Peter Millenaar began to realise the shortfalls of modern crop spraying on a long-haul flight over Australia almost 15 years ago. Staring out the window, he saw the jumbled variety in the fields below – crops of all different shades – reflecting what he believed indicated differences in plant health between areas that had been properly sprayed and those that had not.
“I came to the conclusion that all spray manufacturers are good at making steel but not so good at developing technology,” he says.
Millenaar had already started one spray manufacturer – a company he sold later that year – but resolved then and there to develop the technology that could give every single plant exactly what it needed.
Seven years later, Millenaar launched BBLeap along with Martijn van Alphen and Rieks Kampman, promising to replace what they describe as outdated ‘spray and pray’ techniques they argue are “simply not good” with a precision sprayer they see as the next big leap in agriculture.
Millenaar told AgTechNavigator about convincing farmers they’re doing it wrong, why war – not love – sells, and why it’s hard doing it all on your own.
From frustration to first principles
ATN: Where does the name BBLeap come from?
PM: Before I started BBLeap, I was the owner of another spray manufacturer, Agrifac, in the Netherlands, which I sold in 2012.
But the idea with this was to make a “black box” we could sell to manufacturers, allowing them to differentiate themselves in the market.
Frankly, that didn’t work at all. No spray manufacturer accepted that farmers need better spraying technology to make agriculture more sustainable. But my mission is still to work at plant level to make a real step change in agriculture.
“You’re spraying badly”: Challenging industry orthodoxy
ATN: So BBLeap is selling precision sprayers you claim are more accurate than other big manufacturers?
PM: What we do is what others say they do – but they don’t actually do it. You can’t blame them because you can complain there is no mobile phone, but as long as there’s no mobile phone, nobody misses it.
ATN: Why? What are you doing differently that other big manufacturers cannot do or have not been able to do?
PM: The rest of the world tries to improve existing systems, so they make small incremental improvements, but they don’t solve the problem.
We started from a different angle: “this is what we want to achieve – what do we need to do?”
ATN: They can’t solve the problem, or they don’t want to solve the problem?
PM: They can’t. Because they are not ready to make the necessary changes, so they try to convince farmers, through strong branding, to buy the fanciest sprayers.
The most difficult part of what we do is that it’s invisible.
Why precision remains invisible – and hard to sell
ATN: What do you mean?
PM: You can’t always see that you’re doing a poor job. Only farmers who install our Leap Box realise the extent of the errors they were making.
Farmers know where to look for diseases – it’s often down to the sprayer.
ATN: How inaccurate is existing technology from major manufacturers?
PM: Across whole fields, we reach about 99.8%. The remaining 0.2% is simply impossible to spray. Others are closer to around 80%. That 20% gap is the real issue.
What helps us nowadays, a lot in Ukraine, is that they collect significant amounts of data. Bayer has a good tool, FieldView, which they can put on a sprayer to show: “You’re not spraying well.” When they install our system, they say: “This is perfect.”
ATN: How many have you sold?
PM: We have 200 systems in the field.
When I speak to John Deere, they say: “We are very successful with our equipment.” I reply: “You mean you sell a lot.”
Scaling a solitary innovation
ATN: If the likes of John Deere wanted to, how difficult would it be to challenge you directly?
PM: We welcome any competition because it’s so difficult to be the only one.
ATN: What do you mean?
PM: Nikola Tesla worked on electric cars and died; Elon Musk made it a success. I hope that when I turn 90, I don’t see John Deere arrive with a “Deere Box” doing what we’ve been doing for decades – that’s my nightmare.
I was a spray manufacturer before. I made the best sprayer in the world, by far. Many of the claims made to customers were misleading.
A simple example is recirculation. It was invented in France 40 years ago. It’s one of the simplest ways to ensure proper distribution. John Deere only made it standard in the last two years and called it an invention. I call it a missed opportunity.
That’s my concern: that it will take 30 years before this becomes standard.
“Love doesn’t sell. War sells.”
ATN: Do many farmers realise this before you approach them?
PM: The funny thing is, we changed our marketing approach. When I started, I told customers directly and they bought the system. Then marketing people told me: “You can’t say people are doing a bad job.”
We tried a softer approach for years. It didn’t work. Love doesn’t sell. War sells. And interestingly, when you explain it clearly, customers accept it is true.
If you insure your house, you wouldn’t accept that your fireplace isn’t covered. But farmers accept gaps in spraying every day.
The biggest discussion now is how it’s possible that major manufacturers claim strong performance when the reality can be different.
They have 3,000 people in R&D. We have 30 in total. It’s remarkable what a small team can achieve.
Growth plans and market focus
ATN: Have you seen rising interest as input costs fluctuate?
PM: We see competitors adopting our narrative, even if they cannot yet deliver the same results.
ATN: Are more farmers considering precision spraying to cut costs?
PM: Rationally, every farmer should use plant-level precision. But often they respond to poor spraying by applying more, rather than applying more accurately.
ATN: The €5m raise you announced last month – what is it for?
PM: Mainly to expand into new markets and grow the team so we can reach cash-flow neutrality.
ATN: By when?
PM: Hopefully next year.
ATN: Which markets are you targeting?
PM: Primarily Europe – Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Poland. We are also starting in Canada and the US, but without strong focus yet. Australia is more important for us.
ATN: Why Eastern Europe?
PM: It’s organic growth. I don’t believe in deciding to enter a market top-down. Someone from that market should approach us first – that creates a natural starting point.
