The global biologicals industry has developed remarkable scientific and technical capabilities. Translating those capabilities into scalable, consistent commercial success remains a challenge. The issue is not a lack of funding or expertise. Rather, the industry was built to advance the science first, with the supporting systems for distribution, adoption, and scale evolving later.<\/p>\n
Knowledge matters more in biologicals than in almost any other input category. A chemical herbicide does not demand depth of knowledge from the grower \u2014 expectations are known, proof is immediate, and the information for decision-making is already embedded in routine management.<\/p>\n
Biologicals are still a category in development. Results are probabilistic, often indirect, and depend on a product\u2019s management, application window, soil, and tank mix. Without an understanding of how the product behaves in the planting system, the grower cannot even interpret his own result.<\/p>\n
Marketing receives data from research and focuses mainly on three things: training material for its own team and the channel, demonstration plots, and communication.<\/p>\n
The problem is not who executes it but how the function was designed. In most companies, marketing grew as an extension of the technical area and was never built as a discipline of its own.<\/p>\n
In training, there is often a technical overload. The sales representatives leave knowing how to explain a mode of action and colony-forming units, but they do not understand how to give a 15-second answer on why the product costs more than the one beside it. What is missing is not the content, but the content built from the logic of the objection rather than of R&D.<\/p>\n
Demonstration plots are a scientific showcase. The industry\u2019s strongest demand-generation asset \u2014 local proof on the neighbor\u2019s land \u2014 is too often run as a research protocol, measuring what interests the researcher rather than what decides the sale.<\/p>\n
In communication, by-the-book campaigns are dense technical language or messages so generic that swapping the logo would change nothing.<\/p>\n
That is the costliest gap. The buyer cannot verify performance because results can only be confirmed seasons later. The brand carries the trust that a technical explanation cannot prove.<\/p>\n
The sector treats the company\u2019s brand as a visual identity. When a company\u2019s communication and reputation do not differentiate it, neither can the distributor \u2014 so the conversation collapses into price.<\/p>\n
The person in front of the grower usually works for a distributor, cooperative, or dealer. This person is not your employee, not dedicated to biologicals, and is carrying hundreds of products that are easier to sell and quicker to prove. That salesperson is often not only underinformed. He is contested.<\/p>\n
It is not enough that he was trained; he has to choose to use it. Training without buy-in produces someone who can explain your product but will not defend it. The effort of defending a new product in a developing category takes time, repetition, and patience to withstand several \u201cnos\u201d before the first \u201cyes.\u201d The easier sale wins by default.<\/p>\n
Products get sold when the product becomes the rational choice of someone who does not work for your company.<\/p>\n
For instance, the large chemical and seed companies hold the best distribution in agriculture and have declared major ambitions in biologicals, increasingly licensing the biological asset from outside. Even so, the market leaders in several relevant geographies \u2014 Brazil among them \u2014 are pure players. Channel presence is not access here. Recommendation is won through local demonstration, technical support, and repeated results.<\/p>\n
Rethink how your company creates educational materials, how you prepare your sales team, and how you leave your products in the hands of distributors. Here are four points to consider.<\/p>\n
So, the question for the next board meeting is not only how much we invest in R&D, but how much we are building the sales and demand-generation machine \u2014 with the same rigor we apply to research.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biologicals require more than scientific breakthroughs. Discover how stronger training, field proof, marketing, and distributor support can drive adoption.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2163,"featured_media":135151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1917,1786],"tags":[2018,1091,1879,54],"class_list":["post-135326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abg-update-feature","category-biologicals","tag-abg-september-2026","tag-biologicals","tag-contributor","tag-featured-home"],"yoast_head":"\n