FarmHedge: Making technology proficient for farm bookings and deliveries

There is a revolution in how technology is being used in agriculture. New technologies are having a positive impact across agriculture and they are being used in a variety of ways, from monitoring animal health (www.connecterra.io) to indoor farming (www.plenty.ag).

Agri-business remains an area of agriculture where the influence of innovation has not been as strong. Farmers and the people they buy farm inputs from generally start and finish transactions in the same way they have for generations.

FarmHedge is an Irish technology company that has developed a mobile-commerce channel that can be easily used by people that sell to farmers.

Benefiting both farmers and sellers

CEO of FarmHedge, John Garvey, explained why FarmHedge creates so much benefits for the agri-business trade:

“A seller of farm inputs – whether he or she is a small sole trader or an employee in a large agri-business – can easily load a product to the platform and make it available on the FarmHedge mobile app.”

FarmHedge has a number of unique features that are of real interest to sellers of farm inputs and farmers. The way in which a farm input can be offered, can incentivise farmers to collaborate by attaching a discount once a specific volume of sales has been reached.

This is really attractive for farmers as it gives them access to better prices and it also helps the seller by lowering their sales and distribution costs.

John explains how FarmHedge works: “The seller of farm inputs can easily create target groups of farmers and specify the terms of the offer. It is different to the traditional purchasing group as we are giving the seller the opportunity to create an offer and match it to a target group.

This innovation benefits both the seller and his customers – improving how information is shared and lowering costs.

“The difference between FarmHedge and other platforms is that we give the seller the opportunity to direct an offer to a farmer type and location; e.g. ‘all dairy farmers in west Cork’. This allows the seller to expand his service – including delivery of a wider range of farm inputs – directly to the farm gate.”

Traditionally, it would be too costly to do deliveries, but using FarmHedge a seller can easily target an offer to a part of the country, get bookings and make deliveries efficiently.

Agri-business companies that use FarmHedge also get notified when farmers request a farm input – which can include anything from fertiliser to a machinery part.

Strong Progress

It is still early days for this Irish technology company but it has recently made strong progress after securing two major agri-business companies in Austria and Germany as its first customers.

The launch was very successful and farmers have completed transactions for a range of farm inputs, including fertiliser, fuel and crop protection products in Ireland. Its activity in Ireland is really just beginning now.

As CEO John Garvey explained: “The early versions of the mobile app has been available in Ireland for almost two years, and the feedback from farmers and the sellers of farm inputs has been critical to get us to this point.

We are happy that we can bring real value to sellers of farm inputs – and that this value will be passed to farmers who book farm inputs on the FarmHedge mobile app.

Using technology in this way has the potential to improve outcomes for farmers – lowering time and effort when sourcing farm inputs and also reducing sales and distribution costs for suppliers.