World Agri-Tech Summit 2022: Is there enough ‘agri’ in agri-tech?

Agri-tech has a huge role to play in the future of farming.

From enabling efficiencies in day-to-day operations to saving costs and easing recruitment burdens, it’s no surprise that it is a hot topic.

We were fortunate enough to attend the World Agri-tech Summit 2022 in London in September to see some of the latest agri-tech in action.

From everything we saw at the Summit, one thing was clear –these innovations are all aiming to solve the same handful of the dominant challenges that farmers face:

• Climate, environmental and biodiversity targets
• Producing high-quality food efficiently but cost-effectively
• The cost implications of adopting new technologies during an unstable economic period.

No one understands these obstacles more than those working on farms day and night. Therefore, we were surprised to find that not many farmers were involved in the earliest stages of agri-tech – with none particularly visible at the event.

Whilst the event wasn’t aimed at the farming end user and was instead very well focused on the tech creation, innovation and investment, we expected to see some farmer representation. This posed the question for us – is there enough ‘agri’ in agri-tech?

In order for these technologies to be the best they can, and be a solution that farmers are willing to invest in when every penny of profit counts, then farmers must be involved in these innovations.

From the conceptualisation through to the latter stages of research and development, their experience will be invaluable.

This will build confidence in the agri-tech sector, that ideas for products and solutions are started on the farm, not in an office or a lab. It will also build trust which is a key challenge for agri-tech who want farmers to put faith – and a lot of investment – in their innovations.

How can we help?

Many of the challenges faced by agri-tech, particularly around trust, are marketing challenges. The benefits to farmers must be clearly conveyed through an effective marketing strategy to build brand trust.

Campaigns to educate farmers on issues they didn’t even know they had are crucial to product sales, as well as showing that you understand your audience – taking us straight back to that element of trust.

With tech products flooding the market, you must help farmers determine why it’s your brand and your product they need through your marketing activity. From your visuals to digital footprint and storytelling capabilities, there is a lot to consider from a marketing point of view to stand out from the crowd and that’s where we come in.

For more information and to see how we can support your marketing strategy, get in touch here.