Whether you are a big company or a small company, whatever you produce or sell, there is only one investment to make! This being RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT.

Today, it is essential to start experimentational processes to survive an exasperated economy, to have the possibility of growth, increase your business or reduce production costs without depreciating your product.

In addition to planning for the economic growth of the company, experimentation is also a means of evolving for companies that are able to settle into global economic changes.

Experimenting means having a long-term vision, understanding trends and new consumer needs. You don’t have to focus on what others are doing as everyone can do research and development.

It is clear that research and development means investing money and free time, two things that are very important to you in the agricultural sector.

Two examples are stated below to understand the importance of having a Research & Development department.

1. Medium to large companies producing services, far-sighted 15 years ago, started experimental, biological agriculture projects, investing economic resources and were strongly convinced that this was the way forward for the future. Thanks to these insights and the investments made, the research allowed us to realise and be pioneers in new defense techniques (eg. ISONET sexual confusion of ShinEtsu) or biological agro pharmaceuticals: example (COS-OGA of Fytofend).
2. Similarly, farms have also started organic, cultivation testing programs to start cultivating small areas, dealing with the market and production costs.

In agriculture, the producer or consumer of services have always been very distant with each other in the past, yet, in recent years the company policies have synchronized their language, understanding that the fundamental objective is the exchange of information and communication between them. These company mergers have been well received by the various mergers between chemistry and genetics. Generally, the big companies invest about 10% of the annual turnover in R&D.

This company philosophy has gradually began to enter even the medium to large farms where they use external research institutions.

Experimentation, as well as being expensive, can also be a waste of time if some fundamental points are not respected:

• The objective of the trial must be very clear
• Be rapid, few-yearly development action plans
• Create and not copy, do something new
• Improve something that is already done
• Manage, archive, process the results obtained
• Above all, remain with your feet on the ground and little science fiction

Research and Development means: dedicated staff only to carry out this type of work, relying on experienced personnel, training staff for this delicate operation, or, turning to external companies that do this as a skilled job.

We must not remain with the company in the status quo, sooner or later we will come to realise that things will not go as planned for several reasons. The reasons being are that Some big companies such as Nokia and Blackberry etc, etc, who have experienced years of economic boom, thanks to the sales of their products. However, these and other companies have not invested in experimentation, or may have invested poorly in experimentation and quickly left the market.

Even in agriculture, big or small companies, service seller or producer, all have to experiment at the very moment of growth or success, when things are on the up before the realization of a decline in business.