A common sticking point with agbioscience innovations is that their makers often fail to include the farmer in the development process. The resulting products generally either fail to solve real problems for farmers, aren’t worth the money, or simply don’t work the way startups say they will.
This narrative needs to change as farmers face more extreme weather events, market volatility and labor shortages. The only way for agbioscience innovation to help farmers face these issues is to place those growers and producers at the center of the process.
“Today’s challenging commodity markets create an emergent need for innovators and farmers to work together to advance technology, science and practices that deliver net farm income,” says Mitch Frazier, CEO of AgriNovus Indiana, a non-profit focused on growing the agbioscience economy.
He calls this “farmer-focused innovation” and says it should be at the center of agbioscience development. “Farmers know intimately the challenges facing modern agriculture; they are uniquely positioned to serve co-creators and early adopters of innovations that deliver results and ultimately feed the world,” he tells AgFunderNews.
The hope is that this approach will lead to new products, services and business models where benefits move outward from the farmer to the broader agricultural industry in the United States and beyond.
In an ideal world, explains Frazier, this “cycle of value creation” would see early-adopter farmers partner with agbioscience innovators to co-create products and services. This direct access to farmers would attract new agtech and agbioscience companies to Indiana, with those companies creating more demand-driven innovations.
“Farmers needs are better met and adoption improves, leading to improved farm outcomes and a stronger, more resilient food system and economy,” says Frazier.
Understanding the farmer-innovator disconnect
“Those innovators that are directly linked to the farmer and to the customer are the ones that are going to win,” says Brad Fruth, director of innovation at seed company Beck’s Hybrids, which serves farmers across the United States.
There’s always been something of a disconnect between the innovators and the farmers in agtech, one that can be exacerbated by market forces and other outside issues.
“When you’re in $7, $8 corn, there’s a lot of grace that’s given and you can have a lot of fun with innovation. When you’re in $3.50 corn, that isn’t true anymore,” says Fruth, referring to the ongoing drop in commodity prices.
In other words, when times are tight, there’s less freedom amongst farms to “have fun,” and winning innovations will be the ones that solve real problems for farmers.
Along those lines, AgriNovus’ recent Accelerate 2050 report noted that while agbioscience innovations could improve the efficiency and sustainability of farms and open new revenue pathways, “a lack of direct farmer input into agbioscience research and development (R&D) efforts means that the products and services available to farmers often fail to deliver clear return on investment or personalized results.”
At the same time, however, Indiana is well positioned to address the disconnect between farmers and innovators that can sometimes occur. Besides having nearly 80% of land within its borders devoted to farming (and some forestry), the state boasts strong farmer cooperatives and commodity groups, a sizable population of younger, beginning farmers, and large-scale agriculture that happens alongside distributors, research universities, early- and growth-stage companies, and several other entities in the agbioscience ecosystem.
As Corteva CEO Chuck Margo noted in the report, “Being close and being able to get in a pickup truck and talk to your customers—that’s a big deal for us.”
“Biological innovation at the intersection of plants, animals and people is essential to the future of the food system and health,” says Frazier. “There’s no other metro in the world that has the collective strength of agriculture, human health, entrepreneurship, academia and business present in Indianapolis.”
Must-haves for farmer-led innovation
A 2024 study from AgriNovus and Aimpoint identified key inefficiencies “most acutely felt among producers,” one of which is “technology adoption barriers.”
First and foremost, technology tools have to bring value to growers, suggests Kevin Stil, CEO of Keystone Cooperative, a 100% farmer-owned co-op that works across Indiana and a few neighboring states.
For Keystone farmer-owners and customers, says Still, that value includes ROI as well as “alignment with our core business objectives.”
Scalability is another crucial factor. “Technology startups need to ensure the solution can be implemented across diverse operations and deliver consistent results in the marketplace.”
“Instead of saying, ‘I have a solution, let’s go find a problem to solve,’ it’s more about listening directly to the customer,” notes Fruth.
“The more you can show that you’re impacting the production, making it more efficient, those are the things that get a lot of traction,” he adds. “And if you can bring your customer along with you through that journey, then that pre-sale process and everything is a lot easier than if you’re introducing somebody to a brand new technology.”
For example, Beck’s, which runs its own large farm, spends a good deal of time interfacing with startups, says Fruth. (The company does not do corporate venture capital, but instead works in partnership format with companies.)
“If our group hears your pitch, and we think that either we want to become a customer or we want to embed you into one of our value adds, then your second meeting will be with the actual decision-maker internally that can say yes or no.”
Farmer-led innovation in the future
AgriNovus itself has an accelerator program designed to foster this sort of farmer-led innovation.
Most importantly, it convenes Indiana farmers, companies, entrepreneurs and students for the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge accelerator that awards a $25,000 commercialization prize to the winner.
Past winners of the challenge are all solutions created for and sometimes by farmers, from Regrow Ag’s measurement, reporting and verification tool for soil to FiberX’s use of corn stover as a feed ingredient for materials science.
Since its launch in 2020, every company that has won the challenge has received follow-on funding or has been acquired. This challenge—founded by farmers—continues to be farmer-funded, with challenge winners selected by farmers.
“Initiatives like the Producer-Led Innovation challenge strengthen the bond between startups and farmers,” says Frazier. “These relationships become the foundation that guides the next chapter of agbioscience growth — in Indiana and around the world.”
The winner of AgriNovus’ 2024 Producer-Led Innovation Challenge will be announced in December. Learn more about the challenge – get connected with the AgriNovus team.
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