Episodes

Stage content at events like World AgriTech is always of highest quality but there are conversations happening behind the scenes that give a sense of what’s happening in the industry. Brook Cunningham, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Corteva Agriscience, and Rob Dongoski, Food and Agribusiness Leader at Kearney, joined us for a conversation at World AgriTech to get perspective on many topics, including:  

• A volatile market – and the reminder that it’s also cyclical 
• The tipping point for investors and the critical questions they have beyond just yield at this point in time 
• Corteva’s balanced approach between internal and external innovation and the company’s areas of focus when it comes to investment and partnership 
• How Kearney is advising companies seeking investment – of all sizes – in this volatile time (hint: don’t go it alone) 
• Areas of innovation that are seeing traction from investors 
• The importance of creating certainty around the noise – from regulatory to policy and beyond 
• How they both see this market cycle differently than past cycles 
• The role of food and consumers in this next evolution of food and agriculture 
• Crystal ball: what are the conversations at World AgriTech like five years from now? 

Identifying customer needs – jobs to be done – it's the core of innovation. But what are the jobs that need to be done? What are those things left undone as we head into the 2025 growing season? And what does the current economy, trade environment and overall farm sentiment mean for innovators and the farmers they serve? Brad Fruth, Director of Innovation at Beck’s Hybrids, joins this week to make sense of it all. We get into:  

• What’s on farmers minds given the current state of the ag economy 
• Big trends Brad is seeing aside from the macroeconomic headwinds and tailwinds 
• The role of biologicals and seed traits in this current economy 
• Beck’s approach to innovation and helping emerging companies bring new ideas to market 
• The differentiation of go-to market in ag versus other industries and the criticality of patient capital from VCs 
• Areas for great impact in agtech right now as Brad sees it 
• The importance of staying lean when you’re starting up and recalling really great technologies that didn’t hit the market because they ballooned and got too big, too fast