Kleffmann Group

Better farming through digitalisation and the use of representative data

W ith more than 25 years of experience, the German Kleffmann Group is a world-leading provider of agricultural market research services. Key areas are seed, crop protection, livestock and animal health, machinery and professional gardening. Drawing from more than 200,000 expert interviews each year, the group provides in-depth data for local and global decision makers.

CEO Burkhard Kleffmann himself was born and raised on a farm, but because his father was still young when he graduated, he started working for a market analysis company part-time. “I did interviews for them, but soon realised that their questions had nothing to do with real farming practises,” says Burkhard Kleffmann. And so the idea was born to do market research in the agricultural sector differently. Today, 29 years later, the Kleffmann Group has specialised in the agricultural sector and companies operating in this field, including financial services and insurance companies. Kleffmann Group is one of only two global specialists in this sector and focuses on big export markets like the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Russia and Ukraine.

As in many other sectors, digitalisation plays an important role, even though digitalisation in agriculture has already advanced further than in many other industries. This not only touches processes in market research, but also the use of data in combination with other factors, like forecasting potential yields.

Kleffmann’s amis® farmer panel survey collects farmer-based information for crops worldwide, including seeds used and measures taken to protect crops. “For us, data protection is our main focus, all data is anonymous and the servers are directly at our headquarters,” explains CEO Burkhard Kleffmann.

“Above that, we process satellite data with the means of artificial intelligence and machine learning to monitor the development of crop areas worldwide. The collected data is available for further analysis and use,” says Kleffmann. The Kleffmann Group is an independent specialist in processing, analysing and evaluating agricultural data and is the only expert which combines multispectral and radar data with farm-based interviews and expert insights. The detailed results that have already been gathered provide area measurements of the main crops worldwide with an accuracy of up to 98 per cent. The data and analysis help companies to efficiently compare different cultivated areas taking into account which crops are grown and on how many hectares – and that on a national, regional and local level.

CEO Burkhard Kleffmann

kleffmann.com