Disruptive stocker technology
Early adoption has its rewards.
March 28, 2019
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“You’ve got to recognize disruptive technologies when they arrive and adopt them early or you’re not going to be here,” said Robin Falkner, DVM, of CattleFlow, near Nashville, Tenn. He is a consultant on feeder cattle health, management and procurement; recognized for using a multidimensional approach to continuous improvement, with the goal of helping clients benchmark in the top 25% for operational efficiency, profitability, and quality of life for man and cattle. Evaluating new and advancing technologies for potential use by his clients is one of his priorities.
Falkner illustrated his point at this year’s Cattlemen’s College during the Cattle Industry Convention by describing the adoption of hybrid seed corn in the 1930s. Yes, it has to do with thriving in the stocker business today, too.
Before hybrids—the result of crossing two inbred lines—corn farmers relied on open pollination. They produced their own seed.
“The average corn farmer had corn seed that had been handed down for generations,” Falkner explained. “They’d been selecting corn to fit their farms for years.”
Not so fast
Hybrids increased average yield, but they also reared plants with a stronger stalk, lending itself to mechanized corn harvest.
On the other hand, according to a 1950 paper from Iowa State University (ISU):
“The new corn produced by hybrid seed had a smaller ear than that to which Iowa farmers were accustomed. Neither did it have the nice symmetry, nor the large kernels. It was not, in physical appearance, the type of ear which would lead farmers to exclaim, ‘This is real corn!’
“The rising popularity of hybrids depended in part upon the discarding of traditional standards for evaluating ‘good’ corn. The idea that the old standards should be applied to the new corn was singularly difficult to dispel.”
Of course, the look of the new corn likely paled in comparison to the fact that using hybrids meant you had to buy the seed rather than propagate your own.
“The use of hybrid seed required a cash outlay—frequently over $9 per bushel,” according to the ISU paper. “In contrast, the use of open-pollinated corn required no cash expenditure, since a farmer’s previous crop provided the current year’s seed. During years farmers had no assurance they would break even, there was a strong tendency to avoid increased cash expenditures.”
Sounds plumb familiar.
Early adopters thrive
How farmers responded to this disruptive technology became a centerpiece of study by Everett Rogers, Ph.D., who grew up on an Iowa farm and watched the hybrid revolution first hand. He wanted to know why some farmers adopted hybrids so quickly, while others, like his dad, took so long. Just 0.1% of U.S. corn acreage was planted to hybrids in 1933. By 1942, less than a decade later, 45.7% of all corn acres were planted to hybrids; 98.9% of the acres in Iowa.
Later, as a professor at the University of New Mexico, Everett’s analysis helped him develop what became an iconic social science theory: Diffusion of Innovations. It gets at how new ideas gain traction and adoption.
You’re likely familiar with the categories Everett defined to described how quick or slow people are to adopt innovation. The Innovators have the idea and jump in first, representing about 2.5% of the population. Next come Early Adopters—about 13.5%—who typically recognize the need for and embrace continued change; they become the leaders of new innovation.
After that are the Early Majority (quicker than average to change) and Late Majority (more skeptical), which each account for about 34% of the population. At the tail end are what are termed Laggards (about 16%), those often bound by tradition.