Sowing the seeds of disruption

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/10/2020 (2032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Haplotech Inc., a small Winnipeg company that provides technical and consulting services to plant breeders, has been purchased by a large American company keen to make it a piece of its efforts to disrupt Big Ag’s seed business.

Silicon Valley-based Farmer’s Business Network Inc. (FBN) has acquired Haplotech as well as the Canadian canola breeding program of San Diego-based company called Cibus.

Haplotech is a 12-year-old company founded and led by Rale Gjuric, a well-known player in the tightly knit global seed breeding business.

In addition to running Haplotech, Gjuric recently retired from his position as director of the Plant Breeding Academy at the University of California, Davis, an institution renowned for its pioneering agricultural research.

San Carlos, Calif.-based FBN has a data and analytics platform that helps farmers — more than 14,000 in the U.S. Canada and Australia, covering about 45 million acres — with a range of functions, from pricing to marketing.

FBN’s tagline is that it is on “a mission to create a future of farming that puts farmers first.” It’s doing that by developing a data bank where its farmer members share their current costs for things like herbicides and seed and then help producers market their crops and find the best value on inputs.

In previous interviews, FBN’s founders spoke about how the ag input businesses have been dominated by a very few players and its goal is to disrupt that business. FBN is said to be looking to become the Amazon for farms.

Earlier this year, it dropped its $800 per year membership fee to encourage more participation.

Its members receive crop marketing services as well as access to a growing list of input products. In Canada, generic crop protection products are currently available and more products will be on the way.

The acquisition of Haplotech is part of the company’s efforts to develop more affordable seed varieties.

“Bringing more competition and choice to the seed market, extending an invitation to the rest of the industry to collaborate on development, and providing a straight path to market is the latest way FBN is working to help farmers maximize their profits and improve ROI,” said Breen Neeser, country manager of FBN Canada, based in High River, Alta.

Haplotech has done a few projects for FBN and Gjuric said he was not planning for the U.S. company to make an offer to buy the company.

“They started as a client and we got to know each other,” Gjuric said. “I honestly did not expect this (being acquired by FBN) to happen so soon but it was very welcome.”

He figures his current full time team of 14 that work out of the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods & Nutraceuticals will grow by 20 or 30 per cent over the next little while.

Gjuric said, “I imagine FBN will be interested to starting in the seed business and for that they will need product and we can help with the product development.”

Eventually the acquisition of Haplotech and the San Diego operation will position FBN Canada to eventually be able to commercialize canola seed, the second biggest crop in Canada and a market that has long been dominated by only a few industry players.

Haplotech, which has a research farm north of LaSalle as well as facilities in Chile, does work for clients around the world. Gjuric said it will continue to do third party work now that it is part of the FBN group.

Prior to its acquisition of Haplotech, FBN had about 80 employees in Canada, at High River as well as herbicide product terminals that include one in the Brandon area. It will be FBN’s first R & D facility in Canada

The company is a rising star in the ag tech world, recently raising about US$250 million, which valued the company at the time at about $1.75 billion.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca