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John Dobberstein:

Welcome to the latest edition of the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. I'm John Dobberstein, senior Editor of No-Till Farmer.

In this episode, AgroLiquid CEO, Nick Bancroft and Monty's Plant Food Company, CEO, Jeff Sangalli share more insights about the integration of their two companies, which was announced Wednesday. They'll talk about how the AgroLiquid acquisition came together, new opportunities for joint technology advancement between the companies and how the companies will continue to be farmer-first and their market approach going forward.

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to talk to me about your new developments here. Congratulations on your deal. That's great. Tell me a little bit about how this came together and how the discussions began.

Nick Bancroft:

AgroLiquid has been looking for partners that fit our business model, that would expand our geographic reach, that would offer like-minded approach to growers. And when Jeff and I first had a conversation, it was clear to see that both from a people standpoint and from an approach to our customers, that there was good alignment between the two companies. As we continued to talk, we could see opportunities to better serve our customers together than we can apart.

John Dobberstein:

Jeff, how do you feel about that? What did you see as opportunities?

Jeff Sangalli:

Yeah. Well, John, first of all, thanks so much for having us today. It's a pleasure to meet you. It's interesting because my experience with AgroLiquid goes back aways.

First, I visited their sites many years ago talking about humic technology, which we have expertise in. Later, I then had the privilege of having dinner with Troy Bancroft, one of the founders of the company. I was a young CEO in looking to get advice. Learned from somebody who had travailed the paths that I was about to take on. And so had the pleasure of meeting Troy, having dinner with him and with one of Nick's brothers, Albert in San Antonio, actually a commodity class, two years ago.

And then back in the spring, I got a letter from Nick saying, "Hey, we're looking at an acquisition, a strategic acquisition. Are you interested in talking?" And at the time, I looked at the letter and I thought, "I don't know." And there was just something in me that said, "You know what? I want to call him. I want to learn more about this." So I reached out to Nick and he was gracious enough to call me back, and that began just a process of getting to know each other. Nick came into Louisville and visited us at our headquarters, met the other senior staff, some of the board members. And very quickly, as Nick said, it became clearly evident that this was something that needed to happen for strategic purposes in our industry.

John Dobberstein:

Right. What did you feel that... You talk about different approaches to achieving goals in advancing ag innovation. Tell me a little bit about the differences that you have an approach and how you think you can leverage that to create new opportunities going forward.

Nick Bancroft:

AgroLiquid is a strong provider of value added reduced rates, high efficiency, high quality fertility products, and we use a variety of technologies to accomplish that. Monty's Plant Food is the humic leader and bringing those two technologies and methodologies together, we feel like there's some new things that we can learn and there's some new things that we can bring to growers that haven't been there before. We both have a highly skilled agronomic team that brings products to customers across the United States, and that group gets the benefit of more exposure as well.

John Dobberstein:

What opportunities do you see as far as tech advancement that you want to explore? What needs do growers have out there today and how do you see yourself serving those needs?

Nick Bancroft:

Growers continue to be more focused on efficiency, more focused on return on investment, more focused on environmental concerns going forward, and both companies share that focus. And we also now have resources to do joint research to bring the scientific experts at Monty's Plant Food together with the scientific experts at AgroLiquid to interact, to innovate across a wide variety of crops in North America and now in South America and Central America in the markets that Monty's Plant Food brings to the AgroLiquid team. And we learn from each other. That's really how we learn and how we develop and how we innovate, and we have a stronger team together to do that than we do on our own.

Jeff Sangalli:

Yeah, I think this is perfect timing because I think we recognize that the next frontier of agricultural development is going to be below the soil. And so what can we do in that part of the growing process to supercharge the soils, to maximize the fertility that we're putting in there to at the same time reduce the amount of losses that we're having into the environment losses that the farmers can't afford to take anymore because they're really taking it on the chin right now. And we've got to be able to find a way to maximize every dollar that they spend. And that's our goal. Both of our goals is to make sure that the farmer prospers. And if we can do that and we believe that one of the major ways we can do that is through the soil, then that's a win-win for all of us.

Nick Bancroft:

It matters not what you put out, but of what you put out influences what gets taken up by the plant and converted into yield.

Jeff Sangalli:

And John, we've got some new technology that we're developing in the humic space that will really be industry-leading. And so this is an exciting time to partner with these guys because we'll be able to launch these technologies together here in the near future. So it's really, really perfect timing.

John Dobberstein:

It sounds very promising. I'm sure growers like to have as many options as they can get.

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As far as research goes, and AgroLiquid's always had a lot of research going on your research farm. Working together now, what kind of research topics do you think you'd be able to explore together?

Nick Bancroft:

I think from a greenhouse and field research standpoint, we can expand what we know about humic substances. We both have product development labs as well that will be able to come together with people that have different sets of experience to continue to develop in the humic space, to continue to develop in the fertility space, but to bring that technology together and give growers a stronger integrated system to know how to use those for their benefit.

John Dobberstein:

Great. As far as the employees and the distribution of your product as far as your go to market, will any of that change at all in any visible way or should farmers should pretty much expect to get what they've always gotten from your companies and more?

Nick Bancroft:

We have a farmer first approach, and what that means for the spring of 2025 is that we don't disrupt what's going to market. We go to market as we have in the past to minimize that disruption for the grower so that we can plan how we go together better in the future.

John Dobberstein:

So one of the things, if I'm hearing correctly, one of the changes here is that Monty's brings the South American market to the fold.

Nick Bancroft:

Yes.

John Dobberstein:

Right. So that obviously was something that interested AgroLiquid, that one of the things that you felt was valuable.

Nick Bancroft:

Absolutely. I mean, there's strength in agriculture in South America, and it's not a market that we have experience in. It's a market that Monty's has been in for a while now, and their team brings expertise in how to do that well to benefit the growers there as we have here in the United States.

John Dobberstein:

So this deal consummates next year. Anything that you can share with the growers as far as the first six months of next year that they should be expecting, or anything else that you can share about that?

Nick Bancroft:

Yeah, the first six months is business as usual. They will still get to deal with the people that they've come to know and come to trust within both organizations, and they should not see any interruptions to the product, the agronomic service that they have come to know and expect.

John Dobberstein:

Great. Is there anything else you'd like to share about your new relationship that you'd like to share with the growers or the ag audience in general?

Jeff Sangalli:

Well, I think when you look at the ag industry over the past few years, we've had some of the highest highs. We've had now some of the lowest lows the past year and a half, two years. And I think when we look at this process, when we look at this acquisition, this is positioning us not for today. This is positioning us for the future. And when you look at the cyclical nature just within the agricultural market in the US in a season, agricultural companies in the US, it's all the first half of the year. And then you're sort of in a low planning for maybe a little bit of fall planting, but then preparing for the next season. So with this, the South American Central American market now fills in that second half of the year, and so it's probably going to then look like a 12-month agricultural year all the time for us.

So that's one thing.

The second thing is that as our teams technically begin to join forces, we're going to learn some things about fertility that we don't know. They're going to learn some things about humics. And so the future technically is going to be so bright for us because now we can infuse these together and we can look at that connection point between humic substances, which has really been misunderstood for a while, and it's just really now coming into its place with fertility and not just fertility, but precision fertility that AgroLiquid has. So this is not about today. This is about the future, and we think that this is going to provide such value into the future for our growers and for our employees, that as we sit around and talk about it, we're both like little kids excited about what's to come. So really grateful and hopeful for the future.

John Dobberstein:

Nick, anything you'd like to add on that point?

Nick Bancroft:

I think the benefit to the grower of that international business is just a broader footprint to learn and understand and continue to develop new products. I mean, research facilities are great, and AgroLiquid does a great job of doing research, but we all learn a lot from our growers as well.

John Dobberstein:

Great. Well, I think I'm out of the questions unless there's something else you'd like to add. I just want to thank you guys for taking the time to chat with us about what's coming down the pike. It sounds like there's a lot of fascinating and interesting things coming.

So, thank you for joining me today.

Nick Bancroft:

Yeah, thank you, John.

Jeff Sangalli:

Thank you, John.

John Dobberstein:

That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. If you'd like to thank Nick Bancroft and Jeff Sangalli for taking the time to chat with us about the future of AgroLiquid and Monty's Plant Food Company as they work together to provide nutrient solutions for growers.

We also want to thank our sponsor Yetter Farm Equipment for helping us make this podcast possible. A transcript to this episode in our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at notillfarmer.com/podcasts.

For Nick, Jeff, and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, am John Dobberstein.

Thanks for listening. Keep on No-Tilling and have a great day.