Farmer cooperatives play a significant role in the complete agricultural value chain. In 2016, there were 1,953 agricultural co-ops in USA with 1,9 million farmer memberships (source: USDA). These ag co-ops have 187 thousand employees who all work for improving the farmer’s position within a value chain.
Generation shift, climate change, and tough market conditions pushed ag co-ops and farmers to rethink the way they farm and work together. This led to a strong growth of agricultural technologies in the past few years. Currently, approx. 350,000 farmers in the US use farm management software, which represents 16,5% of all farmers in the US and this number is growing fast.
Whether we speak about farm management software, precision farming, weather stations, soil sensors, remote sensing or any other agtech solution, the role of all of them is the same—helping farmers to improve their farm profitability and sustainability.
This role fully aligns with the role of ag co-ops, which have exactly the same goals. That’s why it is important to analyze how farm management software supports farmer co-ops.
5 key benefits of farm management solutions for farmer co-ops
1. Central platform for collaboration with farmers
AGRIVI farm management software brings together both growers and cooperative employees on the same platform, to facilitate a seamless and effective collaboration with growers. Registry of all co-op members and direct in-platform messaging system empower the co-op to manage communication with all of their members or a targeted segment of their members by area or crop. Being available through web and mobile applications, both farmers and co-op employees log in to the AGRIVI platform from any device and any place—farm, co-op HQ or directly from the field.
2. Bird-eye view over the input requirements and yield planning process
Contract management module helps co-ops to manage entire season life-cycle with growers:
- Create a plan of input requirements per grower
- Define agronomy/machinery services required per grower
- Estimate planned yield and buying price per grower and crop
Overview of all contracts on an aggregated level allows co-ops to get overall input requirements on a co-op level, as well as co-op yield plans to be able to forecast sales for the season.
3. Better advisory based on real-time ag data and big data analytics
Having a seamless and efficient conversation with growers during a farm visit is crucial for increasing the quality of advice and adding more value to growers. Having a real-time overview of farmer’s ag data on actual weather for all fields, applied agronomy practices, and scouting notes helps advisors to provide advice faster and based on facts.
Performing big data analysis after the season to identify key yield drivers of most successful farmers in a co-op and sharing identified practices with all growers during the next season helps all growers in a co-op to improve their farm sustainability and profitability.
4. Complete traceability—showcase local farmers
We are what we eat. The awareness of food traceability is growing rapidly among consumers. Providing full transparency over the way crops were grown and being able to showcase where the crops come from is one of the major tasks of the farm management software.
Whether you need traceability for a crop processing facility or you need to report it to the retail chain or consumers, AGRIVI farm management solution provides you with a detailed traceability in a form of a printable report or an online web report accessible by customers and consumers with their mobile phone.
5. Improved relationship with farmers by bringing more value
Co-ops represent the bridge between farmers, input suppliers, and the market. Providing growers with their platform, guaranteed data privacy, fact-driven advice and continuous care will additionally improve the relationship between farmers and co-ops. Happy farmer, happy co-op.
Experience in working with over 40,000 farmers and ag co-ops in 150 countries makes AGRIVI an ideal agtech partner.
