By Angela Estrada
Landing in St Louis at –15°C wakes you up quickly.
For many of the Latin American delegates who had just left São Paulo’s 38–40°C summer, the temperature change was even more dramatic. We travelled from very different starting points, arriving separately but united by a shared purpose.
Fortunately, while the temperatures were freezing, the welcome could not have been warmer.
The second ARISE Knowledge Exchange Week brought together 25 delegates from seven countries including the UK, US, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. The aim was to move from early dialogue and ecosystem discovery into practical collaboration, deeper partnerships and clearer pathways to scale.
This visit built directly on the momentum from our São Paulo exchange in December, where ARISE partners explored Latin America’s vast agricultural production systems and regenerative innovation landscape. If you missed that story, you can read more about the first chapter of the journey here:
https://agritierra.com/arise-launching-a-trilateral-agri-tech-collaboration-for-climate-resilient-agriculture/
If São Paulo showed scale and opportunity, St Louis showed how innovation ecosystems can be structured to turn opportunity into delivery.
The week was expertly organised by the Yield Lab Institute team, led by Stephanie Regagnon and Tom Bennett, with fantastic support from the wider St Louis innovation community.
That community spirit is exactly why ARISE came to St Louis.
The US agri-tech landscape is vast and highly innovative, but it can feel fragmented across states, sectors and funding systems. St Louis stands out because organisations here actively work to connect those pieces. Researchers, investors, corporates and start-ups collaborate through shared platforms and coordinated networks rather than operating in isolation. It is a place where collaboration is designed.
Through visits and meetings with leading institutions including the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Bayer, Washington University in St Louis, the Taylor Geospatial Institute, BioSTL and the 39 North AgTech Innovation District, the ARISE delegation experienced how plant science excellence, venture capital, corporate R&D, geospatial intelligence and cluster leadership operate as parts of one connected system.
Labs and research speak to investors.
Investors understand regulatory realities.
Corporates partner with start-ups.
Clusters convene ecosystems rather than compete within them.
Innovation here is built to move.
São Paulo highlighted the scale of opportunity across Latin America’s production landscapes. Delegates saw regenerative agriculture, biological inputs and climate-smart production operating at real farm scale. St Louis helped answer the next question.
How do those innovations translate internationally and scale across markets? The answer lies less in technology itself and more in the systems that support validation, regulation, financing and adoption.
Two shared global priorities became clear.
Cross-site validation
Innovation struggles to scale when trials, data standards and performance frameworks differ between regions. ARISE partners began shaping the foundations of a cross-site validation network so research and pilots become comparable across continents.
Regulatory alignment
Many strong solutions slow down because regulatory pathways are fragmented or considered too late. Discussions reinforced the importance of embedding regulatory thinking earlier so innovators and investors can move with confidence.
They are structural requirements for scaling agri-tech globally.
One of the subtle but important lessons from St Louis is that strong ecosystems are not defined only by favourable conditions. Some regions operate with abundant capital, dense research clusters and established infrastructure. Others operate with resource constraints, climate pressures, infrastructure gaps or fragmented markets.
The real test of an innovation ecosystem is not how it performs when conditions are ideal, but how well it adapts when conditions are difficult.
Latin America demonstrates innovation under production pressure. Climate variability, logistics challenges and diverse farm structures force solutions to prove their resilience early.
The US demonstrates innovation within highly competitive and specialised markets where coordination across institutions is essential.
The UK demonstrates innovation through strong science, governance frameworks and the ability to convene partners across borders.
ARISE shows that when these systems connect, innovation becomes more adaptable, more transferable and more globally relevant.
If São Paulo revealed opportunity and St Louis demonstrated structure, Cambridge will focus on integration. The upcoming UK exchange week will be hosted by Agri-TechE and will bring together the showcase of the UK AgriTech ecosystem and insights from Brazil and US international visits.
Across the week, partners will explore how the UK ecosystem can act as a global convener for responsible innovation in agriculture, connecting science, investment and international partnerships. Activities will include:
The week culminates in two major events designed to bring together researchers, innovators, investors and policymakers from across the ARISE network.
– International Partnering Forum
A dedicated networking and collaboration space connecting UK organisations with international partners across the US and Latin America.
More information here.
– ARISE Innovation Forum
The flagship event of the programme, showcasing outcomes from São Paulo and St Louis while setting the future roadmap for trilateral collaboration in AI, Engineering Biology and resilient agriculture.
Participants are warmly invited to attend and register here.
For AgriTIERRA, returning to St Louis felt familiar. We have worked closely with partners here through the Cultivar initiative led by the Yield Lab Institute.
Cultivar connects global agri-food ecosystems so researchers, innovators and investors collaborate rather than duplicate efforts. It helps create shared routes for testing, funding and scaling agricultural innovation across regions.
Those same principles are key to ARISE. AgriTIERRA helps ecosystems connect across geographies, translate between science and markets, and structure collaboration so that it leads to delivery rather than discussion. St Louis reaffirmed how important that bridging function is.
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