Three years ago, Stratovation Group and our partners and sponsors started asking farmers a simple question: have you heard of biologicals?

83% said yes. That number didn’t shock us, but what came next did.

Awareness without adoption is just a market that hasn’t converted yet. And if you’re a biological product company, that gap is either your biggest opportunity or your most expensive problem, depending on how seriously you’re taking it.

We just finished the third version of our farmer-centric Row-Crop Biologicals Study. We surveyed 604 large row-crop farmers in a blind study with no brand influence. Over the course of three separate surveys using the same methodology, we can now track what’s actually changing. We can analyze trends rather than just describing a single moment in time.

One thing for sure is that the broad ag biologicals category is moving. Slowly in some places. Fast in others. 52% of large row-crop farmers now purchase at least one biological product, up from 37% in 2022. That’s meaningful category growth. But the companies winning within that growth aren’t always the ones with the biggest awareness numbers. They’re the ones who understand why farmers adopt, what makes them stay, and what makes them quit.

The farmers who stopped using biologicals told us exactly why. 57% said it wasn’t worth the cost. 47% said they didn’t think the product they used worked. That’s a clear proof and positioning problem. If your go-to-market strategy is only built around awareness and availability, you are one bad season away from losing a grower for years. Farmers demand proof from biologicals.

The farmers who are adopting and sticking with biologicals are the ones who saw improved return on investment. They told their neighbors. University Extension educators and peer farmers are now the most trusted voices in the biologicals conversation, both up 11% since 2024. Independent seed reps, once the dominant channel, dropped 17% in trust. The word-of-mouth engine is running. The question is whether it’s running for you or against you.

Bio-fertilizers saw the had the most significant perception shift of any category we tracked. Top ratings jumped 11 points in a single cycle, not because the market got excited about a new product, but because skeptical farmers moved to believers. That upward trend was followed closely by a shift upward in perceptions around bio-pesticides. The middle of these perceptions shifted positively to the right of the scale. That’s what real market momentum looks like when proof starts to accumulate in the field.

Three years of farmer data doesn’t tell you what to do, but it does tell you what farmers perceive to be true. And right now, the truth is that the biologicals category is consolidating around companies that can prove ROI, earn trust through the right channels, and build products that bring documented field performance.

The window to build that position is open. It won’t stay open forever.

Stratovation Group produced this study and works with biological product companies across research, strategy, and go-to-market. If you want to understand where your company fits in this picture, we’re the team to talk to.