Whatās Going On Here?Plant-tech firm Benson Hill announced over the weekend that itād list on the stock market via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), unless it engineers the technology to make money grow on trees in the meantime. What Does This Mean?With global population growth showing no signs of slowing down, and the worldās stomachs rumbling for plant-based meat alternatives, itās never been more important to be able to create perfect agricultural conditions. Enter Benson Hill, whose platform uses machine learning, simulations, and genetics to develop breeds of crops that mature faster, have higher protein content, or just taste a lot better than the real thing. And since the companyās expecting the plant-based meat segment to be worth $140 billion by 2029, itās decided to merge with a SPAC, so it can fast-track putting some roots down in the stock market. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Precision agriculture is hitting the mark.
Benson Hill is one of the pioneering names behind precision agriculture, which uses technology to boost farmsā output without using so much water, fertilizer, and arable land. And according to the World Economic Forum, the shift really could work wonders: if even 25% of farms adopted precision agriculture techniques, global crop yields would be 15% higher, water usage 20% lower, and greenhouse gas emissions 10% lower by 2030. Speaking of hot air, analysts at Morgan Stanley estimated that the precision agriculture market could rake in $17 billion of revenue in 2030 ā up from $5 billion in 2019.
Zooming out: SPACs are still alive and kicking.
SPACs are facing a few stumbling blocks at the moment, but that doesnāt seem to have put off Benson Hill ā nor driverless truck startup Plus, which announced on Monday itād be joining the SPAC pack too. Plus has designs on making its trucks fully autonomous by the end of 2024, but itāll have some stiff competition where thatās concerned: rival TuSimple made its US stock market debut last month. | 