Driving transformation in the age of climate, supply chain, and geopolitical risks
In today’s rapidly changing global landscape, disruptions have become the new normal. The agriculture and food industries sit at the epicenter of this volatility, and climate change, supply chain breakdowns, and geopolitical tensions have created a complex web of challenges that threaten yields, profitability, and food security. For agri-food enterprises, the upstream part of the value chain, where crops are grown, monitored, and managed, has emerged as the most critical yet under-digitized area.
While companies invest billions in downstream automation and logistics, the true opportunity for resilience and ROI lies in transforming upstream agriculture through AI for agriculture, data, and digital intelligence. Those who can predict yield variations, assess climate risk, and make precise sourcing decisions will not only protect profitability but also strengthen food security at scale.
A recent Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study commissioned by Cropin validates this thesis. The study shows how a global seed production and food processing enterprise achieved $3.9 million in benefits over three years after implementing Cropin Technology Solutions with an ROI of 161% and a net present value (NPV) of $2.4 million.
These results highlight what’s possible when agri-businesses embrace AI solutions for agriculture and digital transformation in agriculture to make farming and sourcing intelligent, predictable, and sustainable.
Understanding the challenge: Unpredictability, inefficiency, and data silos
The Forrester study begins by examining the pre-transformation reality faced by large agri-food enterprises. Like many organizations in the sector, the composite company in the study struggled with:
- Fragmented, manual data collection using spreadsheets or disparate systems.
- Incomplete visibility into crop performance across geographies.
- Inability to predict risks like pest outbreaks, weather shifts, and supply shortages.
- Poor demand and supply forecasting, leading to profit leakage.
In short, they lacked the intelligence layer necessary to make proactive, informed decisions. Without accurate, real-time data, organizations were forced into reactive management, often dealing with inefficiencies, wastage, and missed opportunities.
This is precisely the problem Cropin was founded to solve through its applications of artificial intelligence in agriculture and AI-based agriculture projects.
Cropin’s approach: Building intelligent, data-driven agriculture ecosystems
Cropin has spent over a decade building one of the world’s most comprehensive agri-intelligence platforms, connecting data from satellites, sensors, weather models, and ground-level inputs to generate actionable insights.
Through its Cropin Cloud platform, the company offers enterprises tools to digitize operations, drive predictability, and accelerate sustainability outcomes across their entire agri value chain.
The Forrester study showcases the tangible impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture, showing how digitization and AI-driven intelligence enabled the composite organization to unlock measurable financial and operational benefits.
Let’s examine the key outcomes.
Key benefit #1: Digitizing data collection improved efficiency by 90%
Before Cropin, farm managers spent countless hours gathering and reporting data manually. After deploying Cropin’s digital data capture tools, the organization reduced the time spent on crop evaluations from 120 hours to 70 hours, a 90% improvement in efficiency.
This translates to a three-year benefit of $2.1 million, as noted by Forrester.
More importantly, this efficiency gain goes beyond time saved. By standardizing data collection, Cropin helped the organization establish a single source of truth for all crop-related information, enabling faster decision-making, enhanced coordination between teams, and a foundation for predictive analytics in agriculture.
In essence, digitization became the first step toward intelligent agriculture.
Key benefit #2: Reducing profit losses through better forecasting
Accurate forecasting is the backbone of resilient food supply chains. Before adopting Cropin, the organization faced significant profit losses due to supply-demand mismatches, overproduction in some areas, and understocking in others.
With Cropin’s platform integrating data from multiple sources, the company gained the ability to forecast with greater accuracy. AI-powered predictive models helped align supply with market demand, reducing wastage and preventing lost sales opportunities.
The outcome: Forrester quantified a $1.6 million benefit over three years through improved forecasting accuracy.
In an era where climate volatility and market unpredictability often derail production planning, such predictive capability becomes a core competitive advantage and demonstrates the application of AI in agriculture at scale.
Key benefit #3: Improved yield visibility drove incremental profits
Yield visibility doesn’t just help optimize production; it also strengthens farmer and buyer economics. By deploying Cropin, the organization gained a deeper understanding of crop yield quality and variations across regions.
This allowed farm managers and procurement teams to negotiate prices more accurately, ensuring fair compensation for farmers while optimizing procurement costs. The result: incremental profits of $241,000 over three years.
Beyond the numbers, this improvement reflects how AI-based agriculture projects and AI solutions for agriculture can align economic incentives with sustainability goals, creating value for both enterprises and farmers.
Unquantified benefits: Sustainability, compliance, and livelihoods
While Forrester primarily focused on quantifiable financial metrics, the study also revealed a set of high-impact qualitative benefits many of which are central to Cropin’s mission of building a smarter, more sustainable food system.
These include:
- Enhanced compliance management: Cropin’s platform provides easy access to certifications and compliance records, helping organizations stay audit-ready across global markets.
- Ethical labor practices: By enabling transparent audits at the farm level, enterprises can ensure adherence to fair labor and wage standards.
- Sustainable sourcing: Cropin’s traceability and data-driven sourcing intelligence support regenerative and climate-smart agriculture goals.
- Improved farmer livelihoods: With access to real-time data and predictive insights, farmers benefit from fairer pricing, reduced input costs, and better yield management.
These outcomes underscore the dual impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture of Cropin’s solutions, driving both business profitability and societal value.
The investment: Costs and implementation
According to Forrester’s analysis, the three-year risk-adjusted present value (PV) of costs for the composite organization was $1.5 million. This includes:
- One-time implementation and data setup costs.
- Annual licensing and servicing fees.
- Internal maintenance and training costs.
Considering the $3.9 million in benefits, the resulting NPV of $2.4 million, and the ROI of 161% demonstrates that digital transformation in agriculture can be both financially rewarding and operationally sustainable.
Cropin’s modular, interoperable platform design, which integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise systems like SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics, also reduces adoption friction, enabling organizations to scale quickly across regions and crops.
Why digital transformation in upstream agriculture is non-negotiable
As the Forrester TEI study quantifies, the value of digitization in agriculture is both measurable and mission-critical. But beyond ROI, there’s a larger story unfolding.
The world is witnessing an unprecedented convergence of climate-driven disruptions, supply chain vulnerabilities, and geopolitical tensions. For global food and seed producers, these forces threaten not just margins but long-term resilience.
In such a volatile landscape, digital and AI-powered agriculture is no longer a choice; it’s a strategic necessity. The ability to predict yield outcomes, assess climate risk, optimize sourcing, and build transparent supply chains will define the next generation of agri-food leaders.
Cropin’s platform sits at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and intelligence — empowering enterprises to turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Forrester study reinforces that when businesses invest in upstream transformation, they can not only mitigate risk but also unlock millions in measurable value.
From data to decision to impact
Cropin’s 15-year journey across 100+ countries has proven that when agriculture is made data-driven, every stakeholder benefits — from field to boardroom.
For the enterprise featured in Forrester’s study, the impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture was clear:
More visibility. More predictability. More resilience.
Not through guesswork but through data, modeling, and collaborative digital ecosystems.
- $3.9 million in total benefits over three years.
- 161% ROI.
- 90% efficiency improvement in crop data management.
These numbers tell a powerful story, one that blends economic gain with environmental and social good.
As the agri-food industry navigates an era defined by climate, supply chain, and geopolitical risks, the need to digitize upstream agriculture has never been more urgent. Cropin’s AI-powered ecosystem intelligence platform is proving that transformation is not just possible, it’s profitable, scalable, and essential for a sustainable food future.
Ready to see what intelligent agriculture can do for your business?
Explore Cropin Cloud or connect with our experts to learn how AI-powered insights can accelerate your digital transformation journey, delivering measurable ROI while building resilience across your agri value chain.
