Is the agricultural industry ripe for disintermediation? If one truly observes what is going on all around us, then the answer is yes. There is something happening to supply chains. Entire industry verticals have been disrupted by digital upstarts. Yet in the agricultural industry, very little has fundamentally changed.

What makes a person a “farmer”? If you read an earlier post, you will remember that we have difficulties with stereotypes the word “farmer” promotes.  Stereotypes generally take marketers down the wrong road, and this one may lead to significant missed opportunities.

Too many Agri-Marketers assume that usage of precision farming techniques is the best (or only) evidence of a technologically advanced farm. Unfortunately, this observation gives us little insight into the true motivations and technology behaviours of the farmer. In fact, by relying on Precision Farming as an indicator, we may be missing some of the most technologically advanced farmers of all. 

How do farmers make decisions? A quick look at most advertising and communication tells us that farmers care about high yields, reliable equipment, and clean fields. But farmers are people first, farmers second. That means that their decision making is like that of any other person. To understand that, we need to look to anthropologists, psychologists, and behavioural economists.

Farmers should not be thought of as stereotypes, they are archetypes. A stereotype is a preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person or situation.  When we talk in stereotypes, we are not talking about a real person. 

Almost everyone in this business knows and has empathy for those who farm - but is it the right kind of empathy for the job? If you are involved in any way in the planning, development, or execution of strategies and/or tactics you are a designer. You should think like one.

“Rationality” is in the eye of the beholder. It is entirely contextual and often backward facing. If we want to consider farmers as people first, we need to understand their personal definition of rational - one that includes a lot of emotion!

In our last post, It’s about the farmer, not the farm, we discussed how customer-centric marketers need to understand who the farmer is, not simply categorize his or her farm. Yet we need to go deeper still. We need to understand the dynamics that occur on many farms as different individuals participate in the buying process.