Why 90% of AgTech stalls between proof and market — and the pattern that determines which ones don't.
Every year, billions of dollars flow into agricultural technology companies developing genuinely promising solutions — better genetics, more sustainable inputs, precision tools that could meaningfully change how food is produced. And every year, the overwhelming majority of them fail to reach the farmers who need them most. Not because the science fails. Because the commercialization does.
I have spent 25 years on the inside of this problem. At Monsanto, Bayer, and Valent, I led or contributed to more than 25 product launches — from the first reduced-lignin alfalfa trait to the first commercialized cotton technology targeting thrips. I have watched technologies with genuine field-level merit stall in the channel, die in the stewardship process, or dissolve into an approval-to-market gap that the company simply couldn't survive. I have also watched technologies succeed — and the pattern of why they do is more consistent than most founders and investors realize.
The gap is not where most people think it is
The conventional story about AgTech failure is that it happens at the proof stage — that the science doesn't hold up in the field, or that the regulatory environment kills the timeline. Sometimes that's true. But it's not the primary failure mode. The more common pattern is a technology that works, clears regulatory review, and then spends two to five years trying to get farmer adoption while competitors emerge and investor patience expires.
The gap that actually kills most AgTech isn't between idea and proof. It's between proof and the grower's purchase decision. That gap is as much about trust, timing, and channel as it is about efficacy. And it requires a completely different set of skills to navigate than the science did.
Farmers don't adopt new technology because it's better. They adopt it when they trust the people recommending it, when it fits the financial risk profile of their operation, when their agronomist has seen it perform in conditions similar to their own, and when the channel can actually deliver and support it. Those conditions don't emerge from a field trial. They have to be built — deliberately, sequentially, and with a clear understanding of how this particular market makes decisions.
The three points where most launches actually break
1. Positioning that speaks to agronomists, not farmers. Most AgTech companies write their value proposition for the person making the regulatory submission or the scientific peer reviewer. By the time it gets to a farmer, the language is either incomprehensible or it answers a question the farmer wasn't asking. I've rebuilt more commercial positioning than I can count — the discipline is translating a technical proof into an economic argument that a grower with a real operation can evaluate in a real conversation with their retailer.
2. Channel strategy built on assumptions, not relationships. Seed companies, crop protection distributors, and independent retailers are not passive pipelines. They have their own margins, their own relationships with growers, and their own opinions about which technologies are worth promoting. If you don't understand how your channel makes money — and what's in it for them — you will underperform relative to your field-trial results every time. The launch is only partly a story about the farmer. It's also a story about the retailer and the agronomist who stands between you and the farmer.
3. Stewardship treated as a compliance exercise. I spent years working on stewarded crop technologies — varieties with export approval requirements, insect resistance management mandates, channeling systems that determine which elevators will accept the grain. Companies that treat stewardship as a legal obligation rather than a commercial tool consistently leave value on the table and create channel friction that slows adoption. Stewardship, done right, is a competitive moat. It builds grower confidence, creates distributor alignment, and, in some cases — as with TruFlex canola during the China approval delay — turns a significant commercial liability into a launch advantage.
What the launches that succeed have in common
Across 25 product launches, the ones that outperformed expectations shared three things that had almost nothing to do with the technology itself.
First, they had a clear answer to the question: "Why does this farmer, in this crop, in this geography, buy this technology in year one?" Not "why will farmers adopt this generally" — that's a different and much easier question. The year-one buyer profile determines your seeding strategy, your channel alignment, your agronomist education program, and your launch geography. Companies that can't answer the year-one question precisely tend to spend two or three years discovering the answer empirically, at significant cost.
Second, they built grower trust before asking for a grower decision. This is what a well-designed field trial program actually does — not just generate data, but create visible proof in the communities where adoption has to happen first. The TruFlex canola launch was delayed by years of regulatory uncertainty in China. We used that time to build one of the most extensive pre-approval stewarded trial networks I've seen. When approval came, the grower confidence was already there. The launch was faster than anyone expected, precisely because the commercial work had been running in parallel with the regulatory process for years.
Third, they understood that the channel is not a single thing. A large ag retail chain and an independent agronomist-dealer operate on completely different economics, service different grower profiles, and respond to completely different commercial arguments. Technologies that tried to use a single channel narrative for everyone lost credibility with both. The ones that succeeded built differentiated programs — and gave retailers and agronomists reasons to advocate, not just distribute.
What this means for founders and investors
If you are building an AgTech company, the most important commercial question you should be asking right now is not "how do we get regulatory approval?" It's "who is our year-one grower, why do they buy in year one, and who is the agronomist or retailer who influences that decision?" If you can't answer those questions with specificity — by crop, by geography, by grower type — your commercialization plan is a hypothesis, not a strategy.
If you are investing in AgTech companies, the gap I described above is where most of your portfolio risk lives. The science gets funded because it's legible — you can read a trial report. The commercial gap doesn't get funded because it's messier and harder to diligence. But it's where the outcomes are actually determined. The question to ask any AgTech company in your portfolio is not just "does it work?" It's "can they actually get farmers to buy it, at the price they need, through the channel they have?"
Those are different questions. And the answer to the second one requires a different kind of expertise than the answer to the first.
Jon Riley is the founder of Riley Consulting, an independent commercialization advisory based in St. Louis. He spent 25 years at Monsanto, Bayer, and Valent leading product launches and managing commercial strategy across row crops, specialty crops, and forages. He grew up on a 2,500-acre operation in Southeast Missouri.