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Tidal Grow AgriScience, the developer of crop protection and plant nutrition technologies, recently announced the formation of its Formulator Strategic Alliance, to bring selected ag retailers to the ground level of advanced crop input production and accelerate the delivery of intelligent plant nutrition technologies to growers.

In this No-Till Famer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Tidal Grow AgriScience’s President and Chief Commercial Officer, Norm Davy, discusses the purpose behind this new alliance and what farmers could expect to see as formulators get on board.

         
           

         

No-Till Farmer's podcast series is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment.

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Full Transcript

Welcome to the latest edition of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. I'm John Dobberstein, senior editor of No-Till Farmer. In our new episode, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Norm Davy, president and chief commercial officer for Tidal Grow AgriScience, discusses the purpose behind his formulator strategic alliance and what farmers could expect to see as formulators get on board with this effort.

Well, Norm, I'd like to welcome you to the No-Till Farmer Podcast and we're here today to talk about the formulator strategic alliance that your company has kicked off. Before we get to that, can you tell me a little bit about Tidal Grow's presence in the North American market and what you're doing in the agricultural space?

Absolutely. Thanks, John. Appreciate the opportunity to be here today and share a little bit about what we're up to in the US market. So, Tidal Grow AgriScience is a division of Tidal Vision. Tidal Vision is our parent company based in Bellingham, Washington.

Strategically located there because we source a lot of our raw materials actually from the seafood industry. It makes it for a really, really nice green, circular economy approach to what we do. And Tidal Vision is actually the global leader in biomolecular engineering and green manufacturing of chitosan-based technologies.

And although chitosans have been around for a number of years, it's always been a technology that was not easy to source, and consistent supply, consistent performance. There's been many challenges with that biomolecular... biopolymer, I should say, technology.

And what Tidal Vision has done is they've been able to innovate over a decade of effort in the ability to manufacture chitosan in a way that is truly instrumental because it's green, there's zero waste.

And why that's important for agriculture is because, as you know in ag, we can't afford pharmaceutical type active ingredients and costs, right? We need to keep our costs very much in line to be able to be used over large areas and large amounts.

And as a result, we now have a green technology that can fit that business model. And not only in agriculture, Tidal Vision is actually focused in three very strategic industries today. Water treatment, which is a big part of what Tidal Vision does today, very successfully, able to reduce costs and increase efficacy, efficiency, and water treatment.

They're also in the material sciences and textiles where they're really making some major breakthroughs in replacing those forever molecules, the PFOSes and PFAS that are out there today and in agriculture, where we've been working for a number of years to build out active ingredients with this green technology to be able to not only increase the efficacy of some of these critical crop nutrition and crop protection AIs, but also lower costs.

So, it's a really perfect timing to bring this to the market, considering where we're at today with crop input prices being so high compared to commodity prices being so low. It just, there's this really strange interaction going on in production agriculture as you know, and we're able to bring these new technologies forward, help producers to get as good or better results than they're getting today with some of the more traditional products they're using, but do it in a much greener, safer from an environmentally friendly perspective.

So, that's a little bit about what we're doing. Tidal Vision is about 300 people strong, built out throughout the US market. Tidal Grow AgriScience represents 20, 25% of that footprint, but I'm going to grow very significantly over the course of the next three to five years.

Right. Great. Thanks for going through all that. It's exciting times for technology and farming, so, lots to talk about there. Tell me a little bit about this alliance that you formed and what prompted you to go in that direction. You don't always hear about alliances for formulators, but lots of other places in agriculture, so tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I think what's different about what we're doing with the strategic alliance opportunity is we're actually doing a lot more of the value share from a manufacturing perspective with key collaborators in the industry. And what I mean about that is, traditionally you see manufacturers will do most of the stuff in-house, and then they have a buy sell relationship with retailers and wholesalers in the marketplace, and then they have their own boots on the ground trying to influence growers in the marketplace.

That's more the traditional approach. What we've decided to do is partner with strategic retails that really have unique capabilities that can help us to go faster so that we can leverage our strengths, which is really the R&D, the product development, the manufacturing formulation capability, and then leverage their strengths of logistics, raw material sourcing, asset utilization in market production, close to the grower so that we've got some significant benefits that we can pass on to producers.

And it's really that collaborative approach that is different and sharing of the value as we do that. So it's quite unique, not typical of the ag industry, but we believe is a game changer as it really helps to optimize the whole process and puts you more at the front of the line of new technology adoption, both at retail and at the grower level because they're getting access to it in a way that is more, I would say, collaborative and interesting for that grower to learn and be educated by their trusted advisor that they work with every day at the retail versus learning about it in other means or efforts.

Right. You talked about the information that I've seen so far, values and principles in the market as it applies to the alliance and your company a little bit. And Heartland, the first formulator that you signed up, what values and principles are you speaking about?

Yeah, that's great. Great question. So, start off with Heartland Co-op. They've been pretty amazing to work with. They definitely do have very similar and aligned values, core values and principles that we do as a company. We have our top five core values that we always talk about internally and externally when appropriate.

And number one is obviously being mission driven. We're about creating positive and systemic environmental impact in the industries we serve. And that's very, very important from the beginning of the company when it started over a decade ago, the founders really felt passionate and to this day probably more so than ever with that mission-driven value and culture that they build.

Customer focused in everything that we do. I mean, when we meet with Heartland and we talk, we always put the customer first and at the center of everything that we talk about how we collaborate. And that's a critical value that I think is in some cases is lost. Freedom with responsibility. So we're highly aligned, but loosely coupled, Heartland's got to do what they do to be efficient, effective, and successful, and we have to do what we need to do to do that.

But at the same time, we need to be highly aligned in how we work together and have that freedom to do that. We are always encouraging change, we're always pushing for what's the next best thing? How do we improve upon what we're doing? Why are people doing it this way and can we do it better? And that's been a big part of our success to date as we drive these green molecular solutions to replace some of the tougher AIs that we have in active ingredients that we have in agriculture today with really green technologies.

And last but not least, and we've had a number of discussions around this, is having very direct and open communication. So, that's a key one, whether it's internal or external, it's always, "Say what you mean and mean what you say. You have to be open and giving constant direct communications so that we understand other people's position as well as they understand yours."

And that's been a great part of the culture that we have at Tidal Vision, Tidal Grow AgriScience, and of course with working with Heartland who very much shares these values. And I'm sure that they could fill you in on a number of other strategic ones that they have, but it helps when you're aligned with values and principles, you can make things happen very effectively.

Right. What percentage of formulators out there, when you look at the market as a whole, you want them to be influencers and educators, how rare is that to see among formulators? Is there really a steady supply of that, or is that something that the formulator industry as a whole really needs to work on?

Yeah, I think when I think about our approach with the formulator strategies, we're not looking to be all things to all people. We're really trying to be significant to a few and we're looking, and I guess the short answer is there's not many companies out there that will fit this model. They really need to be industry leaders like Heartland Co-op is. They really need to be driven by innovation, diversification, differentiation.

I mean, outside the box thinkers is a critical element. And what's interesting about Heartland Co-op as an example is that they're a large Midwest co-op that's been around for a long time and they've evolved over time through consolidation and merger and acquisition, but they are really innovating. They are really leaning into what does the next decade of agriculture look like and what can we do to bring our farmers, our members, new solutions that are going to be part of their success going forward?

So, really appreciate that. That's rare. Quite frankly, we've been talking to a lot of folks in prospecting throughout the Midwest and some of the other fringe markets that we're looking to start our formulator strategy in. And we don't get that a lot. We get more traditional ways of thinking. It's all about seed, chemical, fertilizer and custom app, and it's more of the traditional ways.

And although that's necessary and that's key, but that's more of a foundational approach. If you truly want to be around in a decade from now, you really have to innovate and look at what's the next best thing. And the way we're setting it up is really in a collaborative way where they get the benefit from the successes of introducing these new technologies to their members.

And I think that's the critical component, is that value share in that working together, we both have skin in the game to optimize this thing and to challenge each other to be better every day.

Right. Well, that sounds great. It's really good insight and lots of things are changing in the farm industry, and it's always refreshing to hear what we need to do to move ahead in the future. So you're not creating a business relationship as was pointed out in the information that was shared. So, what's in it for the formulators who are successful in becoming part of the alliance? What do they get as part of this alliance that you're working on?

Yeah, I think it's the formulators' benefit by being involved in diversifying their portfolio as they bring new technology to the marketplace. Doing it with products that are not only agronomically and economically, bringing new opportunities for their farmers, their growers, their customers. They are able to do it in a very environmentally and socially acceptable way.

I mean, when you think about some of the products that will be produced at these formulation sites, not only can we produce our agricultural actives, we also will be able to produce our water technologies and water treatment technologies, which is exciting because we have some of the most advanced ways of cleaning up some of the worst water out there.

And whether we're producing these materials in the Midwest or on where the large populations are in the United States, we have a lot of issues with water and water management, and we can drive real efficiencies around that.

So it actually diversifies outside of agriculture. So that helps the formulator look at other opportunities that they can participate in. But just specifically being able to have local manufacturing, reducing transportation costs from getting it from other areas further out from the Midwest as an example, or as you know, most of our inputs today are actually foreign manufactured active ingredients that are brought in to the United States, almost well over 70% of our AIs are not made here, are active ingredients, and that's a game changer.

We can actually make the active ingredients here in the United States as a basics, and then transport them at low cost to these formulation facilities and then make the final products there that are very, very short distance from formulation to farm field. So there's huge efficiencies in transportation costs and also just the critical risk mitigation of optimizing your supply chain where you're not dependent on foreign entities and you're not dependent upon port strikes or Heaven forbid, another bridge gets knocked down by a ship or whatever.

There's just a lot of things out there that happen that cause us to have the supply chain challenges and all that goes away with this formulator strategy. We're doing it right there in the farmer's backyard. We're bringing new jobs to rural America. We're repurposing in some cases for the Heartland example, that is just a huge success story.

There's a large manufacturing facility that used to make car parts in Traer, Iowa, that Heartland now owns and was basically mothballed, and it was just sitting empty for years and we're repurposing and bringing it back to life and bringing jobs back to rural America and also going to be manufacturing broad-based technologies out of that facility.

So it's just a great story for us to bringing back a lot of this technology that was outsourced in some cases to other parts of the world.

We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first I'd like to thank our podcast sponsor Yetter Farm Equipment. Looking for innovative solutions to maximize your farm's productivity?

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Just shifting gears for a second, is that a major concern in the ag industry as a whole, the amount of AIs that are made in countries? In your circles in the industry, has that been a hot topic of late?

Absolutely. I mean, when you think about some of the discussions around tariffs, around different technologies coming in from other parts of the world, it brings a lot of uncertainty to agriculture, whether you're a manufacturer or a farmer. When there's uncertainty around your business model and how you do things, it creates people to stall making decisions.

And when we stall to make decisions, we get forced in tighter and tighter windows of when we absolutely have to make decisions, and then that's when costs go up and efficiencies of scale are lost, and opportunities are lost, and the supply chain is short, and so on and so on.

So there's a lot of challenges with today with sourcing majority of our materials offshore, and we can really help to address a lot of those issues when we talk about crop protection products that we have currently today in the market and ones that we're going to be bringing in the next few years, we will be able to help increase the efficacy and efficiency of existing AIs that we have today that farmers are putting out.

And that means lowering rates and not going off label, but going at low rates to make sure that we build multiple modes of action to control whatever pests that we're going after. And on the crop nutrition side is incredibly exciting. Some of the new products that we have coming down the pipe that will be built at these formulation facilities where we're going to improve nutrient use efficiency 10x.

And be able to do things in a way that is so much more efficient for the farmer from a not only cost perspective, but also risk mitigation where they're going to be able to make decisions according to what the opportunity looks like for them versus making an investment and hoping that mother nature and everything lines up for them and later sacrificing potentially some potential profitability as a result.

So there's a lot of exciting things that are going to come down the pipe on the basis of this technology and the opportunity around these formulators.

Great. Well, that's a good summary of what's happening in the supply chain world and it has always that affects farmers at the end line. They have a lot of challenges right now going on in the industry. I'm sure they don't, supply chain stuff is just another issue that they have to deal with. So, it's great that people are talking about innovative solutions.

American made would be a big part of that.

Yeah, absolutely. So, we have a lot of farmer listeners out there and if they're sitting and listening to this podcast and thinking about, "How is this going to change my situation?" what opportunities do you want to present to farmers through this alliance and this setup? What do you plan to do for them, and what do you plan to do for them?

Yep, absolutely. So maybe I'll give you a bit of a story as to some of my own experience. So, many moons ago as I started in the industry, I was a technical sales rep working in the field and was with a company called Monsanto, which is probably well known by your listeners. And we were introducing quackgrass control. This was up in the Northern Plains, and we were trying to put out one to two quarts per acre of Roundup glyphosate to control these tough to kill perennial weeds.

And then a farmer innovated and said, "You know what? What about a third or a half rate? And let's go out there and see if we can't control annual weeds." And the whole reduced tillage and a burned down market just came to life, and that's how old I am. I was there to witness it and to see that come together and build out the market, and then it just continued to innovate from there.

So, the reason I bring that up is I think we're in a revolutionary time with chitosan-based technology for farmers, because we're innovating around this molecule, right? I mean this biopolymer today, we have over 10,000 different characterized make-ups of this molecule that we have in our library today.

And we're building out seed treatment solutions. We're building out crop protection solutions around improving the efficacy of herbicides, improving the efficacy of fungicides, improving the functionality and efficacy of insecticides, nematicides, and all the while with this amazing molecule that came from Mother Nature. That of course degrades and breaks down into inerts very quickly once exposed to Mother Nature, and such green technology.

But what that does is it drives costs down and it drives efficacy and profitability up, and not only in crop protection, but it does it in crop nutrition as well. So we're just on the very, very, very tip of the iceberg on what's coming, this wave of technology that's coming from chitosan-based solutions.

And farmers are going to win big time. They're going to be able to put technology out that is going to be incredibly safe, environmentally, socially accepted, which is a big deal in food production today. As you know, it's always makes the headlines, but they're not giving anything up on agronomics and economics. They're gaining on both those sides.

So, it really is a big wave. We feel that farmers, some of the most highly adoptive innovators on the planet, they have to be to survive. They have to look for better solutions every day that can increase their profitability so that they can survive another year, another day. And under these incredibly ridiculous crop input price pressure that we have due to macroeconomics and other world events that are going on right now, it's just put way too much pressure on our growers, and we've got to come forward with solutions that are made here in America.

So we're not at the risk of supply chain challenges and that are helping them to improve performance overall. And I think that is truly going to be a big part of our success. And you're going to hear a lot more about Tidal Grow AgriScience as a result.

Well, that's great. Lots to think about on that end. I can tell you that our No-Till Farmer audience overall, they do fairly well in terms of profits because they have already kind of ratcheted down the input costs and the nitrogen they apply per acre.

But based on the most recent, we just launched a benchmark survey about the use of biologicals and more than half, we know that internally that more than half of our audience uses biological solutions on their farm and certainly a very hot area and one that's on their mind a lot. So I think what's being talked about here is very timely as our growers look for new solutions.

I think that's a great point to make is that we are a bio-based solution and we work extremely well with biologicals, but we're really biochemistry. We're a molecule, so it's not a living organism that you see, and there's a lot of really good products out there in the biological world. Please don't take this any other way than the way it's meant, but in just clarifying that ours is, we're using synthetic chemistry, but with a bio-based solution.

So that's how come we can have such high win rates and such high ROIs consistently every single time we go out is because we are using what people would expect from traditional chemistry. Right? When you put out a product, whether it's a herbicide, insecticide, or a fungicide, you're expecting efficacy because that chemistry is exactly the same every single time it's manufactured.

Whereas when you're dealing with biologicals, there's a lot of other variables that can come into play and you have to manage them very effectively. We're kind of a hybrid. We're the best of both worlds. We're using a synthetic bioengineering chemistry capabilities, but we're doing it with a biosolution that is so safe and comes from Mother Nature, and it's so abundant. It's the second most abundant biopolymer in the world today, only second to cellulose.

That really creates this incredible opportunity of consistency and performance. So, love the fact that you brought that up and that we can clarify that point for farmers that expect results because we are bringing it with real science behind it.

Right. And I appreciate you bringing that to light. The way we look at is naturally derived materials, and I think certainly this will be a good solution to bring in as options for farmers to look at. Looking at the near future here, you've added one entity to your alliance. What do you think in the near future is the goal for growing this alliance and increasing your offerings even more?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, Heartland is the first and all the heavy lifting and the challenges that you have from going from zero to one is already been done. So that, again, appreciate the leadership team at Heartland. Chris Barons and Monte have been nothing but amazing through this process and the whole leadership team and the team in the field that are doing extensive work with some of their top growers to get experience and insights with some of our latest technology that's going to be formulated there in Traer, Iowa.

That's our first. So, we're not looking to be, as I mentioned earlier, everything to everyone. We're going to have a limited number of formulators in the United States that will have a pretty significant geographical footprint that they'll be able to manufacture, formulate our technologies for that footprint, and we will still work with other retailers and resellers in those markets.

But when it comes to actually formulating the products from basic to ready to use, there's going to be very limited few. They are going to be some of the leaders and innovators obviously in the agricultural retail wholesale space. We are having multiple conversations at the time. Right now we have two or three in some geographies that we're having to work through, which are the ones that align the best with our values and principles, and we'll be there sustainable in 10 years from now.

But it's not like there's going to be 20 of these. There's going to be significantly less than that, and each one will cover a pretty large footprint. And quite frankly, we'll be very profitable for those that participate at the same time as driving that efficiency of scale so that their customers, more importantly, the growers, are the ones that are going to really benefit from these new technologies to drive efficiency and effectiveness up and costs down.

Right. Our farmers are certainly looking for any options they can get to be more productive and more profitable. And this will continue to be an interesting story as we go into the future and look at all the ag innovation that's ongoing in the market. So is there anything else you would like to add to the conversation?

No. Last point is stay tuned. We're going to be making a pretty big announcement in September of some of the first technologies that are going to be coming out of these formulation facilities for this upcoming growing season. So, really big things on the horizon and announcements that will come forward. So stay tuned. This is just the real early, early tip of the iceberg as things come down the pipe.

It's obviously pretty early, but if people have questions about the alliance or what you're doing, what's the best way for them to get questions answered?

Absolutely. So if there's any forward-leaning potential formulators out there, please, you can find me on LinkedIn or you can go to our website and leave a note there and I'll always get a hold of that. If growers have any questions, again, our website, www.titlegrowagriscience, or titlegrowag.com is always a good place to go to and learn a little bit more about us, and ask any questions you have there and we'll have local and myself respond back to you quickly.

So, either one of those should be able to find me.

Great. Great. Thank you for sharing that. Obviously exciting times for you guys and for the ag industry in general, and want to thank you for joining myself and No-Till Farmer to talk about it. Thank you, Norm.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks, John. Take care.

Well, that's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast. We'd like to thank Norm Davy of Tidal Grow AgriScience for talking about the innovative efforts plan for the new Formulator Strategic Alliance. We also want to thank our sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment for helping to make this podcast possible.

A transcript of this episode in our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. For Norm Davy and our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm John Dobberstein. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling and have a great day.