Antifragile agriculture: why the sector risks falling behind without a new innovation model

According to AgFunderNews, Christine R. Gould, founder and CEO of GIGA Futures, argues that the global agriculture and food innovation system is structurally designed to protect incumbents rather than build the next generation of solutions. Writing in a guest article, she contends that unless the sector shifts toward an “antifragile” model, it will continue to exhaust entrepreneurs, deter capital and miss growth opportunities in an increasingly volatile world.

Gould frames the debate around a simple but urgent question: how can agriculture expect to thrive under climate volatility, geopolitical instability and shifting consumer markets if it continues to optimize for short-term protection of legacy business models?

Her argument draws on conversations with founders and investors who, she says, are increasingly frustrated by limited scale-up pathways and scarce risk capital. One ag biotech entrepreneur told her, “This industry is dead. I’m out.” The founder compared agriculture unfavorably with other biotech segments, where companies can raise meaningful funding, build teams and develop products without constant pressure to fit into narrow exit strategies.

A system built to defend the core

In the article, Gould describes a sector dominated by large incumbents that control distribution, regulatory pathways and customer access. For startups, scaling often requires partnering with or being acquired by those same players.

She points to examples such as the Ag Playbook released by Leaps by Bayer, which outlines the lengthy and expensive journey to market for biological inputs. While useful, she suggests it also reinforces the idea that innovators must conform to an existing system rather than reshape it.

On the capital side, she highlights the retreat of corporate venture arms and the growing caution among generalist venture capital firms. When companies narrow their investment focus to adjacent or incremental technologies, she argues, the cumulative effect is a drain of risk capital from transformative areas.

Governments, in her view, are not filling the gap. She recounts participating in a UN food systems gathering where an investment “deal room” organized for startups failed to attract investors or senior policymakers. Public commitments to transformation, she suggests, often lack operational follow-through.

From resilience to antifragility

Gould contrasts agriculture’s current approach with lessons from security and defense economics, where systems are designed to plan for adverse scenarios. In those sectors, volatility is treated as a reason to build capacity, not to reduce it.

Agriculture, she writes, continues to rely on a model centered on synthetic chemistry, commodity exports and relatively stable trade systems. When disruptions such as Covid-19 or shifts in pharmaceutical markets occur, the response is typically to cut risk rather than upgrade adaptability.

She argues that the sector should move beyond “resilience” and embrace antifragility, a concept popularized by Nassim Taleb, in which systems improve through stress and uncertainty.

In practical terms, that would mean investing in four areas: engines of new growth beyond core product lines; diversified portfolios instead of single blockbuster bets; infrastructure to move innovations from pilot to scale; and mechanisms to recycle intellectual property, data and talent from failed projects.

Structural bets, not side projects

Gould references examples from other industries, including separate disruptive growth units within major corporations and dedicated innovation labs designed to prototype new solutions with partners. These initiatives, she notes, were resourced with independent budgets and decision rights.

For agriculture, she asks where comparable structures exist that are explicitly mandated to build the next wave of business models, even if they cannibalize today’s core products.

She also calls for a shift in what the sector celebrates. Rather than focusing primarily on large funding rounds or safe partnerships, she suggests elevating stories of open collaboration, category creation and ventures born from lessons learned in failed experiments.

A strategic crossroads

Gould concludes that agriculture faces a strategic choice: continue defending a system that grows more fragile with each shock, or deliberately design architectures that convert volatility into advantage.

She calls on boards, executives and investors to assess whether their current strategies underwrite fragility or future optionality. “If you recognize your organization anywhere in this piece – stuck in the old game, talking about transformation while optimizing for safety – then your next move is simple: pick one place to start building the new architecture, and let’s make it real,” she writes.

As global pressures on food systems intensify, the debate over how to fund and structure innovation is likely to shape not only startup ecosystems but the long-term competitiveness of the agricultural sector itself.