The key points were:
- Farmers need to think about their customer and the customer’s customer when thinking about their business strategy.
- Farmers need to hold more than one picture in their head when thinking about their future so they can alter their strategy as it becomes clearer which picture is emerging in the real world.
- The future of food and shopping are changing along multiple lines with direct delivery systems increasing, the major supermarkets fighting back with technology and new designs, and new innovations such as the Impossible Burger changing the relationships in the supply chain.
- New technologies such as drones, data sensors, and machine learning are enabling farmers to improve their productivity and supply more information to the supply chain at the same time.
- Farmers should lead their strategy with the customer value proposition in mind, not lead it with the new technologies that are increasingly becoming available. Ask how technology can meet customer needs first.