In today’s rapidly changing global landscape, disruptions have become the new normal. The agriculture and food industries sit at the epicenter of this volatility, and climate change, supply chain breakdowns, and geopolitical tensions have created a complex web of challenges that threaten yields, profitability, and food security. For agri-food enterprises, the upstream part of the value chain, where crops are grown, monitored, and managed, has emerged as the most critical yet under-digitized area.

While companies invest billions in downstream automation and logistics, the true opportunity for resilience and ROI lies in transforming upstream agriculture through AI for agriculture, data, and digital intelligence. Those who can predict yield variations, assess climate risk, and make precise sourcing decisions will not only protect profitability but also strengthen food security at scale.

Understanding the challenge: Unpredictability, inefficiency, and data silos

In short, they lacked the intelligence layer necessary to make proactive, informed decisions. Without accurate, real-time data, organizations were forced into reactive management, often dealing with inefficiencies, wastage, and missed opportunities.

This is precisely the problem Cropin was founded to solve through its applications of artificial intelligence in agriculture and AI-based agriculture projects.

Cropin’s approach: Building intelligent, data-driven agriculture ecosystems

Cropin has spent over a decade building one of the world’s most comprehensive agri-intelligence platforms, connecting data from satellites, sensors, weather models, and ground-level inputs to generate actionable insights.

The Forrester study showcases the tangible impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture, showing how digitization and AI-driven intelligence enabled the composite organization to unlock measurable financial and operational benefits.

Let’s examine the key outcomes.

Key benefit #1: Digitizing data collection improved efficiency by 90%

Before Cropin, farm managers spent countless hours gathering and reporting data manually. After deploying Cropin’s digital data capture tools, the organization reduced the time spent on crop evaluations from 120 hours to 70 hours, a 90% improvement in efficiency.

This translates to a three-year benefit of $2.1 million, as noted by Forrester.
More importantly, this efficiency gain goes beyond time saved. By standardizing data collection, Cropin helped the organization establish a single source of truth for all crop-related information, enabling faster decision-making, enhanced coordination between teams, and a foundation for predictive analytics in agriculture.

In essence, digitization became the first step toward intelligent agriculture.

Key benefit #2: Reducing profit losses through better forecasting

The outcome: Forrester quantified a $1.6 million benefit over three years through improved forecasting accuracy.

In an era where climate volatility and market unpredictability often derail production planning, such predictive capability becomes a core competitive advantage and demonstrates the application of AI in agriculture at scale.

Key benefit #3: Improved yield visibility drove incremental profits

Yield visibility doesn’t just help optimize production; it also strengthens farmer and buyer economics. By deploying Cropin, the organization gained a deeper understanding of crop yield quality and variations across regions.

This allowed farm managers and procurement teams to negotiate prices more accurately, ensuring fair compensation for farmers while optimizing procurement costs. The result: incremental profits of $241,000 over three years.

Beyond the numbers, this improvement reflects how AI-based agriculture projects and AI solutions for agriculture can align economic incentives with sustainability goals, creating value for both enterprises and farmers.

Unquantified benefits: Sustainability, compliance, and livelihoods

While Forrester primarily focused on quantifiable financial metrics, the study also revealed a set of high-impact qualitative benefits many of which are central to Cropin’s mission of building a smarter, more sustainable food system.

These include:

These outcomes underscore the dual impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture of Cropin’s solutions, driving both business profitability and societal value.

The investment: Costs and implementation

According to Forrester’s analysis, the three-year risk-adjusted present value (PV) of costs for the composite organization was $1.5 million. This includes:

Considering the $3.9 million in benefits, the resulting NPV of $2.4 million, and the ROI of 161% demonstrates that digital transformation in agriculture can be both financially rewarding and operationally sustainable.

Cropin’s modular, interoperable platform design, which integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise systems like SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics, also reduces adoption friction, enabling organizations to scale quickly across regions and crops.

Why digital transformation in upstream agriculture is non-negotiable

As the Forrester TEI study quantifies, the value of digitization in agriculture is both measurable and mission-critical. But beyond ROI, there’s a larger story unfolding.

The world is witnessing an unprecedented convergence of climate-driven disruptions, supply chain vulnerabilities, and geopolitical tensions. For global food and seed producers, these forces threaten not just margins but long-term resilience.

In such a volatile landscape, digital and AI-powered agriculture is no longer a choice; it’s a strategic necessity. The ability to predict yield outcomes, assess climate risk, optimize sourcing, and build transparent supply chains will define the next generation of agri-food leaders.

Cropin’s platform sits at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and intelligence — empowering enterprises to turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Forrester study reinforces that when businesses invest in upstream transformation, they can not only mitigate risk but also unlock millions in measurable value.

From data to decision to impact

Cropin’s 15-year journey across 100+ countries has proven that when agriculture is made data-driven, every stakeholder benefits — from field to boardroom.

For the enterprise featured in Forrester’s study, the impact of artificial intelligence in agriculture was clear:

More visibility. More predictability. More resilience.
Not through guesswork but through data, modeling, and collaborative digital ecosystems.

These numbers tell a powerful story, one that blends economic gain with environmental and social good.