Yield Is Not The Only Metric
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
The value propositions consumers and producers are looking for today are changing, with a greater focus on environmental sustainability. Randy Barker, founder, and CEO of INTENT says for companies to stay competitive in the marketplace, their products need to address more than just yield.
Barker… “The other aspect now will be how do my products impact my carbon sequestration or net sustainability. They look at it in terms of persistence or safety profile in the environment, crop effect, can I create more plant mass or carbon sequestration, where am I changing the soil. But like precision ag, we’re not quite at ground zero, but we’re not very far along that journey but I foresee in the next 5-10 years that every product, just like it’ll have a performance aspect of, what is its net impact on carbon sequestration.”
This is especially important with startups.
Barker… “When you’re at phase one, you need to be thinking about, okay, I need a new set of metrics beyond yield or whatever I’m trying to create. So, how it impacts sustainability needs to be built in face development process to commercialization for the innovators, and then at the other side, we’re going to have to start changing what we’re measuring at the farm level and kind of bring the two together.”
Barker emphasizes that this can only be done with collaboration between farmers and companies.
