Agriculture market research: size it with USDA data, then call growers before planting

Agriculture market research for an agtech or farm-input company comes down to two jobs: size the market from USDA data, then talk to the growers, agronomists, co-ops and dealers who decide what gets used on a field. The data tells you how many acres and which farms are worth selling to. The conversations tell you who picks the product, who pays for it and when they decide.

Do the data first, because it shapes who you call. Then book the calls around the growing season, because a grower in the middle of planting is not taking your call. (Nor should they.)

The 2022 Census of Agriculture is the newest full count, and its headline number will mislead you

USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) runs the Census of Agriculture once every five years. The latest is the 2022 census, released on February 13, 2024. It counts every place that produced and sold, or normally would have sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products in the year.

By that definition the 2022 census found 1,900,487 farms on 880.1 million acres, down 6.9% in farm numbers from 2017. Average size rose to 463 acres.

Do not put 1.9 million farms in your pitch deck. The census farm economics highlights show how lopsided the count is:

The 105,384 farms selling $1 million or more are fewer than 6% of farms and sold more than three-fourths of all agricultural products. A market built on the headline count mostly counts small places that will never buy enterprise software.

Short version: count farms above a sales line, or count acres. Never count all farms.

Count the unit your price is based on

Pick the count that matches how you charge:

• Per acre (seed, crop protection, agronomy services, many software products): count acres of the crop, by state and county.
• Per farm (subscriptions, equipment): count farms above a sales or acreage threshold.
• Share of an input budget (a cheaper fertilizer product, a biological that replaces part of a chemical program): start from what farms spend on that input.

The census reports spending too. In 2022, U.S. farms had $424.1 billion in production expenses, including $36.1 billion on fertilizer, $25.6 billion on seeds and $23.6 billion on chemicals, according to the same farm economics highlights. Those are ceilings, and a new product competes for a sliver of one line.

For precision agriculture products, check adoption before you assume a blank slate. USDA's Economic Research Service reported in 2023 that automated guidance (autosteer) was used on well over half of planted acres of corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybeans and winter wheat. Yield maps, soil maps and variable rate technology covered only about 5% to 25% of planted acres for winter wheat, cotton, sorghum and rice. The report uses USDA survey data through 2019, so current adoption may be higher.

Market size research walks through turning a count into TAM, SAM and SOM. The farm-specific part is choosing the count.

Quick Stats gives you this year's acres and county detail

The census is a five-year snapshot. For the latest year, use Quick Stats, NASS's free query tool. Its Program filter has two choices. CENSUS covers the Census of Agriculture and its follow-up projects. SURVEY covers NASS's national, state and county surveys, which are updated through the year.

Use them for different questions:

• Census: farm counts by size and sales class, county structure, demographics, spending.
• Survey: current planted and harvested acres, yields and prices.

You can filter down to county level. The Quick Stats API needs a free key, returns JSON, XML or CSV, and caps each request at 50,000 records, so split a large pull by state or year.

Expect gaps in small counties. When a figure would reveal a single operation (for example, the only producer of a commodity in a county), NASS shows "(D)," which its census FAQ defines as withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual operations. Sum the counties you can see and use the state total as a check.

A made-up example: a nitrogen service for Iowa corn

Here is a made-up example. Priya runs a startup that tells corn growers when and how much nitrogen to side-dress, based on field sensors and weather. She plans to charge $4 an acre per season. The price and company are invented; the counts are real.

The 2022 census profile for Iowa shows 86,911 farms and 12,637,070 acres of corn for grain. It also shows why the farm count is the wrong unit: 23,029 Iowa farms (26%) sold less than $2,500 that year, while 38,113 (44%) sold $100,000 or more.

For the current year she switches to survey data. NASS's 2025 Iowa overview estimates 13,150,000 acres of corn harvested for grain. At $4 an acre, the Iowa ceiling is about $52.6 million a year, by our calculation.

That number assumes every acre buys. Priya narrows it next: the counties where her two dealer partners operate (county acres from Quick Stats), then the farms big enough to justify sensors. Census county tables give farms by acreage class, so she can count farms of 1,000 acres or more in those counties.

Then the questions the data cannot answer. Does the grower pick a nitrogen program, or does the retail agronomist? Who pays for the sensors? Does the dealer want to resell her service or see it as a threat to its fertilizer sales? (Selling a product that helps farmers buy less of what your distributor sells is a conversation worth having early.)

Talk to four groups, because each knows a different part of the sale

On many farms the grower pays, but an agronomist often writes the recommendation and a dealer or co-op often delivers the product. Talk to all four:

Start with five to eight growers, then two or three people in each other group. Pick growers from your target sales class and region. A 200-acre grower in Pennsylvania and a 5,000-acre grower in Nebraska are different markets that both say "corn."

Ask about the last real decision, not opinions about the future. "Would you use this?" gets polite yeses. "What did you change in your program this year, and why?" gets the truth. Find customers to interview covers finding the right person in an unfamiliar trade, and industry research covers learning the vocabulary first.

Time your calls to the crop calendar, and check NASS for this year's pace

Call growers when the field work stops. For Corn Belt row crops, aim for December through early March, and again in midsummer between side-dress and harvest. Skip planting and harvest entirely. Book dealers and agronomists in winter too, since spring is when their products go on the ground.

The season shifts with weather and region. NASS's weekly Crop Progress report tracks planting, fruiting and harvest progress for major producing states from April through November. Check it before you send invitations: if harvest is running late in your target state, wait two weeks.

Specialty crops run on different calendars, and a California almond grower's busy months look nothing like an Iowa corn grower's. Ask the first agronomist you talk to when growers in that crop and region are reachable.

For a public read on grower mood before you call, Purdue University and CME Group publish the monthly Ag Economy Barometer, released on the first Tuesday of each month. Its methodology surveys 400 U.S. producers a month whose annual production is worth $500,000 or more, focused on corn and soybeans, wheat, cotton, beef cattle, dairy and hogs. If sentiment is falling, expect more questions about payback.

Your next step

Pull your crop's acres for your target states from Quick Stats, then cut the farm count to the sales classes you can sell to. Then book a short call with an agronomist in that region before the next planting season, and ask what would make them recommend a product like yours.

Instant Expert can find people matching a description such as "independent crop consultants who advise corn and soybean growers in Iowa." You choose a call or a written answer, set the amount each person receives (Instant Expert's fee is added on top), and pay only if someone books or answers. Start with the directory pages for agriculture consultants, agricultural input distribution experts and precision agriculture adoption experts.