AgTech's New Era: A Data Gilded Age For Global Resilience

Forbes

30-04-2025

Cascade blueberries, a Costa variety. Photo taken February 2024 at the Massa Farm in Souss Massa, ... More Morocco.
According to 2024 PitchBook data, AgTech saw $1.6 billion invested across 159 deals in Q3 2024, reporting a 15% increase in deal value over Q2. The report said deals declined 17.6% from Q2 2024, which tracks with the trends from 2022. However, the Agtech landscape saw several companies, including Benson Hill, FarmWise, and Plenty Unlimited, file for bankruptcy.
As venture capital investment makes an incremental recovery, the AgTech market continues to grow, valued at $24.08 billion in 2024 and projected to exceed $40 billion by 2030. Private equity and corporate investment are also on the rise. Strategic and corporate investors are funding initiatives focused on scalable outcomes and regional growth.
In 2024, Paine Schwartz Partners backed Costa Group's global expansion, including its berry breeding program in Laos. Mitsubishi and Yamaha launched agriculture-focused business units and Driscoll's expanded its investment arm to support berry production across North America.
According to George Jessett, general manager of international horticulture—berries international at Costa Group, over the past 15 years, Costa has established berry-growing operations in Morocco and China, utilizing its blueberry genetics and agronomic experience.
'As a result of this, our premium berries are sold and consumed across the globe, but we are constantly looking for new opportunities to expand our international footprint, and Laos was identified as our next key investment,' said Jessett. 'What makes Laos such an ideal location for Costa to grow blueberries is not only its climate and geographic location, but also the opportunity to export these blueberries to other countries in Asia.'
Jessett said Costa has established an initial 17 hectares of crop and intends to plant a further 50 hectares in 2026, with an anticipated 200 hectares by 2028. 'As to possible future investment locations, we are currently conducting berry crop trials in India,' he added.
In 2023, more than 280 million people across 59 countries faced acute food insecurity—an increase of 24 million from the previous year. At the same time, global food consumption is projected to rise 1.2 percent annually over the next decade, while agricultural productivity growth continues to fall short of the 2 percent needed to meet demand.
'Feeding a growing global population with fewer resources presents both a challenge and a huge opportunity,' said Antonio Beltran, CEO of AgBelher. 'AgTech enables growers to do more with less by using automation, precision tools and more resilient crops.'
Beltran says that from an investment standpoint you can look at the projected growth of the sector, sustainability initiatives and consistent demand for fod.
'ESG-driven investors are supporting innovations that reduce water use, emissions and food waste,' said Beltran. 'But the consistent demand for food continues to rise, and that's not changing anytime soon.'
'There are risks—like regulation and adoption hurdles—but the long-term investment case remains strong,' added Beltran.
For growers, the pressure is compounded by climate variability, economic volatility and rising costs, all of which make production increasingly difficult to plan for.
According to the World Economic Forum, many U.S. farmers and agricultural researchers are trying to diversify crops and shift toward more sustainable methods. But lower-impact farming systems often require highly localized knowledge—an understanding not only of plants and pests but also of weather, soil and the long-term effects of environmental stress.
Despite these pressures and growth trends, there is still no global framework or standardized system for understanding how crops perform under real-world conditions. That gap leaves most growers operating without consistent benchmarks, making it difficult to adapt strategies or plan for changing conditions.
While organizations such as the FAO report on yields and land use, they don't monitor the number of crop cycles completed each year or how environmental stress, water use, or pest pressure influence those outcomes.
'The gaps that exist are often related to digital agtech, which is not always a 'plug and play' solution, meaning that investment is needed to integrate and adapt it to fit specific requirements,' said Jessett. 'It is also about what technology is available now and in the near future, which can be adapted and applied at scale, and that generates cost savings and a commensurate financial return to justify the initial capital outlay.'
Jessett says it's crucial to have access to real-time data as it enables decision making which can be more proactive versus reactive.'This is important when it comes to a range of activities that occur through the growing, harvest and post-harvest supply chain.'
"It can make a real difference with respect to the way in which we allocate resources both in terms of cost and efficiency, reducing waste, the quality of the product that we supply to the market, and ultimately the pricing we receive and the financial return we make," he added.
But Beltran says the priority should be making data more usable.
'Growers are already overwhelmed with information they can't use,' said Beltran. "Once that's in place, AI can have a much greater impact.'
Without shared benchmarks or longitudinal reference points, key decisions around irrigation, input use, and harvest timing are often made without access to consistent data.
'Availability of good, reliable, unbiased data is the basis for AI to be a valuable tool to the agbusiness,' said Armando C. Llanes, CFO of Grupo Belo del Pacífico/HMX. 'AI works using data and tech provides the means to operate in controlled environments, which results in more consistent and reliable crops."
'Innovation that can deliver in-field data about climate, growing conditions, yield and crop quality is obviously invaluable,' adds Jessett.
In 2020, New Zealand start-up WayBeyond launched FarmRoad, crop management software designed to help growers make better crop management decisions. Because of a fragmented AgTech industry with no global data frameworks, the company had no data, no models, and no customers.
Darryn Keiller, CEO of WayBeyond, said the first challenge was identifying which data mattered, then developing the tools to capture it.
In four years, WayBeyond evolved from a zero-data startup into a platform that now informs more than 2,500 years' worth of crop cycles and millions of hours of weather modeling.
'In the past four years, our efforts have scaled into billions of data points and a platform that now delivers real-time insights to growers across multiple regions and crops,' said Keiller.
Keiller said the company built a system for discovery, not just software.
'It took time to understand what data mattered, how to capture it reliably, and how to turn it into something growers could actually use,' said Keiller. 'But this is what being data-driven really means.'
'This represents a unique, longitudinal view of how crops perform in real-world conditions,' said Keiller. 'It's one of the few known sources that links crop cycle behavior directly to climate, pest pressure, and input use over time."
Keiller says WayBeyond has evolved into a longitudinal intelligence platform.
'What matters most is how that data is being turned into action—from predicting yield to optimizing water, to helping growers anticipate what's coming next and turning it into something growers can actually use,' he added.
The platform's data footprint reflects not just volume, but operational diversity. Since entering the market in 2021, WayBeyond has collected more than 3.3 billion climate data points from in-field monitoring devices, recorded over 207,000 pest and disease scouting events, and gathered 31,000 irrigation readings since launching that feature in 2024. Its models have also generated nearly 10,000 weeks of optimal condition analysis and over 400 weeks of tomato yield forecasts.
In Mexico, a seed company has used FarmRoad's irrigation module in an A/B test and reported a 32% reduction in water use compared to standard practices. The company estimated potential fertilizer savings of $80,000 per hectare annually. A separate grower in Mexico reported a 17% reduction in water use using the same module.
Costa Berries International is using WayBeyond's FarmRoad platform to monitor the performance of identical berry varieties across Australia, Laos, India, and Morocco. The data will be used to assess how varieties respond to different microclimates.
'This isn't just collecting data—it's being applied to forecast events like outbreaks, harvest windows and environmental risk,' said Keiller. 'It shows a clear shift from reactive to proactive decision-making for growers.'
Therma imaging from Constellr's new SkyBee-1 satellite shows first light imagery over Tokyo at night ... More in March 2025.
For companies like Constellr, their data comes from thermal intelligence, which the company says has created continuous insights for not only growers but also urban planners and environmental scientists.
Thermal data offers a unique scientific baseline because temperature is both universal and precise.
Unlike visual data, which depends on context (what colour is that leaf?), temperature tells a consistent story across continents. 15°C is 15°C – whether in Kenya or Kansas, said Max Gulde, CEO and co-founder of Constellr.
In Q1, Constellr launched its first thermal infrared satellite, SkyBee-1.
'SkyBee-1 marks the beginning of a transformative chapter in agricultural intelligence,' said Gulde. 'For the first time, we're bringing high-resolution, high-accuracy land surface temperature (LST) data from space – on a daily basis – directly to the field level."
'Traditional monitoring systems, whether in-field sensors or visual satellites, often miss early indicators of water stress and crop decline," said Gulde. 'They're either too local, too infrequent, or only capture symptoms after it's too late."
Gulde says SkyBee-1 flips this script.
'With its cryo-cooled thermal sensors and down to 5m resolution, it can detect subtle heat anomalies – early stress signatures – weeks before plants show visible signs," he said. 'This allows for pre-emptive interventions: smarter irrigation, targeted input use, and better yield forecasting.'
'It's the equivalent of giving growers thermal eyes in the sky – early, reliable, and actionable​​,' he added.
Gulde says the bold promise behind four satellites isn't just about coverage – it's about continuous insight.
'Our AI-powered thermal digital twin, Atlas, means we don't need to image every field every day,' said Gulde. 'We interpolate between measurements, much like weather models do, giving users consistent, on-demand thermal data – even under cloud cover.'
Gulde says that insight is possible with temperature data, in contrast to visual data, because temperature is a well-understood environmental variable governed by physical laws.
'For growers and agribusinesses, this means unlocking real-time visibility into crop health and water dynamics, every single day,' said Gulde. 'Need to decide when to irrigate or adjust nitrogen application? The platform delivers clear, pixel-level guidance. Planning a harvest or managing supply chain volatility? Atlas flags regional stress patterns before they become crises.'
Gulde says that ultimately, they are moving from snapshots to streams of intelligence.
'This transforms how agriculture copes with uncertainty – from reactive to resilient​​,' he added.
This objectivity enables us to create comparative benchmarks across biomes and geographies. By mapping how crops respond to specific thermal stress thresholds under different climates, we can develop global reference models for yield optimization, irrigation needs, and early warning thresholds. These are not just abstract metrics – they're predictive tools for both local decisions and global food security policies.
With Atlas, we aim to build the first planetary-scale, AI-calibrated thermal standard for agriculture. Think of it as the equivalent of a global agronomic index – based not on guesswork, but on temperature physics​​.
Climate variability is putting increasing pressure on seed performance. In protected agriculture systems, such as greenhouse-grown tomatoes and peppers, rising temperatures, shifting pest behavior, and emerging plant diseases can quickly impact crop outcomes.
The tomato brown rugose virus, first identified in the Middle East in 2015, has since spread across North America, causing crop losses of up to 70 percent in some operations.
'Unpredictable weather patterns—including droughts, floods, and shifting pest behavior—make it increasingly difficult to plan and can seriously impact yields,' said Beltran. 'Climate is the toughest challenge because it's completely out of our control.'
Growers are turning to technology to stabilize outcomes.
"Growing without data in today's climate is like sailing without a compass – possible, but dangerous. We're living in an age where climate variability, not just change, is the defining challenge," said Gulde. 'Water scarcity, heatwaves, and erratic growing seasons are no longer edge cases – they're becoming the norm.'
Gulde says that without high-frequency, field-scale data, decisions get delayed, resources are misused, and yields are compromised. 'It's a recipe for systemic vulnerability.'
'We believe thermal intelligence is the missing layer of climate resilience," said Gulde. 'It gives us the pulse of the planet – how heat moves, how water evaporates, how stress accumulates. This isn't just helpful; it's essential.'
'In a data-rich future, we don't just hope things go right – we know when they're about to go wrong, and act in time​​,' added Gulde.
The insights from the data give growers the ability to monitor and respond to environmental stress in real time, including temperature fluctuations, disease risk, and pest pressure, in the FarmRoad platform. 'This helps maintain crop health in increasingly unpredictable conditions,' said Keiller.
Jessett says Costa has always sought to adopt innovative, technology-driven farming practices to address the risks and opportunities presented by climate variability.
Costa's blueberry genetics and breeding program has been in production for more than 25 years, and they have developed varieties that can be grown in different climates, including temperate and subtropical climates.
'Data and technology have played an important role in this,' said Jessett. "Especially the way it has enhanced our capacity to mitigate the risks of extreme weather, pioneer new agronomic practices such as growing berries out of the soil in substrate under protective cropping and become more efficient and targeted in our use of natural resources, especially water."
'This is why our berries have successfully been grown in locations which include the northern and southern states of Australia, Africa, southern China, and the Americas,' said Jessett. 'Our breeding program is progressively adopting advanced breeding technology, including Marker Assisted Selection (MAS), genomics, and high-throughput objective phenotyping.'
Jessett says the company's expansion into Laos is a natural extension of all this development. 'Being in a region which has a cooler temperature, low latitude, and is capable of delivering early season supply complements our China operations," he added.
Gulde says that by mapping how crops respond to specific thermal stress thresholds under different climates, they can develop global reference models for yield optimization, irrigation needs, and early warning thresholds.
'These are not just abstract metrics – they're predictive tools for both local decisions and global food security policies,' said Gulde.