Ask the Expert

Mason Bennett
Vice President for North American Crop
AMVAC

ABG: Do you think entering the ag tech sector is important for crop protection companies?

Mason Bennett: For the ag technology sector, there is a certain segment of growers adopting the technology much quicker than other growers, but it’s happening. These ag tech adopters see the value of ag tech and will continue to invest in that space. Ag tech can help growers see a better return on investment by reducing the amount of crop protection and plant health products needed.

Companies offering ag tech need to prove some sort of return. This sector is forward looking and getting into it is getting ahead of the curve and giving your company a competitive advantage. So yes, it’s a space that is important.

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Arne Pingel
Head of Strategic Marketing 
Rovensa Next

ABG: Rovensa Next is merging these different companies from all over the world, with different cultures, languages, processes…what’s been your method to try to get everyone to work together?

Arne Pingel: The name of Rovensa Next was announced last year. We’re going through the process now of merging the companies, looking into the different processes, and how can we optimize them. Asking ourselves: Where did we do something good? Where were the struggles in the past? What did we learn and how can we share this information with all 12 companies?

The biggest struggle is having 12 different identities and merging them into one. I don’t have the magic wand that can do things overnight. It’s a question of time. It’s not just flipping the switch, but the time needed to bring people together. We are building a new company culture.

Processes is one important point to talk through.  We also need to talk to growers and explain to them that there’s a new name out there and possibly even a new face, because markets from salespeople or technical people can be differently divided. It has a lot to do with communication.

We need to decide together what do we want to achieve and how will we achieve it? With a strong point that it needs to be done together. We can’t do this in silos. Everyone needs to be integrated, including growers and distributors.

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Steve Hawkins
CEO
ADAMA

ABG: Can you talk a little bit about selecting AIs and how ADAMA is targeting markets?

Steve Hawkins: It’s stepping back and looking at our future demand plans in specific markets, so we’ve got the right asset footprint for the markets we see continuing to grow. The pandemic shifted the markets a bit, so we are focusing on the markets that we see as faster growing in the future.

On the innovation side, it’s retooling our innovation machine. In 2024, we’re ensuring that we have the right technology innovation model focused on the right market and especially thinking about farmer needs in these markets and how we can address their pain points. One of the key takeaways from the pandemic is that there’s what we call a value innovation, large-market segment that’s not completely commoditized.

It’s that big middle segment that we believe will grow strongly around the world. For that segment we are bringing unique mixtures and formulations, not new active ingredients. These products offer a high return on investment with tangible benefits to growers such as improved efficacy, enhanced product usability, and sustainability. We’re turning our active ingredients portfolio into an innovation engine by optimizing the performance of existing AIs with proprietary, advanced formulation technology platforms.  •

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