From biofuel to weight loss drugs: what two days at EvokeAg 2025 left us thinking about

Some conferences play it safe. EvokeAg is not one of them.

Bobby Miller and Lily Rodgers represented Ruminati at AgriFutures EvokeAg 2025 this week, and came away with a lot to think about. The sessions ranged from the fuel powering the planes people flew in on - and the genuine opportunity biofuel presents for the agricultural sector - to the downstream effects of GLP-1 weight loss drugs on global food demand. With around 10% of the US population now taking them, that's a conversation the food and agriculture industry can't afford to ignore for much longer.

The session titles alone set the tone: "You Can't Ask That" and "The Great Fallacy: the future is female" were among the more provocative offerings, and the breakout rooms kept things collaborative and genuinely challenging rather than comfortable. Startup Alley and the Scale Up station were well worth the time too- useful signals of where investment and innovation are actually concentrating in agtech right now.

A few lines from the floor stuck. "Can we afford NOT to invest in agtech?" is a question more of the industry should be sitting with. "VC is chasing unicorns, agtech is building workhorses" (Rob Hulme) captured something real about the mismatch between how agtech gets funded and what it actually needs to deliver. And SwarmFarm Robotics founder Andrew Bate cut through the noise with the question that should sit behind every product decision: "Are you building something producers want, and are they prepared to pay for it?"

That last one is something Ruminati takes seriously. The answer has to be yes to both, or none of the rest of it matters.