{"id":10987,"date":"2016-11-04T03:28:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T07:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/reaching-beyond-the-low-hanging-fruit-indigo-agricultures-climate-change-dilemma\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T03:28:02","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T07:28:02","slug":"reaching-beyond-the-low-hanging-fruit-indigo-agricultures-climate-change-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/reaching-beyond-the-low-hanging-fruit-indigo-agricultures-climate-change-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching beyond the low-hanging fruit \u2013 Indigo Agriculture\u2019s climate change dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indigo Agriculture\u2019s mission is to understand how a plant\u2019s microbiome improves resilience and ultimately crop yield in the face of industrial farming and abiotic stress factors exacerbated by climate change [1].\u00a0 In the class wrap-up, CEO David Perry warns that \u201cstrategy cannot be ahead of execution.\u201d \u00a0Licensing microbe cultures, conducting proof of concept studies, gaining regulatory approval, and filing patents are the execution piece.\u00a0 The strategy is deciding which of the stress factors to focus on and which geographies to expand into next.\u00a0 However, climate change will challenge Indigo in two ways \u2013 stretching the strategy and stressing the execution<\/u>.<\/p>\n

To understand how climate change will stress Indigo\u2019s execution, we first need to understand Indigo\u2019s product development process (Exhibit 1<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Exhibit 1: From observing robust crops to identifying and commercializing the responsible microbes <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Find a crop that for some reason grows well in stressful conditions (such as drought, cold, etc).<\/li>\n
  2. Steal its seeds (or ask for them nicely), as inside the seeds contains the coveted microbes [2].<\/li>\n
  3. Smash the seeds, isolate the microbes, sequence their genomes to determine something we\u2019ll call the microbiomic signature<\/em> of the crop.<\/li>\n
  4. Use machine learning to figure out which microbes are missing from the control plant (grown in modern, industrial conditions), as the missing microbes, may be explaining why the control plant is not as strong against certain stresses [3]<\/li>\n
  5. Bench scale development \u2013 make sure the microbes are safe and help the seedling grow<\/li>\n
  6. Internal field trials (greenhouse experiments), and external field trials with real farmers<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The product development process above is being codified by Indigo into a stage-gate approach, which makes sense to Indigo as they seek to reduce iterations, minimize uncertainty, and decrease lead time from promising leads to commercialization [4].\u00a0 To further decrease lead time, Indigo has also licensed more microbes from academic collaborators (both in the US and abroad), outsourcing steps 1-3 and starting at step 4.\u00a0 The drawback of the above approach is that by outsourcing steps 1 and 2, which require a lot of people to do the dirty work of collecting seeds from sturdy crops in far-away places, Indigo has less control over potential opportunities to respond to climate change in more severely affected areas where a country\u2019s agricultural output and food security rely on a broadening, not narrowing, Indigo\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n

    One such country is Nepal.\u00a0 While Indigo\u2019s seeks to provide value to enterprising US farmers, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that those living in Asian developing countries with low altitudes will face the most severe effects of climate change [5].\u00a0 In Nepal, farmers faced issues not only with drought, but also with floods, which submerged farmers\u2019 rice paddies and increased insect attacks [6].\u00a0 The dire need for these farmers to earn a higher yield on their crops could strongly pressure Indigo to expand its product lines to include coated seeds that provide resistance to a different condition (such as flood inundation) for a new product (such as rice which feeds over half of the world\u2019s population).<\/p>\n

    But before that happens, Indigo will need to widen its product development funnel to support a greater and more diverse number of samples from abroad.\u00a0 As hiring personnel to constantly canvass the world for sample collection will certainly harm Indigo\u2019s focus on execution, one option would be to partner with scientists and students at the Agriculture and Forestry University in Nepal, the only one of its kind in the country, and send representatives from Charlestown to learn the challenges that the local farmers are facing, talk about the promise of microbes, and teach students and faculty how to collect seeds from promising resilient crops and relevant control crops for further genomic testing.\u00a0 Given the relatively high costs of ~$200 to sequence these microbe genomes today (Nepal has a GDP\/capita of $694 USD), Indigo will need to assume parts of Step 3 and Step 4 of Exhibit 1 <\/strong>to identify promising microbes [7].\u00a0 Indigo should also strongly consider hiring climate scientists to model which geographies, conditions, and crops will help Indigo make the biggest financial and societal impact going forward.\u00a0 By collaborating with agriculture universities in areas predicted to be hit hardest by climate change, and adding climate scientists to the staff, Indigo can expand its strategy while putting as little stress on its execution as possible and more closely fulfilling its founders dream to feed the world. (words 743)<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    References:<\/p>\n

    [1] Iansiti, Marco, Michael W. Toffel, and Christine Snively. “Indigo Agriculture.” 性视界 Business School Case 617-020, October 2016.<\/p>\n

    [2] http:\/\/www.grasslanz.com\/understandingthescience\/novelendophytetechnologies.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n

    [3] https:\/\/www.indigoag.com\/pages\/what-we-do<\/a><\/p>\n

    [4] Iansiti, Marco, Michael Toffel, Kerry Herman, and Julia Kelley. “Product Development Fundamentals.” 性视界 Business School Technical Note 617-024, October 2016.<\/p>\n

    [5] Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability \u2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http:\/\/www.ipcc.ch\/report\/ar5\/wg2\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    [6] Climate change threatens Nepali farmers’ livelihood and nation’s food security. ClimateWire, 10\/18\/13 http:\/\/www.eenews.net\/stories\/1059989036<\/a><\/p>\n

    [7] https:\/\/www.scienceexchange.com\/services\/whole-genome-seq<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    come find out how Indigo agriculture might go from cotton and wheat in the US to the global stage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1947,"featured_media":10991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[1243,28,424,1671],"class_list":["post-10987","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agribusiness","category-agriculture","category-social-impact","category-strategy"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/climate-change-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\nReaching beyond the low-hanging fruit \u2013 Indigo Agriculture\u2019s climate change dilemma - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/reaching-beyond-the-low-hanging-fruit-indigo-agricultures-climate-change-dilemma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reaching beyond the low-hanging fruit \u2013 Indigo Agriculture\u2019s climate change dilemma - 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