Agreena signed a 4.45 million-tonne soil-carbon deal across 1.6 million hectares in Kazakhstan

Artwork for podcast iGrow Digest: Agriculture, Energy & Water Investment News

Episode 6 • 11th September 2026 • iGrow Digest: Agriculture, Energy & Water Investment News • iGrowNews

Two reactor developers hit the public markets in the same week — and the largest farmland carbon deal ever disclosed landed in Kazakhstan.

Holtec Nuclear filed to go public on Nasdaq, seeking up to roughly $900 million at a valuation near $10.2 billion for its spent-fuel storage and SMR business. Days earlier, Texas-based HGP Intelligent Energy — building reactors that follow data-center load — agreed to a $1.2 billion SPAC merger with Meshflow Acquisition Corp. Both are pitched explicitly at AI data-center power demand.

Also this week: Franklin Electric bought Cat Pumps for $350 million cash plus a $50 million earnout; Mitti Labs signed Google to up to 1 million rice-methane carbon credits, the largest offtake of its kind on record; Agreena disclosed a 4.45 million-tonne soil-carbon agreement across 1.6 million hectares in Kazakhstan; Wint raised a $36 million Series D led by LIP Ventures and Inven Capital; the DOE closed a loan of up to $1.9 billion for NextEra Energy to restart the 615 MW Duane Arnold plant; Missouri American Water closed its $34.5 million purchase of Neosho's systems, adding about 10,800 customers; Ecobat exited lithium recycling, selling its Casa Grande, Arizona plant; Georgia Power won approval for 1,137 MW of solar; Envocore was picked for a $129 million program to replace 1.5 million water meters across Puerto Rico; Corteva and Globachem formed a 50/50 crop-protection JV; and Smackover Lithium reported a ~$5.0 billion after-tax NPV for its first East Texas project.

This week's paid edition, Thin Harvest, strips the ocean out of iGrow's August ledger: $670 million across 25 funding actions in land-based agriculture, down sharply from July's $1.89 billion, with debt desks and government ministries writing the biggest checks.

In this episode:

(00:00) Cold Open

(00:29) The Impact Scorecard

(01:44) Corporate and Financial Shifts

(03:30) Innovation and Public Strategy

(04:54) Market Signals and Operations

(09:46) Close

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