AgriThority® was a Gold Partner of the 2024 World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit held March 19–20 in San Francisco. The AgriThority® team joined the more than 2,500 industry experts from 50 countries to discuss opportunities and innovations in agriculture. AgriThority® Chief Technology Officer Gloverson Moro, Ph.D., participated in a featured panel, “Biologicals in Action: Getting Traction on Today’s Farms.” He shared the importance of a disciplined, stage-gate development process for biological products. Three trends emerged from World Agri-Tech.
- Focus on the value proposition for growers. Refocusing on the grower was discussed in many of the panels and the importance of helping them be profitable and see a return on investment (ROI) of using new technologies. During the “Redefining AgTech Investing for Long Term Resilience,” panelists encouraged innovators to start with grower problems and solve those problems while focusing on grower profitability and ROI. There has been a flood of technologies that are solutions looking for problems that aren’t truly innovative.
- Increase collaboration and partnerships. Across the value chain and sectors of the agriculture industry, panelists stressed collaboration and partnerships for several reasons. For the industry to advance, collaboration is necessary to break out of silos and capitalize on sharing data and knowledge for the common good. From artificial intelligence (AI) and data to startups and multinationals to venture capital and investment firms, bringing the collective intelligence will help accelerate technology development and adoption. It also will help to share the risk, but it will be important to ensure collaborators are in alignment to see success.
- Develop products strategically and systemically to derisk in a tough environment. Multiple panels touched on the importance of strategically and systematically developing new ag innovations properly and avoiding shortcuts. Seek out partners or collaborators at each stage of product development and develop products that work and will have value for the farmer. Consider how products fit into the existing paradigm and how technologies can be grouped together for a true and complete solution for the grower.
There are a lot of exciting advancements happening in agriculture from AI to robotics to biologicals. Those advancements are setting the industry up for a huge transformation in the next few years. Despite a tough market, there’s still room for success for truly innovative ideas with the grower in mind. Investing time and effort into systematic and strategic development early on with an emphasis on solid data and insights will help increase speed to commercialization.
To prepare your product for commercialization, trust AgriThority® to be your native guide. With internationally recognized leaders connected to more than 400 local specialists in a worldwide network, we bring deep experience testing more than 770 technologies across thousands of field trial locations for 250+ multi-national, mid-size and start-up companies.
