide risks on British farms. The plan introduces a Pesticide Load Indicator that targets a 10% reduction across 20 risk metrics by 2030, with...
Fertilizer Prices Weekly Update (April 13 – 20, 2026)
Urea settled at $702.25 per ton, up 81.69% year‑to‑date, while DAP held near $722.5 per ton with an 11.58% monthly gain. Sulfur prices jumped to CNY 6,100 per ton (about $847), marking a 158.73% rise from a year ago. European TTF...
Front Row Ag and Solstice Agriculture Merge to Create Unified Cultivation Supply Company
Front Row Ag LLC has merged with its longtime distributor Solstice Agriculture LLC, finalizing the deal on April 1, 2026. The combined entity will retain the Front Row Ag brand while Solstice operates as the dedicated distribution arm. By uniting...
Grodan Integrates GroSens Root Zone Data with Source.ag Software Platform
Grodan has linked its GroSens Suite root‑zone sensors to Source.ag’s greenhouse management platform, allowing growers to view substrate data directly within Source.ag dashboards. The integration delivers five‑minute, sensor‑level granularity and feeds real‑time measurements into Source.ag’s AI‑driven irrigation control. Signed in...
Oxbo Opens $60.5M U.S. Headquarters and Advanced Harvester Facility in Bergen, New York
Oxbo, a Netherlands‑based agricultural equipment maker, opened a $60.5 million, 200,000‑sq‑ft headquarters and advanced harvester plant in Bergen, New York. The purpose‑built campus consolidates U.S. production and corporate functions, featuring laser‑cutting, powder‑coating, a test track and a showroom for high‑value crop...
AgroPlantae To Acquire Kemin Industries’ Crop Technologies Product Portfolio
AgroPlantae, a Fresno‑based biostimulant maker, announced the acquisition of Kemin Industries’ Crop Technologies product portfolio. The deal transfers eight botanical‑based biopesticides and plant‑nutrition solutions, including TetraCURB MAX and RevoCURB, to AgroPlantae. Kemin’s sales managers will join AgroPlantae and retain their current...
Vive Crop Protection Launches Averland SM Nematicide with Soil Mobile Technology
Vive Crop Protection has introduced Bifender SM, a soil‑applied bifenthrin insecticide that can be applied in‑season to corn. The product leverages the company’s new Soil Mobile Technology, allowing the active ingredient to travel deeper into the root zone with irrigation water....
Anti-Biotechnology Activists Smear Hybrid Wheat Breakthrough that Could Surge Yields in Poorer Countries
Hybrid wheat breakthroughs from Corteva and Syngenta aim to unlock the long‑standing yield gap in self‑pollinating cereals. Leveraging the 2018 wheat genome map, Corteva claims a proprietary system that separates male and female flower functions, while Syngenta has introduced Hard...