INNOVATION ▶▶▶ Jeroen Leffelaar
‘Start-ups important for innovation in agri’
Agrifood companies are starting to realise that their own R&D is not enough to keep up. That is why start-ups are so important for innovation, says Jeroen Leffelaar of Rabobank.
BY CAROLIEN KLOOSTERMAN F
or true innovation, many companies need fresh ideas from outside the business. “That is why start-ups in the agrifood sector are so important”, says Jeroen Leffelaar, managing Director Food & Agri Innovation at Rabobank
and one of the founders of F&A Next. Mr Leffelaar notices that agri food companies are increasingly starting to realise that the fine tuning of their own research and development is no longer sufficient to keep up. Starts-ups can help. Although the agrifood sector differs from other sectors re- garding innovation speed and implementation, many investors and start-ups are attracted to the agri and food sectors. In the build-up to the next F&A Next, an annual event that brings together start-ups, investors and companies (corporates) in Wage- ningen, the Netherlands (May 15-16) we caught up with Mr Leffe- laar to talk more about the need for innovation and the role of start-ups in this.
“The need for innovation in agrifood is bigger than ever”
Why does innovation in the agrifood sector differ from other sectors? “For starters, the agrifood sector depends on natural influences
12 ▶ FUTURE FARMING | 22 February 2019
set by mother nature such as the growing seasons. This means that innovation takes more time than in other sectors. In addition, the agrifood sector is a bit reserved. People in the sector, farmers for example, prefer to wait with the implementation of new prod- ucts, services or technologies until it is confirmed that the tech- nology works and contributes to a higher yield. Don’t get me wrong, they want to innovate, but not overnight and it really needs to pay off. They won’t take a gamble on their farm when implementing new farming methodologies.” “Additionally, laws and regulations are impacting the pace of in- novation and this is specifically the case for the agrifood sector. Take food safety for example. The European Union is not very mo- tivated to reduce the boundaries in law and regulations to stimu- late innovation in agri and food. The new regulations on insects as food or feed took – and still takes – a long time for example. Also, consumer acceptance is an important factor regarding innovation speed. This has led to the fact that the sector has been under in- vested in for a long time and compared to other industries, a complex, pretty inefficient sector with a low rate of digitisation.”
Why is innovation in the sector so important? “The need for innovation is high, fuelled by a growing global pop- ulation and an increasing purchasing power in emerging markets. These trends are likely to further boost the demand for meat, amongst others. Other constraints include limited natural resourc- es, climate change, and the bare fact that about a third of all food (ingredients) is wasted along the value chain (from farmer to con- sumer). Current food production systems are simply unsustaina- ble, even with today’s population. In other words, the need for in- novation in agrifood is bigger than ever. We also need to be better in creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to disrupt an ineffi- cient industry by creating and implementing new solutions and
PHOTO: HERBERT WIGGERMAN
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