Farm Strategy, LLC Utilizing Strong Genetic Traits to Increase Value of Grain Between Growers and End Users

Click here to listen to KC Sheperd talk with Andrew Hoelscher about Farm Strategy, LLC.

Farm Director, KC Sheperd, is visiting with the president of Farm Strategy, LLC, Andrew Hoelscher, about new genetic progress to increase the value of grain.

“We build ingredient-based supply chains,” Hoelscher said. “We connect end-user demand signals, and value propositions back down to the producer and manage the supply chain in between them.”

Farm Strategy is using the BX7 trait to cross into a set of varieties, Hoelscher said, which will increase the value of those varieties.

Regarding value in the marketplace, Hoelscher said it is important to remember that the value being created is in the consistency of the product, which includes the consistency of the delivery.

“If you are wanting to provide a consistent product to an end user, you have got to have a consistent supply chain,” Hoelscher said.

As for Farm Strategy’s role as a facilitator for the supply chain, Hoelscher said they are the ones who control the premium structure.

“It is a high-functioning trait when it comes to dough strength, so we measure it in stability, which could be known as tolerance as well,” Hoelscher said. “But that trait is able to strengthen dough inside of a bakery, make it perform more consistently when used properly, or displace other additives that the industry would typically use.”

“We are making sure that the value we understand at the baker is shared, and the incentives are aligned with the miller, with the grain handler, passed back down to the farmer, and then we also capture the value for OSU’s royalty structure for how they are getting paid for coming up with these good genetics. It is a secondary royalty structure for them,” Hoelscher said.

If we want to supply the consumer with better food, Hoelscher said some models must be challenged, which may be an unpopular opinion for some.

“There is a market that has been built on commodity for the past 100 years, and it is really good and it is really efficient, and people have made money on it, and people have personal incentives and bonuses that they get paid to play that game, and this is disruptive,” Hoelscher said.

As it is the first year of commercial production of BX7 for Farm Strategy, LLC, Hoelscher also talked about what the next steps will look like.

“We have to prove the commercial viability of it, we have got to turn around, stand up, what is the demand structure, so we are working through field-by-field testing protocols in which we are going to figure this stuff out and reduce some of the variability of it, where at the same time, building that next iteration of demand,” Hoelscher said.

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