How to Market to Farmers?

AviationBroker · May 9, 2018

Hello,

I live in the far North-Western suburbs of Chicago. West of my house, all the way to Iowa City, there are farmer's fields for as far as the eye can see. I would like to start a business that provides NDVI services to the endless pool of farmers in my area. However, I cannot think of an efficient way to market to them. I thought about a mailer, but how would I obtain their addresses? I do not think that they would be on a list that I could purchase. I thought about going to agriculture trade shows, but that does not seem very efficient to me.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Joe Ernster

TreeLineView · May 9, 2018

I'm a city slicker, but my brother-in-law is a large cattle rancher. Visit him once a year and seem to spend most of our time in local ranch/tractor supply store. Might post something there

AviationBroker · May 9, 2018

thanks! @TreeLineView

Outta Control · May 9, 2018

The way you can get to work with Agriculture is through the PCA (Pesticide Control Advisor). These are the guys that work with farmers to make sure to control the amount pesticide to the crop to provide the biggest yield.

Drone University USA has an in-house expert in Agriculture as he world for a large Agi company and flies sUAS for them.

AviationBroker · May 9, 2018

@Outta Control - I have never heard of a PCA. Thank you very much for the input!

Outta Control · May 9, 2018

Well looks like I have to retract my post. It seems the PCA is only limited to CA agriculture, so scratch my post an d I do not know how to engage with a farmer in your state.

BigAl07 · May 9, 2018

I'd suggest you look into local "Co-Op's" in the area. This is an excellent resource if you have one local.

Another point of contact would be a local University Extension Office if you have one in the area. They can really help quantify your results and demonstrate how it can benefit the farming community as a whole.

Get in good with them (leave samples of your work) and show them how you can either:

A) Solve a problem they already have
B) Help them to avoid potential problems (water pooling, water not reaching all areas)
C) Help them to verify operations (fertilizer applied equally around etc)
D) Show them how your final product can save money and or time

krusen · May 12, 2018

My plan is to approach independent crop consultants and contract through them. I don't feel qualified at this time to approach farmers directly since I have no training in agronomy.
I've been working on the co-op angle as well with no success. Have been told by a co-op manager to talk with the major seed companies.

ndroll · May 12, 2018

With commodity prices so low right now, it's a tough sell to get a farmer to invest even more dollars when they can't really see what benefits you bring. I've been waiting for some good use cases and I think we will get there eventually. We invested in a Sentera sensor for our P4P and hope to educate ourselves and farmers on good value use cases. Right now, I think the biggest opportunity is for hail insurance claims.