2021 Upstream Ag Insights Year In Review
Essential news and analysis for agribusiness leaders
Hi everyone
Thank-you to you all for reading and supporting Upstream Ag Insights in 2021!
I appreciate everybody that reads, shares and reaches out!
This will be a more brief review than my 2020 review, but I will spend more time on the 2022 Upstream Ag Insights Outlook!
To start out 2021 I wrote an outlook where I highlighted the four things I would be interested in following in 2021:
Carbon and Sustainability
Online Farmer Engagement & Customer Centricity
Data Understanding
Consolidation of AgTech Companies and IPO’s
All of these brought various interesting stories in 2021 including the Farmers Edge IPO along with the numerous SPAC’s occurring within ag along with the fact it was very apparent that carbon and sustainability have been something to watch this year as it has dominated the news, interest and announcements.
When it comes to engaging the farmer online and moving forward the understanding of data within the space I am uncertain this piqued as much interest or progressed forward as much as I anticipated.
Upstream Statistics
This weeks edition marks the 50th Upstream Ag Insights of 2021. On top I wrote 54 separate articles that includes analysis of annual reports or thoughts on concepts for the ag industry.
Including this edition I have shared >320,000 words in Upstream in 2021. For context, in 2020 I shared about 175,000.
This year Upstream did get longer both within the e-mail and because of writing on average over one separate article per week. The goal isn’t length, however, the feedback I receive is that the context and analysis is what subscribers are looking for the most. So I have tried to analyze more of the news, trends and events than in 2020 and will continue that in 2022.
Today, Upstream has almost 6200 subscribers, gaining almost 4000 new subscribers in 2021.
Upstream was viewed >500,000 times and on average is viewed 9000 times per edition, with peaks over 14,000 (note: these aren’t unique views).
In 2020, I had 175,000 views and an average viewership of 3300 meaning almost a 3x increase in readership in 2021.
The stand alone Upstream Ag Insights articles average 1200 views.
The average email open rate in 2021 was 48%, a decline of about 5% in absolute terms from the 53% open rate in 2020.
The links shared in Upstream on average entice 27% of you to click at least one link each week. This is a 3% decline from 2020, in large part I believe this is due to the increased writing I put into each edition.
While these numbers are modest, I am thankful all of you continue to open the emails, read, share with colleagues and reach out.
Upstream Ag Insights Elsewhere
In 2021 I was fortunate to collaborate with numerous organizations and be invited onto podcasts and video’s.
Here is a collection of them:
Reports
2021 Farm Tech Investment Report - AgFunder Collaboration
The Agtech Adoption Dilemma: Irrigation - Agthentic Collaboration
Podcasts
Look Up And Over the Fence - The Scoop Podcast
Croptastic Episode 16: Shane Thomas on the Future of Agribusiness - Innerplant
Growing an Audience with Shane Thomas - Foster
How Data, Technology and Systems Will Help Agriculture with Shane Thomas - Growing the Future Podcast
RealAg LIVE! with Shane Thomas on up-and-coming technology - Real Agriculture
Biologicals: snake oil or science, and how do we know? - Agtech So What?
The Agtech Adoption Dilemma: Irrigation - Agtech So what?
AgTech trends for 2021 with Shane Thomas of Upstream Insights - Prime Future
Articles
Digitizing Agriculture: It all starts with the farmer - CityAge
Top 5 Upstream Editions
The most read editions of this year are as follows:
Top 5 Most Viewed Separate Posts
The most viewed post this year was from February where I looked at the Farmers Edge prospectus prior to their IPO. This was viewed almost 6000 times.
My two least viewed articles were:
I am not surprised about the second one being lowly read (<300 views), I am not the right person to touch base on cybersecurity (though it helped me learn a bunch!). However, Technology Quotients and Resourcefulness: Catalysts for Agribusiness Success is one that I thought would get a few more reads!
Two years ago I wrote a post called Navigating the Next Decade of AgTech. I want to continually link back to this at the end of each year until 2030 to instil some humility in how far off one can be when attempting to look out a decade!
Thank You!
If you made it this far through my rambling, I’m impressed!
I cannot thank everyone that reads, shares and reaches out enough! I have learned a lot in the last year because of you and I hope in 2022 we can learn a lot more together.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to the industry organizations and groups like the folks at AgFunder News, Meister Media, Farm Journal, AgroPages, Successful Farming and more who continue to put together great news and content that I reference often (every week!) and the other individuals out there that write/record and share their thoughts and insights. This includes individuals like Tim Hammerich, Janette Barnard, Rhishi Pethe, Travis Martin, Carl Lippert, Niall Haughey and Walt Duflock just to name some.
Wishing everyone an extra safe Holiday Season! See you all in the New Year!
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