The information which can be found in the case study refer to the tale of a corporate entrepreneurship which manages to bring SVI (sustainable value innovation) to the agricultural business. The case informs the reader about the history of EADS-Astrium, which is a subsidiary of Infoterra and the surfacing of their new service, named Farmstar. This new product-service helps farmers manage their fields in an optimal way, thus reducing costs and negative influence on the environment, also increasing the yield of their crop.
The case also manages to explain how Farmstar (which appeared in an uncontested market space) managed to increase, via research and development as well as innovation. Farmstar successfully increased private benefits …show more content…
Money saver
In this case, Farmstar managed to help farmers save money when purchasing the product/service. The way Farmstar did it was through the reduction of the amount of fertilizers needed, as well as reducing the need for pesticides other than the areas when it was actually necessary;
2. Higher Effectiveness
The quantity of seeds was reduced and the flowering was guaranteed by Farmstar because it analyzed the optimum seed density for the biggest crop possible;
3. Green technologies
As with the money saver advantage, Farmstar helped farmers reduce the amount of pesticides used for their crops. By doing so, the impact on the environment was definitely improved and in addition, Farmstar provided the necessary information so that the farmer wouldn’t over-cultivate the soil.
4. Better care of the crops
The product/service constantly informed the farmer what the unproductive areas of the crops were and it helped farmers identify different areas for different types of crops by using yield …show more content…
It needs to be interpreted and explained in order for the farmer to understand what he is doing right or wrong. So all the yield maps or other data provided is useless if the person on the receiving end does not know how to interpret it.
4. Benefit cannot be evaluated
Another and final downside to precision agriculture is that it cannot take all the credit for improving the yield of the selected areas. There are too many variables to be taken into account and it stands out more clearly because of the variability of the weather, of crop diseases and pests.
Taking into account the disadvantages, one might think that it is not a completely useful product and its purchase may not be justified. However, Farmstar is sold through cooperatives. By doing this, it is more popular, because cooperatives help farmers gather useful information of similar crops from almost the same type of terrain. This excludes or minimizes the need for spending extra on supplementary information.
The popularity of the product/service can increase since the cooperatives can agree to use Farmstar. When doing so, all farmers involved in the cooperative will apply it out of solidarity, or simply to strengthen the cooperation between all