Frameworks for Biostimulant Success
Mosaic’s Message on Biologicals: Treat Them Like Seed - CropLife
Becker suggested to growers and ag retailers make their biologicals selections as they would seed. “The major decision these folks make in the early part of the year is genetics, looking at such things as soil types and population needs,”…“Biologicals are just like seed. Both are living organisms. So, when you are choosing a biological, you should ask the same questions as you would with your seed selection.”
The below is an adaption from the August 18th 2024 Edition of Upstream Ag Professional.
“Treat biologicals like seed” is a very aspirational positioning from Mosaic on biostimulants.
Seed, as Corteva’s Executive Vice-President Tim Glenn stated on Corteva’s Q2 2024 earnings call, is a very “emotional” decision.
Seed is also what I call foundational on the the Hierarchy of Agronomic Needs (full article breaking down the image in link):
Foundational needs are required by farmers to have in row crop scenarios. Functional needs tend to be viewed as defaults each year, though they are not required.
Optimization Options and Elevated Outcomes categories are often viewed as after-thoughts or used if economic outcomes are looking positive.
A row crop farmer cannot farm without seed (obviously), but seed also has business implications that drive it’s importance to farmers:
Seed is the one input the farmer has to look at throughout the entire growing season.
Seed influences and impacts almost all other operational decisions on the farm— seeding rate, harvestability, demand for other inputs (eg: type of herbicide tolerance, necessity for fungicide or insecticide based on embedded traits etc) and more. The influence extends beyond agronomy and operations towards grain marketing (eg: premium traits) or the quality of the variety which can influence price per bushel.
Seed is perceived as a simple way to gain a few extra percent of yield (eg: “variety x yields 3% more than variety y that I used last year, let’s go with variety x”). There isn’t an incremental product to use, or action to take.
Seed is often the most, or second most expensive input per acre, specifically in corn, soybean, canola and cotton which means it gets more attention from farmers.
These realities have led seed to be sold as the starting point of the input season throughout North America and become the foundation for relationships in crop input sales.
Given the above rationale, biostimulants being given the same level of thought as seed seems aspirational.
A comparison is not as much about the surface level similarities (both living, rate of product, soil influence), as it is about the implication on the farmers operations and profits. Biostimulants simply do not impact a farmer like seed.
However, biostimulants do have the potential to be perceived as a more functional need. After all, abiotic stress has been shown to be a significant contributor to yield loss:
Not to mention, their influence on soil health and nutrient use efficiency of macro fertilizer like nitrogen and phosphorous, which are far from 100%— highlighting an economic opportunity for farmers and environmental benefit if averages can move higher thanks to biostimulants.
On the following statement, I am aligned with Mosiac:
“We’ve got a lot of things going on in the biologicals world right now,”…“But the messaging has been a concern. That’s probably the reason we’ve got some black eyes over the years in this space. It’s been inconsistent, with many representatives just trying to make a sale.
In June 2023 I highlighted sub-par positioning from a biological company and stated the following:
Poor communication and illustration of data ranks as one of the biggest problems with moving biologicals from “snake oil” to standard practice.
To improve communication and instil confidence in the decision making process surrounding biostimulants, there is an opportunity to think about them like crop protection— asking the similar questions and communicating about them in a similar way.
The Sauce Paradox
Most crop protection products get used when there is awareness of a specific threat— something that drives urgency. “Plant health” and “nutrient use efficiency” do not drive urgency today.
There is a need to start with a specific threat, that is tangible and quantifiable (frequency of issue, intensity of issue) to bring up and evangelize in order to drive awareness, and eventually to urgency in the future.
There is an opportunity to apply a framework to biostimulants to drive awareness and urgency.
In The Sauce Paradox, I shared the logic for positioning biostimulant products in the market. This is an area of opportunity to dial in biostimulant messaging so they can move towards the functional category on the hierarchy of needs.
With biostimulant product positioning, there tends to be what I call the sauce paradox.
For most companies, biostimulants are attempting to take the Franks Red Hot Sauce approach: “I put that shit on everything”
It’s tempting to say biostimulants do everything, on every crop and in every situation (“increase plant health”), because when you augment plant physiology broadly, there is a desire to emphasize everything to allow for optionality in timing of application and crop type.
That’s part of what has troubled biostimulant perception in the market. When you try to be everything to everyone, you become nothing to everybody.
Instead, for biostimulants, it’s better to take the BBQ sauce approach.
BBQ sauce is intended for a very specific use: cooking and marinating meat. The sauce is intended for those very specific use cases and even has formulation considerations for the specific use (eg: being used in high-heat scenarios and on specific types of meats).
Biostimulants should be thought of as BBQ sauce and not Frank’s Red Hot Sauce.
To think through the focus, I use the funnel of specificity for crop input marketing and positioning: