Lowering the Risk of New Ag Innovations

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Billions of dollars are invested every year into developing new technologies to help farmers be more efficient, and hopefully more profitable. But when it comes time to implement them on the farm, it’s the farmer themselves that bear all of the risk. Growers Edge is a company that would like to change all of that by offering a warranty-like product that allows companies to share in some of the potential downside. Here’s CEO Dan Cosgrove.

Cosgrove… “There's a lot of people that are making promises: 'if you try my new product, you're going to get three, four or five bushels per acre'. And I think farmers could go broke taking to the bank all of those three, four or five bushels per acre (claims) . What we're trying to do is put a little economic rigor behind those products and those tools. If the farmer follows the steps that we recommend, we usually will land on a yield benchmark and they will exceed that benchmark or they get a check. And it's as simple as that.”

Cosgrove says they are already selling these warranties under some Syngenta brands, and through retailers like Helena.

Cosgrove… “They (farmers) should get a little bit more peace of mind when they're trying these new technologies, new seed, new chemistry, new digital tools; that they're going to deliver what they promise, or there will be some warranty back to them.”

A step in the right direction towards helping farmers manage their risk.