From traditional crop products to innovative development agricultural solutions
Ilan Levanon, the CEO of ADAMA SRB DOO has shared the future plans of the company and outlook of the business, with the recent launch of a new product development program, explaining how the organization’s moto is to listen, learn, and deliver, especially in the Covid-19 times.
Adama has been present in Serbia for three decades, and you have expanded your business to the region, tell us a bit more about that and the challenges you are facing?
ADAMA Serbia is by now a regional hub for all operations in former Yugoslavia, Albania and recently also Bulgaria. We serve as a one-stop regional centre, employing 3 decades of accumulated experience in Serbia, through a highly professional team of experts and experienced management. By leveraging the proximity of our expertise to those markets, the extensive know-how, similar crops and business practices, culture and often language, we have successfully strengthened our cooperation and grown our business with our partners across the territory. Those solid foundations are in the basis of our ambitious future growth plans.
You have recently launched a new product development program for the next 5 years, what have you been guided by?
I believe that our slogan “Listen.Learn.Deliver” summarizes perfectly our products development philosophy. We listen to the farmer; we learn the pain points and finally try to deliver the most suitable solutions. Based on those first-hand inputs, our R&D teams headed in Israel are working on developing the next generation of crop-protection solutions. Another guiding element to our new products program is the profound regulatory change in Europe and the phasing-out of many traditional crop-protection solutions. We aim to bring viable, sustainable and friendly alternatives, that will meet the new and re-shaping needs of the farming community. In 2021 alone, we are launching a record 9 new products in Serbia and the region.
”We listen to the farmer; we learn the pain points and finally try to deliver the most suitable solutions”
Israel is, among other things, one of the most successful agricultural countries in the world and we can learn a lot from each other, how much are we in step with the world?
If you take Vojvodina’s field crops, fruits and vegetable production, for example, you can find very technologically advanced farming, in par and often above European “standard”. Serbian soy, sugar and fruits production for example reach yields and quality of highest level. The recent concept of “AgTech” innovation centered to large extent in Israel, will yield some exciting technologies that I am sure will be adopted in also in Serbia.
How much did the pandemic affect business and future projects?
“Farmer Proximity” is a key pillar in ADAMA’s approach to the market, so obviously, the global COVID19 pandemic and the social restrictions are posing us a challenge. We have significantly accelerated our digital platform and have shifted budgets to support digital communication channels. This allows us to initiate high quality communication, keep our customers informed and updated at any time. Not only that we find those channels very effective, allowing us to address even larger number of farmers and to provide them with a higher quality content in an interactive fashion, we have also noticed a shift of users profile towards young and more technologically advanced farmers.