The Race to the Middle: Why Most Ag Companies Are Competing for Second Place

Why Ag Innovation Stalls When Companies Obsess Over Competitors Instead of Customers

Most companies in agriculture are competitor-obsessed.

They start with what the company down the road is doing and work backwards.

• “We can beat them on price.”
• “We’ll get you one more bushel than them.”
• “We offer the same thing, just with better service.”

It’s a race to the middle. A contest for second place.

But companies that win think differently.

They don’t start with the competition. They start with the customer. With an unspoken problem. A tension nobody’s resolved yet.

Then they build something so useful, so clear, so different that it becomes the standard.

Just look at the history of ag innovation:

From the mechanical reaper that scaled harvest…

To hybrid corn that made yield predictable…

To center pivot irrigation that turned dryland into more profitable farmland…

To autosteer that removed white knuckling from the cab…

To biological products that are redefining what it means to feed the soil.

None of these innovations were demanded. But all of them solved a real, persistent tension gr…