By Farmobile Editorial Team

It’s here, a brand new year filled with momentous opportunities! Here at Farmobile, we’re looking forward to what 2020 has in store, including the latest trends in agtech and data. New challenges – and huge new opportunities in agriculture – are ahead. So here are three key emerging trends we see ahead in 2020.

Trend #1: Data as a System of Record 

Chris Schibi, Farmobile Chief Technology Officer (CTO),  notes in the video, virtually every other industry has developed a data-based system of record. This allows analysts and business strategists to go back and look at what happened — to learn from mistakes and continue to improve for greater outcomes, and greater profit. 

In 2020, we’ll see more and more farmers, ag retailers, equipment dealers and agronomists leveraging data as a system of record. Farmers and their trusted advisors make hundreds, if not thousands of strategic decisions that affect their crop every year. Having an effective system of record of what happened not only ensures everyone is doing what they say they did, it allows experts to go back into the data, see what happened, and make changes to refine their operations. 

Trend #2: User-Friendly, Real-Time Data 

To put it simply, collecting data is hard, and many companies in agtech haven’t gotten it right. Chris talks about the “happy path” to data collection and utilization — one where the user is able to seamlessly enter the appropriate information, and get usable, accurate, precision data that can be easily exported out or into other systems.  

As more players in the ag value chain integrate data into their daily operations, we’ll see an increased demand for seamless interfaces, intuitive user flows, and accurate real-time data that helps guide operations in the moment — not days later after a thumb drive has been taken out of the cab. 

Trend #3: Outcomes-Based Pricing 

One of the greatest things about integrating agdata into an operation is the ability to track how well certain products and services performed. Not only does this help the farmer to better manage and strategize his operations, but it also allows product creators and service providers to implement a new model — one where farmers only pay for performance.

Bayer announced an outcomes-based pricing pilot this year, and in 2020 we expect to see more companies follow. Farmers deserve to only pay for products and services that positively impact their operations, and agdata will help make that a reality. 

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