Chuck Jenkins

How can information technology make seed companies more successful?

Simply put, a seed company’s success depends directly on the grower and his/her seed purchasing decisions. If a grower feels like their crop will be most successful and profitable by growing a specific hybrid or variety from a certain company, they are going to purchase that seed for the upcoming season. The deeper question is how does the grower learn about all of the seeds available today and the trait/characteristic differences among them to fuel his/her choice?

Information Technology. Agriculture is knowledge based, dependent on the rapid transfer of information.  The most common avenues for providing information were once by word of mouth, radio spots, fact sheets and print ads. Radio spots, fact sheets and ads are static, and word of mouth, while not static, often incorporates a personal bias. In stark contrast to historical advertising and information dissemination, more than 50% of today’s commercial producers over 65 years of age are looking to the Internet as a resource for farming information.**  Naturally those numbers climb as the producer age decreases, resulting in 80%+ producers under 45 years of age are online.  Growers are still buying from their local dealer, but are using the Internet extensively to garner information about new technologies and products available to the industry.

Information technology, such as the Internet, enables companies to make their professionally researched and up-to-the-minute seed information available to the world. Some websites may even allow for interactive solutions by enabling the grower to enter location-specific information to help determine the seed that best fits their needs. In 2004, 97.8% of retailer survey respondents* say they are avid Internet users, primarily for information gathering. In fact, 77% of respondents** indicated they spend more time evaluating new farm technology. By utilizing the World Wide Web those evaluations can be made less complicated by quickly referencing broad and convenient sources of information as well as simplifying the purchasing process.**

Technological advances in information distribution can help make seed companies more successful.

What specific solutions does CDMS offer?

In a word, SeedSearch. With 21 years of experience in the ag software industry, CDMS has learned that growers and dealers utilize the Web to better inform themselves, a lesson supported by recent e-business surveys. CDMS recognizes the seed dealer/salesman as a key component when it comes to decisions about which hybrid/variety should be purchased, and by providing a grower/seed professional with free access to a fast and easy-to-use Internet-based search application that delivers and compares seed data from multiple seed companies. SeedSearch saves the grower time, valuable time that can be spent in the field rather than researching what brand he/she would like to eventually plant.

SeedSearch supports seed companies by distributing their product information efficiently, effectively and consolidated into a single format. Visitors to the site may search by company, crop, state, county, seed technology (Clearfield, LibertyLink, RoundupReady, etc.), traits, seed treatments, etc. Input selections can even be crop-specific such as relative maturity, type (food grade vs. forage) and more. Search results are delivered as a list including each seed that meets the specified query.  There are also links to yield data and a particular seed company’s own web site where additional information may be obtained.

By providing a service that matches growers’ specific needs with seeds currently available in the marketplace, SeedSearch enables growers to make informed and unbiased decisions.    

*In the Fall of 2001 Trimble Navigation supported a survey put together and administered by both Meister Publishing’s CyberDealer and Purdue University Center for Food and Agricultural Business. This survey was referenced in Meister Publishing’s CropLife Technology March 2004 issue on pages 24-26.

**2,300 producers were interviewed in the Purdue University / Top Producer 2003 Commercial Producer Survey. This survey was referenced from Doane Agricultural Services’ March 2004 issue of AgriMarketing magazine, page 30.

Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive, unbiased platform for the seed industry with the most current information available in a fast, easy to use format that allows the user to search hybrids and varieties by a number of characteristics. 

For more information about SeedSearch, please visit www.seedsearch.com
Chuck Jenkins can be reached at chuck@cdms.net

May 2004