AgTech in Nebraska: What can established top players in Irrigation Tech. teach startups?
March is national agriculture month! In honor of Nebraska’s #1 industry, we explored what established and new players in The Good Life state are doing to leave their mark in a field as old as humankind.
AgTech incorporates the use of aerial images, GPS technology, robots, and artificial intelligence (among others) into agricultural applications. These technology advancements allow producers to be more efficient, profitable, and conduct their farming operations in a safer manner, for both workers and the environment.[1]
Irrigation is a cornerstone of agriculture. As such, we dove deeper into a patent landscape of smart irrigation technology in the last 10 years and these were some of our findings.
As gravity irrigation systems gave way to pressurized irrigation systems being the preferred irrigation method at the end of the 20th century2, the adoption of information technology in the sprinkler and micro/drip irrigation systems has increased considerably. Figure 1 is a technology life cycle graph that helps us analyze the change in the number of patent application and patent applicants over the last 10 years of published applications. As shown below, both the number of assignees and the number of applications in the irrigation technology field have steadily increased in the last decade.
Figure 1 Smart Irrigation Technology Life Cycle
The patent landscape also showed the countries in which the earliest application of each patent family originated. As seen in Figure 2, the patent filings originating in China account for about 60% of all the patent filings in the field, followed by the U.S. with about 23%.
Figure 2 Top Countries of Origin
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2017 Nebraska had the most irrigated land among all the States, accounting for 14.8% of all irrigated cropland in the country.[2] It is no surprise then that the Cornhusker state is home to the headquarters of two of the most prolific patent filers of smart irrigation technology in the world: Valmont Industries and Lindsay Corporation. Both of these companies, founded over 65 years ago, have established themselves as top players of their field and have helped shape the agriculture industry around the world.
Figure 3 U.S. Acres of Irrigated Land by County in 2017
Our irrigation technology landscape also brought to our attention that even though 8 out of the 10 top patent assignees in the world are Chinese, the geographic protection distribution is limited to their country. These companies and research organizations have (by the most part) kept their filing strategies focused in China, as seen below in Figure 4.
Figure 4 Geographic Distribution of Top Assignees
As shown by the Nebraskan top players in irrigation technology, it is not enough to have decades of experience in a field if their technology is not evolving with the everchanging demands of their industry. Just as farmers produce the food that sustains the world, innovation is what feeds and sustains an industry. This is what the AgTech startup ecosystem in Nebraska is betting on: innovation in technology that will keep moving agriculture into the 21st century and through the challenges that arise with an ever-growing population and environmental concerns.
One noteworthy AgTech fund that is betting in Nebraskan innovators is Grit Road Partners. At the time of its inception, the founders of the fund saw that there was a need of an AgTech seed fund in the Midwest. Entrepreneurs in AgTech are provided with a support system composed of other agriculture producers that understand the challenges the industry faces and how the startups are aiming to solve them. At the time of writing this, Grit Road is working alongside 9 startups having portfolios across all branches of AgTech, from robot automation and AI to fertilization and irrigation software.
Are you interested in developing a holistic intellectual property strategy that helps you stay protected and competitive in the fast-paced AgTech industry? Contact us at adventip.com/contact
The patent landscape search used for this article was conducted for research purposes only and is in no way intended to be an exhaustive outlook of the industry discussed. Search results can vary depending on the terms utilized during searching, the search algorithm, the terms utilized in the documents being searched, and the reliability of foreign translations.
[1] https://www.nifa.usda.gov/topics/agriculture-technology
[2] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/irrigation-water-use/