Well friends, it is Homecoming Week – no, not for your favorite high school or college football team (that was in the fall for those who don’t go!), but for the agriculture and agtech community to gather in Tulare for World Ag Expo. It is the first big west coast ag event of the year, and it is fair to call it homecoming week because everyone from the ag industry now and for the past couple of decades gathers to show off products, talk shop, catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

There are always a few things to watch out for in Tulare each year. Here are some thoughts heading into the 2026 edition:

Who is making announcements? Last year Carbon Robotics launched five new products aimed at laser weeding for both specialty crops (three models) and Midwest crops (two crops). This expanded their market opportunity by lowering their entry level price point for specialty crops and by creating access to Midwest crops. Increasingly, startups and established companies see Tulare as a great place to launch new products. Often the announcements are about new products opening a new market segment by adding extra functionality (i.e. a weeding robot can now do thinning as well) or a new channel partnership (a dealer partner that can help create new opportunities and open up new regions).

Who is getting a first-time booth? It’s always fun to see startups emerging from “buying a ticket and walking the show” to “getting a booth and looking for customers.” This means they are getting traction or trying to help generate some early traction with new customers. Nobody is getting a booth in Tulare without some sales targets supporting it. The show is too expensive and takes part of the team out of the market for several days to be at the show. If you’re not sure the product is ready for prime time (and ready to be sold), you should not be exhibiting in Tulare.

How is the show doing? Are there open exhibit spots that were either not taken by exhibitors or had exhibitors back out at the last minute (both of which are not a great sign, obviously for different reasons)? How does the crowd feel compared to prior years? The last five years have been interesting as things got shut down for a year and it took a few years to get the crowd back to pre-shutdown levels. Are attendees still getting value from the show, and is the crowd as big as we hope? The events business continues to be challenging for many events, even some mainstays on the calendar. World Ag Expo is in a pretty unique position to maintain its dominance on the early season calendar, but we are seeing some challenges at other events that Western Growers sponsors and supports. I would expect some more consolidation of trade show and event businesses in 2026.

Who is closing fund raising rounds? This one will be front and center for many of us. The VC crunch is real – AgriFoodTech has gone from $53B in 2021 to $10B. Also of note, funding has gone from 78% early stage (Seed and A rounds) and 22% later stage (B round and later) to 22% seed and A / 78% later stage in 10 years. So early capital is harder than ever to find – there’s less of it and many investors are protecting their portfolio and doubling down on existing investments for future rounds rather than placing more early stage bets.

I will be back with a full report from the show in next week’s Newsletter!