FieldView's Number of Nights metric

Do you have a friend you have not talked with in a few years and now you feel odd about reaching out because it has been some time? This feeling can be caused by anxiety, guilt, or fear of an awkward interaction due to the prolonged silence. The longer you wait, the harder it seems to reconnect.

Bayer’s reluctance to talk about FieldView engagement feels a bit like that.

I had the privilege to attend Bayer’s Innovation update in Chicago on June 17th, 2024. Bayer presented an impressive R&D portfolio with highlights from Preceon short stature corn, next generation of herbicide tolerant traits, next generations of soy insect traits, and advancement of new herbicides and fungicides with new modes of action and the role of AI in the process. This week’s update will only talk about my reflections around FieldView. 

Note: I was invited by the Bayer Crop Science team to attend this event in person. They paid for my accommodation and air travel to Chicago from San Francisco. The views expressed in today’s edition are my personal and independent opinions, and have not been reviewed by any Bayer employee.

Climate FieldView - what’s an acre?

According to Bayer, there are 250 million subscribed acres on the platform. A subscribed acre is an acre which is enrolled on the FieldView platform.

The Climate FieldView product has been around for quite some time now. For most products as they evolve, and become mature the metrics used to track their performance, engagement, and how they create value evolve over time.

For example, AirBnB evolved its metric over time,

“In its early days, AirBnb experimented with different metrics, such as revenue per booked unit or number of listings. However, it soon realized that these metrics didn’t capture the true essence of its business. This led them to shift its focus to nights booked – a data point that reflected the fundamental value they delivered to both hosts and guests.

As Airbnb continued to grow and expand globally, it faced new challenges that required a reevaluation of its North Star metric. The company recognized that simply focusing on nights booked was not sufficient to measure its impact and success in diverse markets. This realization prompted this organization to refine its North Star further, taking into account factors like booking frequency, customer satisfaction, and host retention rates in reference to the number of nights booked.”

Even within agriculture, Deere continues to evolve its metrics for engagement and sets them as goals / targets to be met, which are in line with the company strategy and business goals. For example, Deere has defined three types of acres - engaged acres, highly engaged acres, and sustainably engaged acres. As you can see from their sustainability reports, they have targets against different types of acres and are directly correlated with engagement with the Deere ecosystem.

Image from Deere Sustainability Report 2023

Engaged acres: Reflects the number of unique acres with at least one operational pass documented in the John Deere Operations Center™ in the past 12 months.

Highly engaged acres: Documentation of multiple production steps and the use of digital tools to complete multiple, value creating activities over a 12 month period.

Sustainably engaged acres:  Reflects the number of Deere & Company engaged acres that include incorporation of two or more sustainable John Deere technology solutions or sustainable practices over a 12-month period. This is a dynamic definition as new technologies and sustainable practices are developed. Current examples of sustainable technology solutions include AutoTrac™, Section Control, Harvest Smart™, and See & Spray™ solutions. Sustainable practices vary by region but include practices such as cover cropping and conservation tillage methods. We updated the methodology in 2023 for more accurate measurements of acres.

Subscribed acres only

After more than 10 years, just like AirBnB and Deere, one would expect some of the core digital farming metrics to evolve and align closely with the goals and strategy of the organization.

There could be multiple reasons for Bayer’s reluctance to give any additional details on engagement with FieldView, its impact on the sales of Bayer brand of seed and crop protection, regenerative agriculture adoption, or changes to lifetime value of the customer with Bayer etc.

1. The engagement might not be strong. But the longer they wait, the more awkward it is going to be to do so in the future, just like the friend you have not reached out to in many years.
2. There is no clear alignment internally on what the right metrics are.
3. With the rethinking of Bayer’s positioning as a regenerative agriculture approach and a systems based approach, they have not yet figured out what the right metrics are beyond subscribed acres.

Whatever the reasons might be, it is not a good look when they cannot share these metrics with the outside world.

Bayer is missing out on an opportunity to stake a leadership position, when it comes to talking about scaling regenerative agriculture, and driving outcomes through systems thinking.

The news release from Bayer, which accompanied the innovation update said,

“Bayer is on its way to scale regenerative agriculture on more than 400 million acres globally by the middle of the next decade. The company considers regenerative agriculture as an outcome-based production model, with improving soil health as a key component leading to increased resilience. Other key aspects include increased productivity; adaptation and mitigation of climate change through reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; increased carbon sequestration in the soil; maintaining preserving or restoring on-farm biodiversity; conserving water resources through improved water retention, reduction in water run-off, as well as improve social and economic well-being of farmers and their communities.”

Bayer has put a stake in the ground as to what they consider as the key outcomes based on regenerative agriculture, with soil health being a key component.  Each of the different aspects might not be applicable on every acre. They will vary based on the region, crop type, and other farming contexts.

Deere takes into account variations in their definition of a sustainably engaged acre, and are up front about how the definition might change a bit as new technology and new understanding evolves over a period of time.

Bayer has the opportunity to do the same.

Outcomes, systems thinking, and regenerative agriculture

Bayer Crop Science was intentional in linking almost every aspect of the innovation pipeline with systems thinking and regenerative agriculture.

They have a unique opportunity to help define some north star metrics for the company based on the principles of regenerative agriculture, and systems thinking.

How can they define an acre using the principles of regenerative agriculture, based on the use of Bayer products, products and services through their partnerships, and the measurement of outcomes delivered by using the FieldView ecosystem?

Can they tie them to the seed and crop protection?

Can they define a regenerative acre as an acre where one or more of the regenerative outcomes identified by Bayer were influenced due to Bayer and the Bayer ecosystem?

It spurs a set of further questions which Bayer needs to provide answers to for themselves.

What is the value to the enterprise of a regenerative acre based on different variations of outcomes? How much of that value can be captured by Bayer? What role does digital play in this context? Is the role of digital purely to drive more input sales? Which kind of products and services will lead to bringing those regenerative outcomes to life. How can Bayer capture the value associated with it?

A unifying north star metric, which is adjusted for regional and crop variations, can provide a framework to help guide Bayer’s strategy in product development, partnerships, go-to-market, and revenue models.

Most importantly can help them prioritize which efforts to prioritize, why, and how to prioritize them resulting in an aligned strategy and execution.

If we draw a parallel with AirBnB, the current metric from FieldView feels like being stuck at “number of listings” for AirBnB.