Innovation Is Essential in AgTech — But Are We Asking the Right Questions?
May 13, 2026 Over the last decade or so, the pace of innovation has accelerated. It will continue to accelerate even more with the implementation of artificial intelligence. That’s a good thing. But this acceleration has also created a tendency to chase what’s new rather than focus on what works.
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I watch all of the new products and services that are coming into the market and am excited about the opportunity.
But it reminds me of my fertilizer days and going to university plot tours. We would walk through and look at many of these plots. While the new products were effective, I would look at the plot checks with the old standard products. More often than not, they seemed to be cleaner, healthier, and more consistent. No hype, no big marketing push. Just performance.
I look at a lot of the new software products and features and see a similar pattern. I believe that software developers have been chasing shiny new widgets for the last few years. We need to get back to the basics. We need to focus on the core objective, helping customers to best manage livestock and crop production.
Innovation is essential. The industry is evolving, and our tools should evolve with it. But innovation without discipline, without a clear connection to the core business can lead us off course.
So how do we answer the question on whether we’re doing precision ag, data management, or a farm management information system?
It should start with the question of how does this offering best serve our customer and strengthen our core business? Whether the core business is crop inputs or services, the role of technology should be clear. It must strengthen what you already do.
- Do you have the agronomists whose expertise aligns with a precision ag program?
- Do you have the expertise for agronomic analysis in identifying limiting factors in crop production?
- Or do you have the expertise to offer analytics for broader operational analytics, including agronomics, inputs, financials and logistics?
- The answers will define not just what you can offer, but what you should offer.
- So, how do you evaluate the technology offerings for your business?
- Are you asking the right questions?
- Are you evaluating your team’s capabilities to execute effectively?
- Have you developed a one, three, and five-year plan for these offerings?
- Have you evaluated/understand how adding technology fits into the long-term business and strategy?
The reality is developing a precision ag program is a lot of work. And having a precision ag program, for the sake of saying you have one, is not a strategy. It’s a mistake.
Last year, I heard a speaker comment that with the current economy, if a technology only provides convenience, the farm will reject it. But if a technology provides real value, the farm will buy, even in the down economy.
But the objective didn’t change. Not in the 1990s. Not today. Because in the end, the goal was never complexity. It was clarity. And the opportunity in front of us isn’t to build more. It’s to use what we’ve built better.
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