From Reaction to Revolution: Shaping the Narrative in AgTech
Setting the Agenda and Crafting a Constructive Path Forward in Agricultural Technology
There are many people in agtech today who seem to have lost the plot on what we exist to do.
And as a result, people I genuinely respect are at risk of getting left behind.
Over the last few weeks, this manifested itself in two news stories handled exceptionally poorly by individuals in agtech who should know better.
The first was when The Wall Street Journal published an article about the well-known fact that farmers are inundated by the massive amounts of data #agtech companies (and their investors) have spent the last decade dumping on them. However, many people didn't like the terminology the journal used.
“These are tired talking points.”
“These people don’t understand farming!”
Then, it was reported that Indigo’s valuation is down 94%, and many people danced on their (purported) grave.
We get it. You don’t like the company. I’m no Indigo apologist, but does cheering about it move anything forward?
The problem with the handling of these stories is that they show near-sited, zero-sum thinking that leads to tribalism.
“Ag (our way) vs. the World”
But you engage in this “us vs. them” type of thinking and discourse when you don’t have a vision for improving things and have run out of new ideas for creating abundance.
A better response for our industry and the future of agriculture to these two stories would have been something like this:
“How might we shift the conversation in ag so that talent and capital can flow to places where it has a chance to create a new future?
How do we identify truly breakthrough technologies that don’t just create more data for the user to parse through but leverage technology-defined networks to fulfill the original charter of agribusinesses who are currently stuck in the cycle of buying back their own stock and squeezing the last drops of their once flourishing, now dying categories?”
There's a debate in agtech that these two news stories display: “Should we play offense or defense right now?”
Offense - look how bad these other agtechs are. We're “better.”
Defense - people outside of agriculture “don’t get it.”
But I believe that this is a false choice. We always have the option to take the initiative - no matter what.
In agriculture, we have become conditioned price-takers and story followers. Instead, we need to become conversation changers.
True innovators don’t complain about media or focus on companies that have raised more funds without clear objectives. Real innovators take the initiative and drive the news cycle by painting a picture of a new future.
Spend less time reacting to others and more time maintaining the initiative to set an agenda that the market can’t help but react to.
Let’s take the lead, set the narrative, and shape the future of agriculture.