b'the best-in-class, they will leave you. They are the ones charging the hill, and I think5 DRIVERS OF CHANGEthis group will be the largest group in agriculture come 2040, so you need to beWhen Brett Sciotto and his team set out to identify the farmer of 2040, they needed to understand the type of thinking about them. environment farmers would be working in and the forces at play. This can be summed as:When compared to the other groups, Sciotto said the enterprising business T echnology and agtech enable fully autonomous supply chains and farming operations.builders over-index on growth potential, S upply chain access requires stringent farm management practices and marketingsustainable, traceable, business IQ, a willingness to change andtransparent, general commodity markets are a last resort.financial health. They way over-perform when it comes to open mindedness, asScientific advances gain general public acceptance for gene editing in animal and plant agriculture. Alternative they are very adaptable and very willingproteins.to surrender independence to get to the next level. They are very entrepreneurial.Regulation by retailers, food companies and the supply chain will be more impactful than government Regardless of the group a farmerregulation.comes from or falls into, Sciotto said theyHighly consolidated, streamlined industry and unified agrifood value chain.all agree that farming and agriculture are fundamentally changing and that to be successful, they are going to have to fundamentally change, too. more than 75% of agricultural output inadding that his number of 75,000 is opti-Some farmers, Sciotto said, admitthe United States.mistic. These big farmers arent just going that they arent going to change orThis means you are going to haveto be farming across state lines. They will worry they wont be able to navigate thereally big farms and a whole lot of smallbe farming across country lines. They will changes. Today 105,000 farms produceones, he said. We are seeing thisbe multinational farmers.SWthree-quarters of the output of ag value,bifurcation of farms, that collapse of the he said, predicting that by 2040, theremiddle, and we are seeing this right now.will be fewer than 75,000 farmers doingThat will accelerate, Sciotto said, SEPTEMBER 2019SEEDWORLD.COM /51'