Now that the fields are seeded trial season is upon us. In this week’s edition of Growing Possibilities we ask: Are the preferences of growers on how trials are conducted shifting due to social media and online access to information? Are we seeing the rise of the agricultural influencer? A poll and a study written over the last two years suggest this could be the case.
Field Trials are essential for the testing and acceptance of new agricultural inputs. Trials of inoculants and ag-biologicals are especially important, because mother nature/soil is heterogeneous, and inoculants and ag-biologicals are not a chemistry, their interaction with the soil can vary. Companies selling inoculants and ag-biologicals should be even more vigilant about their field trials than chemical manufacturers and conduct more trials in more locations.
At XiteBio we have always prided ourselves on the number and voracity of our trials. In a crowded marketplace with everyone making claims about their newest biological product, third-party trials separate the legitimate companies from the bad actors. In the early 2010’s XiteBio partnered with several land-grant universities to participate in academic/research trials because at the time we felt that was considered the best way of proving a new product.
However, over the last few years we have shifted our focus to grower and retailer led trials. We made this transition because we saw a shift in the attitudes of our customers towards trials. They demanded more localized data in their agro-climactic conditions delivered by growers or dealers they know and trust.
This sentiment is reflected in a paper written in 2021 (1) that studied the attitudes of farmers in Hungary and the UK. While the market is different from North America, we see similarities between the two.
A Hungarian farmer in the study is quoted as saying, “Show me a fellow farmer who tried that practice and it worked on his field. It is also important that it should be emphasised that it worked in the same kind of natural environment like my farm. It has produced results under similar circumstances than mine (1).” Despite coming from across the Atlantic this quote was instantly recognizable to our sales agronomists as reflecting sentiment in Canada and the US.
The study suggests that farmers are looking on social media to find more information from local influencers about new practices or products that they have tried. However, it also found that agronomists were more likely to trust information that came from academics & scientists, and were more skeptical of influencer information provided freely online.
In Canada a poll in March of 2023 by realagriculture.com found that only 2% of respondents believe that the federal government is doing an excellent job of supporting agriculture and 76% believed that the federal government was doing a poor job of supporting agriculture (2). While we cannot say how this directly affects sentiment towards government / university extension led trials it is worth noting that the public sector is the largest source of funding for agri-food research in Canada (3).
Universities also seem to have picked up on this trend. When we searched Google for the term “university field trials” the search results were overwhelmingly from universities giving advice on how to design and conduct on-farm trials like this one from Iowa State University (4).
At XiteBio we have welcomed the rising trend of on-farm research and are conducting numerous farmer and retailer led trials this season in addition to contract research trials from third-party researchers. For example most XiteBio research trials are 40 acres x 40 acres. We believe that a combination of academic and grower data is the best way to push forward acceptance and adoption of new ag-biological technologies. To learn more about our trial programs please visit our website or give us a call at 1-855-XITEBIO to arrange to visit a trial site.
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-021-01546-y
- https://www.realagriculture.com/2023/03/just-2-of-farmers-believe-the-federal-government-is-doing-an-excellent-job-of-supporting-agriculture/
- https://www.aic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FINAL-Towards-a-National-Strategy-for-Agri-Food-Research-and-Innovation-.pdf
- https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/cropnews/2019/03/conducting-farm-trials