Can Maltesers Grow Wheat?

I was sat at the table with my son, waiting for something delicious to make its way out of the kitchen, when we got talking about what I actually do in agriculture.

The old stories about working in a glitter factory no longer work on a 12-year-old boy.

He was asking about biostimulants in particular, because this is one area of agriculture where the conversation is still missing something very important: enough comparable evidence.

Some people in the industry might call it muck and mystery. People like me would call it a world of possibility.

Whichever side of the fence you sit on, I think most of us can agree on one thing: the evidence is, shall we say, a little thin in places.

Lao Tzu once said:

“Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease.”

I’m sure the Chinese philosopher was very wise, but in the case of biostimulants, not-knowing does not help a farmer make a buying decision.

So I tried to explain it to my son in the simplest possible way. And, as anyone with a pre-teen boy knows, you have to get to the point quickly.

There was a packet of Maltesers on the table.

I said:

“Let’s say you’re a farmer. I come to your farm with this packet of Maltesers and tell you it can give you a 10% yield increase. Would you buy it?”

He looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

“Of course not. It’s Maltesers.”

Absolutely right.

So I opened the packet, tipped them onto the table, and then — WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

I pulverised those Maltesers with my fist as if my life depended on it.

At this point, my wife urgently reminded me that 45-year-old men, particularly ones like me, have never fully matured.

I then pointed at the dust on the table.

“Right. Now let’s say I put this powder in a packet, created some beautiful brochures, and told you it gave a 10% yield increase. Would you buy it now?”

He paused.

“Yes, maybe. Because as a farmer, I might trust what you said. I might trust what it says on the packet. And you’ve got a leaflet to prove it.”

And that was the point.

Anyone can make a claim. Anyone can produce a leaflet. Anyone can tell a good story.

The question is: what actually happened in the field?

Now, before anyone jumps on their soapbox, I do not believe for a second that anyone is crushing up delicious, light, airy, crunchy malt centres generously coated in smooth milk chocolate and selling them as biostimulants. That would be a terrible waste.

And I also do not believe that the biologicals and biostimulants sector is full of people intentionally trying to mislead farmers. Far from it.

There are some truly excellent products in this space. I have seen compelling data from companies doing serious, valuable work. There are products with strong science, thoughtful development, and real potential.

The problem is that the good products often end up in the same category as the not-so-good products. Or the products that work sometimes. Or the products that work in one season, on one soil type, under one set of conditions, but not in another.

That creates complexity.

And complexity creates mistrust.

The sector does not need more mistrust. It needs better evidence.

I believe the future is independent evidence.

That is why I am building Proof.

Proof will be a public ledger of farm evidence. Free for contributors, with sensitive farm data protected and redacted.

The challenge is not that farm data does not exist. It does. There is plenty of it.

It lives in PDFs. It lives in agronomists’ spreadsheets. It lives in farm apps. It lives in WhatsApp threads. It lives in notebooks. It lives in farmers’ heads.

But it rarely stacks.

It rarely becomes comparable.

It rarely becomes a permanent public record that someone else can inspect, learn from, cite, query, or build on.

Our mission is simple: a farmer in Lincolnshire should be able to learn from observations in Europe. A farmer in Europe should be able to learn from observations in North America. Different soils, different crops, different weather, different products, different outcomes — all recorded in a way that can be understood.

Not perfectly. Farming is too complicated for perfect.

But honestly.

One question I get asked a lot is:

“What about negative data?”

The answer is simple.

It stays.

Negative results stay. Null results stay. Mixed results stay. Awkward results stay.

They remain part of the public ledger, because they are part of the truth.

A trial that shows no measurable difference is not a failure of the evidence base. It is evidence. A result that does not suit a brochure is not useless. It may be exactly what another farmer needs to see before making a decision.

That is the whole point.

Proof is not here to tell farmers what to buy. It is not here to rank products. It is not here to attack manufacturers. It is not here to declare winners and losers.

Proof is an evidence layer.

It records what was tested, against what control, under what conditions, and what happened.

Then others can inspect it, benchmark it, question it, cite it, and learn from it.

I can see a future where universities use a global body of structured farm evidence to support new hypotheses.

Banks understand agricultural risk in a way they never have before.

Insurers can look at evidence from working farms, not just assumptions.

Companies can see how their products behave in the real world.

Supply chains can evidence the produce they purchase.

And farmers can use their own evidence to make better decisions and, ultimately, capture more value from the work they are already doing.

Biostimulants do not need more hype.

They need maturity.

They need structure.

They need independent evidence.

And no, Maltesers probably cannot grow wheat.

But until the evidence is properly recorded, how would anyone really know?

We are seeking collaborations of all kinds. If you think you can help, or if you would like to be involved, please get in touch: ct@proof.ag

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