When I read “The End of Software”, I received a powerful satori glimpse of how creative forces of destruction might birth the next generation of agritech software.
What a write up! I have a few questions if you don't mind:
1. Farmer's Edge was THE brand in agtech I'd say for a few yrs and seem on the surface as you mentioned to become a fractional/MSP of tech enablement for this industry. Where do you believe that opportunity is on large scale enterprise type of clients, obviously the DTC market failed because the farmers dont see immediate ROI. I do believe their tech/products can provide a lot of insights/data if packaged appropriately to see quality/and or yield uplift on existing data vs. investing in IOT all over the farms.
2. In SaaS, most of those companies saw huge momentum in their platform adoption via the SI model with firms like Accenture, Deloitte, TCS, etc etc. I think there is a valid opportunity for specialty firms to crop up (no pun intended) that can put a lot of these capabilities together in some sort of package cheaper than agribusinesses investing in the technology themselves. Who do you find prime to be positioned for this?
3. I'm a data guy and Ive always believed in agtech's potential to bring data insights to an industry where most farmers are still managing their land with their AG contractors on excel. What is the immediate value-prop that every farm or agribusiness can benefit if someone deployed/package the right platform for? I have a huge thesis that output mindset will shift from a yield/quantity focus to a quality mindset as the population starts to get more serious about their health intake - think the semaglutide and weight loss industries will be huge drivers in this
On your third point, a lot of efforts are underway. Check this out. https://ptfi.wpengine.com/discover/ Foodomics, Nutrient Density Alliance and lot more folks shifting the needle towards quality.
On your second point, today, folks like Geopard are doing this. The point is to not do this on a project per-man hour basis. Outcome-based is the key
On your first point, in US, monopsony of input and output supply chains is a reality and hence buyers know sellers. The only thing that is pending is data. And so the land grab is going on.
Agreed. There will be a point where we can deterministically achieve endpoints (Six sigma level output on a target level of protein, Omega 6, and a taste profile) from a recipe of inputs (Crop genetics, microbes, and farm practices). All with the ability to optimize for cost through a combination of agriculture, but also suplementation in bioactives and fortifications in later stages.
In biofortification, there is a strong trade-off play as well in terms of at what stage do you want to fortify at production/ consumption level. Need to expand it deeper in that. There was an interesting paper that did this trade-off analysis. Ill find link and add it here.
Thanks for sharing the paper.This paper says while bio fortification could be a medium term strategy, dietary diversification could be a sustainable future strategy.
I think besides the precision spraying, finetech and robotics, weather forecast based Agronomy would be important.
Thanks
What a write up! I have a few questions if you don't mind:
1. Farmer's Edge was THE brand in agtech I'd say for a few yrs and seem on the surface as you mentioned to become a fractional/MSP of tech enablement for this industry. Where do you believe that opportunity is on large scale enterprise type of clients, obviously the DTC market failed because the farmers dont see immediate ROI. I do believe their tech/products can provide a lot of insights/data if packaged appropriately to see quality/and or yield uplift on existing data vs. investing in IOT all over the farms.
2. In SaaS, most of those companies saw huge momentum in their platform adoption via the SI model with firms like Accenture, Deloitte, TCS, etc etc. I think there is a valid opportunity for specialty firms to crop up (no pun intended) that can put a lot of these capabilities together in some sort of package cheaper than agribusinesses investing in the technology themselves. Who do you find prime to be positioned for this?
3. I'm a data guy and Ive always believed in agtech's potential to bring data insights to an industry where most farmers are still managing their land with their AG contractors on excel. What is the immediate value-prop that every farm or agribusiness can benefit if someone deployed/package the right platform for? I have a huge thesis that output mindset will shift from a yield/quantity focus to a quality mindset as the population starts to get more serious about their health intake - think the semaglutide and weight loss industries will be huge drivers in this
On your third point, a lot of efforts are underway. Check this out. https://ptfi.wpengine.com/discover/ Foodomics, Nutrient Density Alliance and lot more folks shifting the needle towards quality.
On your second point, today, folks like Geopard are doing this. The point is to not do this on a project per-man hour basis. Outcome-based is the key
On your first point, in US, monopsony of input and output supply chains is a reality and hence buyers know sellers. The only thing that is pending is data. And so the land grab is going on.
Agreed. There will be a point where we can deterministically achieve endpoints (Six sigma level output on a target level of protein, Omega 6, and a taste profile) from a recipe of inputs (Crop genetics, microbes, and farm practices). All with the ability to optimize for cost through a combination of agriculture, but also suplementation in bioactives and fortifications in later stages.
Oh yes, biofortification is something I hadn't considered in my scope. Fascinating comment. Thank you.
We should probably put more thinking behind this. Its a unifying theory to several of the software plays in Food is Health/AgTech
Sure. There are lot of convergences.
In biofortification, there is a strong trade-off play as well in terms of at what stage do you want to fortify at production/ consumption level. Need to expand it deeper in that. There was an interesting paper that did this trade-off analysis. Ill find link and add it here.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-023-01422-z
Thanks for sharing the paper.This paper says while bio fortification could be a medium term strategy, dietary diversification could be a sustainable future strategy.