Technology Moves Fast, Adoption Takes Time

One of my colleagues at our parent company, Meister Media Worldwide, covers the outdoor fruit growing industry and recently attended a technology field day featuring precision agriculture, robotics, and artificial intelligence. While the equipment was impressive, his biggest takeaway was that technology development may be advancing at breakneck speed, but growers are not necessarily adopting it at the same pace.

As one vendor put it, “We have to focus more on the customer because we’re going at such a fast pace that we’re not giving the customers a chance to keep up with us.”

I’ve noticed a similar dynamic in recent conversations with greenhouse lighting manufacturers. It’s another sector where the rate of innovation does not always mirror practical adoption in floriculture.

During these discussions, two key themes emerged.

First, technological capability alone won’t drive adoption. If a system cannot deliver a reasonable return on investment, growers will keep looking. What that ROI window should be is a separate discussion, but the larger point is that impressive technology still has to make financial sense.

Second, even if the numbers work, the technology has to fit the greenhouse. If it is too complex to operate, integrate, or troubleshoot, the value quickly becomes harder to justify.

Jeff Mastin, Director of Lighting Science and Products at TotalGrow Lights, put it this way: “There is potential for a combination of AI, advanced sensors, and adaptive lighting to work together in exciting ways to adjust lighting intensities, spectra, and/or directionality automatically and with improving efficiency. But in reality, it’s extremely complicated and would be a huge risk to automate prematurely.”

Kassim Tremblay, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Sollum Technologies, makes a similar point from a financial perspective.

“Growers know they need different types of light. Where it does not always work for floriculture is the financials, because of tight margins and access to electricity.”

The other factor, Tremblay says, is need.

“The demand has to be there to justify the cost. If a grower is already meeting all the demand he has, why innovate?”

Why Suppliers and Growers Need to Work Together

Growers and manufacturers need to meet in the middle, and that requires frequent communication. Whether through on-site visits or conversations at events such as Cultivate, suppliers need to understand how and when growers adopt technology so they can develop systems that fit real production environments. The same applies in the other direction. Growers need to be clear about the problems they are trying to solve and where additional complexity is worthwhile.

Customization can be valuable, but it can also introduce more variables into operation and troubleshooting. The goal should not be technology for technology’s sake, but tools that growers can realistically use, maintain, and justify financially.