5 Questions to Ask Before Introducing New Agritech Products and Practices

Having a value proposition enticing enough to get farmers to invest time or cash, both precious, into a pre-market or new market agritechnology product or practice is a challenge facing dozens of startups and established competitors alike.

The numbers make this abundantly clear. More than 40,000 patents impacting agricultural inputs were granted in the 10 years leading up to 2021. Ag biotech alone generated $1.5 billion in startup investments in 2020. Multiple promising innovations are struggling to gain trial, much less adoption.

Across the farm, the promises of artificial intelligence, carbon capture, remote sensing, synthetic biology and blockchain innovations are capturing headlines and venture capital investments, if not yet, a significant share of the limited farmer input dollar.

Farmers are evaluating the offerings through multiple lenses including fit with current farming practices, market impact on the food or fiber being raised and current or anticipated pressure from disruptive forces whether plant-based milk or the growing alternative protein options coming to market as “meats.”

At MorganMyers, we ask some basic questions to help position and introduce new agriproducts, technologies and practices into a crowded, increasingly high tech and increasingly transparent farming environment.

1. Do we really know how the farmer will perceive the benefit?

We learned to ask this question even if the answer seems obvious. When we helped introduce one of the first herbicide-resistant agronomic crops, we, and the client, thought the benefit farmers would perceive was the ability to kill weeds in-season with the crop already emerged from the ground.

Fortunately, we did our research. The actual perceived benefit was saving time. Farmers were going to be able to spend less time on weed control, leaving more time to be with their families, for recreation or for other farming tasks. We helped develop messages and positions emphasizing having more free time and improved lifestyles versus killing weeds dead.

2. How is this going to improve the farmer’s bottom line?

This question is sometimes lost in the excitement of the entrepreneur’s vision. The answer isn’t always higher yields or reduced input costs. Now it’s often about how adoption helps align farm practices with brand and consumer expectations related to raising food and fiber.

It can be both. We recently worked with a company to introduce a new pain management product for livestock. Reducing discomfort allows the animal to feel and perform better. This product is also a “pour-on,” administered by pouring it on the animal’s back versus through an injection. The route of administration is easier on the animal and it so aligns with consumer expectations around animal welfare.

Improving animal comfort and performance, while providing an animal welfare benefit that aligns with brand and consumer expectations, were complementary message points for the channels reaching farmers and other influencers. Both can help the farmer’s bottom line.

3. Is the farmer even aware of the problem your technology addresses?

One would think $6 billion a year in economic damage would be a headline, but most farmers weren’t even aware that an agronomic pest was responsible for that level of yield loss occurring. Experts knew what behaviors needed to be adopted to reduce the damage but farmers didn’t recognize the need.

We worked to build a coalition including universities, extension and private industry, to create a new campaign to first call attention to the damage, and then encourage adoption of specific agronomic practices to combat the pest. Post campaign research showed that in 2020, 55% of farmers were now aware of the need to actively manage the pest, and, depending on the timing of the survey, between 6% and 18% more farmers were taking action.

4. Can we shift the market?

When the new product or technology is entering an established market, we ask this question. Rather than attempting to convert or take existing market share from competitive offerings, we can accelerate adoption by changing the value definition for our new technology and create unoccupied market space for the offering.

We helped a client do just that by communicating how new equipment innovations could enhance a farmer’s agronomic investment. We changed the art of selling ”iron,” and the standard battles over horsepower, operator environment and efficiency, to the science of selling “agronomic design” and how the client’s offerings created a better, more sustainable, environment for crop production. The shift from a focus on iron to soil productivity and from equipment to agronomic design created open space for our client and shifted competitors into a catch-up mode.

5. What’s the regulatory status – or the status in the court of public opinion?

Novel technologies often need to build a wall of support to generate the information, and advocacy, to successfully navigate the labeling labyrinth and/or the path to consumer acceptance.

Composition of the wall varies, but the base consists of the scientists that developed and vetted the innovation, a layer of highly respected industry experts as spokespersons are another critical element, along with customer advocates for the technology. The full wall is necessary, because no matter how good the technology, innovation can be stymied by a poor market understanding, leading to a challenging regulatory comment period or pushback at the consumer level.

After identification, experts and spokespeople are usually a one-on-one build. Broader industry support requires effective outreach. For one agronomic biotechnology trait, combatting a billion-dollar bug, we created an ag and food stakeholder field activation to demonstrate the viability of the technology. We engaged attendees around not only the productivity advances, but also around the dramatic reduction of pesticide use enabled by the trait. We were able to mobilize these stakeholders to provide comments about what they experienced at the field days to ultimately support U.S. regulatory approval of this technology.

There are common elements to address when developing marketing messaging and positioning new agritechnology products with farmers, but it’s never boilerplate. At MorganMyers, we take pride in our ability to help successfully launch and market innovations into the ag marketplace. We understand what matters, and how to translate insights into action. Give us a call if you have something brewing. We’d love to help you answer a few questions.