TECHNOLOGY Bloomberg Businessweek March 11, 201919ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MELHUISH. DATA: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Of course, Bayer’s and DowDuPont’s seed offer-
ings can command high prices because they work.
Many of the farmers gathered in Memphis say
they’ll seriously consider switching to an unknown
seed offering only if it performs well in the region
this year. Some aren’t waiting. Trent Dabbs, whose
family farms 3,000 acres in Arkansas, is planting
the majority of this spring’s corn acreage with F2F
Genetics Network seed. That will cut his seed bill
by more than half and allow him to sell his grain
at a premium because it isn’t genetically modified.
“When you get the seed price right upfront and
you see what you can save,” Dabbs says, “that’s a
big deal to me.”—Elizabeth DunnTHE BOTTOM LINE FBN has raised almost $200 million to help
decode the pricing mysteries of the seed business. It now seeks to
sell cheaper, mostly non-GMO seeds to farmers.you do all the work and take all the risk.” Around
the room, baseball caps wag in agreement.
Baron is co-founder of Farmers Business
Network Inc. (FBN), a five-year-old startup that
says it can do for corn and soybean seed what
Warby Parker has done for eyewear. For most
farmers of such grains, genetically modified seeds
with patent-protected advantages (weed resis-
tance, insect immunity) have become the largest
variable expense—and one over which they have lit-
tle control given consolidation in the market. U.S.
farmers spent $22 billion on seeds last year, 35 per-
cent more than they did in 2010, and that increase
can’t be explained by additional acreage. The prod-
uct is sold through local dealers or retailers—almost
never online—and prices typically aren’t posted.
Since the mid-1990s, farmers have had to buy
patented seeds from the likes of Monsanto (now
owned by Bayer AG) and DowDuPont Inc. to stay
competitive with their neighbors. Today, those two
companies account for 72 percent of corn and soy-
bean seed sales in the U.S., according to FBN data,
and even most independent seed companies have
to license the same patented GMO traits for their
competing products. “The trait originators get to
set the rules,” Baron says. His solution is non-GMO
seed that his company believes can compete with
the brand names, thanks to advances in breeding,
chemical solutions, and farming techniques.
To keep prices down, Baron’s company is devel-
oping seed directly with plant breeders, cutting
out a string of middlemen. Today, FBN’s non-GMO
corn seed, sold under the brand name F2F Genetics
Network, ships directly to farmers for $115 a bag,
compared with an average price of $270 a bag for
GMO seeds. But FBN isn’t opposed to GMO prod-
ucts. As Bayer’s and DowDuPont’s patents begin to
expire over the next few years (a lucrative one just
did), Baron says he’ll incorporate those GMO traits
into FBN products, too.
“We’re glad to see new entrants investing in
agriculture technology and creating more tools
than ever for farmers,” Bayer said in an email.
DowDuPont didn’t respond to a request for
comment.
FBN, which has raised almost $200 mil-
lion from investors including Temasek, Kleiner
Perkins, and GV (formerly Google Ventures),
started out as a sort of Glassdoor Inc. for farmers:
Members upload their own farm data in return for
access to aggregate information from the rest of
the network, which numbers almost 8,000 farms
across the country covering acreage the size of
Pennsylvania. The wealth of data has added some
rare transparency to the seed industry. Farmerscan now see they’re paying vastly different prices
for the same product, with some laying out twice
as much as others depending on scale, location,
haggling skills, and other factors. They can also
check how well a variety performs across hun-
dreds of real farms. Baron, previously a program
manager at Google, and his co-founder, Kleiner
Perkins partner Amol Desphande, got the idea
after talking to a group of farmers who were work-
ing on a data-sharing project.
Farmers need every advantage they can get.
Despite rising productivity, U.S. farm income has
slid 46 percent in the past five years as world-
wide gluts in commodities such as corn and soy
have driven prices down. FBN members say the
site’s pricing data have given them new negoti-
ating power. As many as half of U.S. seed retail-
ers expected FBN to hurt their business last year,
according to Bank of America Corp.○ Net farm income
in the U.S.1998 2018$120b600