Agricultural technology companies are leveraging their connections and industry experience to build their products more quickly.
Why it matters: The failure of some agriculture startup companies is tied to their inability to understand problems that farmers need to be solved.
Three companies with close connections to the agriculture sector answered questions about how they made sure their products met the needs of farmers during the AgTech Breakfast at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show 2025.
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Jesse Wiebe of Startup TNT, an organization that brings together investors in agriculture technology, hosted the panel discussion.
Colin Yates, who co-founded VETSon, a virtual veterinary app for farm animals, with his father, veterinarian Glen Yates, had a built-in connection to his major clients. Glen had years of experience in veterinary practice, so he understood the needs of animal healthcare providers.
“We didn’t have to go find a partner. We didn’t have to go find a business willing to do it,” said Colin Yates.
“It’s about having those relationships. And luckily, my relationship was with my father, who’s already had those 50 years of experience that we could develop and build upon that.”
Finding farmers to test and use VETSon’s service was easy, as a shortage of veterinarians created an unmet need for virtual veterinarians.
In fact, Yates found that farmers were pushing veterinarians to adopt the virtual veterinary technology.
“The farmers wanted this technology, the farmers wanted access and were willing to adopt it.”
Cattlytics founder Shari van de Pol invested time figuring out what help dairy farmers needed as she developed the numerous dairy data and programming services her company provides.
The computer engineer and large animal veterinarian developed trust with farmers, who then allowed her to analyze their dairy farm data. A revelation about a drop in milk production when cows were fed unfermented corn silage harvested in October was the first step, but the really valuable data showed the months it took for the cows to recover.
“That was the moment where I’m like, we can do so much here, we can do so much in such an interesting, complicated system,” she said.
Van de Pol developed trust with farmers with her technical expertise as a veterinarian, but she’s also a fiddler and played during dairy farmer gatherings, creating another level of connection to her future customers.
Matt Stevens of Finite Farms found another way to connect directly with farm-level demand and information for the apple thinning and harvesting machine — he bought an orchard.
Stevens called the orchard a “fixer-upper” based near Simcoe, Ont., but it enabled him to become a commercial apple grower. The investment in the game helped create relationships with other apple growers, including one of the leading apple growers in Ontario. That apple grower insisted that Stevens use their farms to test his machine, which he’s been developing through numerous iterations quickly.
The robot evolved from a first-generation idea to a functioning unit by the end of this past summer.
Wiebe said that the ability of company founders to have problems of their own to solve, such as Stevens needing more automation to run his orchard, is a test for those companies.
“If you’re a farmer here, and you’re looking for those technology companies that you may want to use on a farm, ask them, ‘are they from the industry?’”
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