Title page
Contents
Abstract 2
Acknowledgements 2
1. Introduction 3
2. How agricultural innovation is increasingly complex 4
2.1. How AgTech innovation is different but similar 6
2.2. How AgTech innovation is increasingly complex 8
2.3. How innovation activities are increasingly concentrated into hubs 13
2.4. How private sector is increasingly conducting R&D 14
2.5. How sustainability concerns affect the AgTech landscape 18
3. How Colorado is harvesting AgTech from fertile US soil 19
3.1. Public mission to spur AgTech across the continent 20
3.2. Encouraging private sector investment 21
3.3. How having frontier capabilities implies diversity and sophistication 22
4. How São Paulo is building an ethanol empire 24
4.1. When public policy paved the diversification path 26
4.2. Increasing participation from the private sector 27
4.3. Market and technological opportunities set the way 29
5. How Nairobi is planting the seeds of change for African AgTech 30
5.1. Plant breeding capabilities 32
5.2. Collaborating with an agricultural global innovation network 33
5.3. How mobile banking platform is transforming Nairobi's value chain 35
6. Conclusion 35
Figure 1. Agricultural land and labor productivity 6
Figure 2. Linkages between the different value segments of the agricultural value chain 11
Figure 3. AgTech "A01" correlation with other IPC subclasses 12
Figure 3b. Top IPC subclasses in AgTech 12
Figure 4. Share of agricultural to non-agricultural forward citations 13
Figure 5. Comparison of agricultural R&D spending (in billions 2011 PPP) by the public and private grouped by country income-levels, 1990, 2000 and 2004 15
Figure 6. Global AgTech patent applications, 1950-2020 16
Figure 7. AgTech patent application by top six countries 17
Figure 8. Share AgTech applicant by type 18
Figure 9. Total AgTech patent filing in the US, 1950-2020 19
Figure 10. Total applications filed through plant patents and plant varieties equivalent protection in the US, 1990-2020 20
Figure 11. Complexity and relatedness of AgTech and other capabilities in the US, 2004 and 2020 23
Figure 12. Complexity and relatedness of AgTech and other capabilities in Brazil, 2004 and 2020 25
Figure 13. Total number of patent and utility model applications (left) and plant varieties equivalent application (right) in Brazil 26
Figure 14. Complexity and relatedness of AgTech and other capabilities in the Kenya, 2004 and 2020 31
Figure 15. Total patent and utility model, and plant varieties applications in Kenya 32
Boxes
Box 1. Defining agricultural technologies (AgTech) 3