Bringing smart agriculture solutions to
farmers and agri-businesses

  PHOTO BY CLAUDIO SCHWARZ It is safe to say that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 impacted majority of the world population, and has significantly changed the way we live. People around the globe are forced to act quickly as they gain new facts and government restrictions, and are compelled to make unplanned decisions. How to safely source sufficient amount of food and how to know if the food is safe to eat has become even bigger challenge than ever for consumers around the world.  They are wondering: ”Where can I source a good quality product when my movement is restricted? Is this product safe for my family and me? Can the coronavirus be spread through food? Should I cook differently to kill the potential virus in my groceries?” On the other hand, companies were forced to roll out mandatory work-from-home policies so home office combined with quarantine has become the new normal. While many of us can afford to stay at home, those producing our food can’t – they are more essential than ever. However, sealed borders across the world, quarantines and closed markets have caused disruptions in the food supply chains and a lot of farmers may be forced to destroy a big part of their production because of the impossibility to place their products on the market. Their yearlong hard work is now, in the best-case scenario, jeopardized. At the same time, more than a third of the global population is under lockdown and is trying to stockpile in every possible way. Living in these uncertain and contradictory times when each and every one of us should adopt and master new ways of living, it becomes obvious that the new strategies must be created and adopted by both producers and consumers in order to make it through. However, there seems to be a break in the clouds. Technology is continuously changing the world and our individual lives, and is stepping in once again in order to solve the problem we are facing. As J.F. Kennedy once said, now more than ever before, humanity possesses the resources, technology and knowledge to promote development and to feed all people. ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPING IS BLOOMING The fear of contagion is causing consumers to avoid places like supermarkets and other places where people typically congregate. Farmer’s markets around the world are closed. Officials are asking people to only go out when absolutely needed. A question that certainly has risen in every consumer’s mind was: How can I supply my household and prevent from running out of essentials? While online shopping for books, clothes, and electronics has become normal in our everyday life, most customers still prefer to purchase their meat, fruits and vegetables at the store. As Business Insider states, only 10% of US consumers regularly shop online for groceries, while Eurostat conducted research that shows that more than 73% of people still prefer to do every type of shopping in person. However, new circumstances have led to the shift in consumer behaviors, and online grocery shopping is exploding since now it is a place to go. Online shopping seems to be a great solution for both consumers and producers, especially farmers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to sell their products such as fresh vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy. PHOTO BY MARKUS SPISKE Besides providing a digital market place to the farmers, this shift will allow fast and innovative producers to stand out with their products. Moreover, innovations such as Traceability report, will become increasingly important as they help farmers to showcase and share production information with their consumers while giving insight to the consumers into all the aspects of the food they buy. Transparent certification of the food producers, hygiene standards as well as good quality, organic and sustainable food, are now the requirements that are more emphasized than ever. The shift which is happening during this pandemic may reshape the supermarket industry as we know it by helping little producers to make the public familiar with the quality of their products. Despite numerous challenges, there is a silver lining for consumers as well – new circumstances of online grocery shopping inevitably will lead to the bigger control of the food we consume. Which transfer us to the second most asked question: IS THE FOOD WE EAT REALLY SAFE? In addition to worrying about food sufficiency, consumers are concerned about whether they can get the virus by touching or consuming the food they’re buying. Based on the interview with Donald Schaffner, Ph.D., a distinguished professor in the department of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., there is currently no evidence that the disease is transmitted by food. In accordance with his opinion, the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the World Health Organization also point out that food is not known to be a route of transmission of the virus. At this point in time, the highest risk of COVID-19 spread is through human-to-human transmission. PHOTO BY ERIK MCLEAN HOW TO TREAT FOOD? Having in mind that the coronavirus is a respiratory virus, not a digestive or the gastrointestinal one, there should be no difference in handling food now and before the coronavirus. Basically, it all comes down to general good food safety habits. Handwashing remains one of the best protective measures to avoid spreading or contracting the virus, so as always, it is highly recommended to wash your hands while preparing food—and during if you are handling raw meat, poultry, seafood, or eggs. As emphasized by GLOBALG.A.P, the use of gloves is not necessarily safer and should comply with the policies already set for glove usage. Remember to wash fruits and vegetables in water before consummation in any way, shape or form. PHOTO BY LOUIS HANSEL As stated by the GLOBALG.A.P in the Answers to Common Questions About Coronavirus and the Food You Eat, coronavirus doesn’t multiply on food, but it is recommended to keep raw meat separate from other foods, using separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables, and using a food thermometer to ensure safe cooking temperatures. You should also refrigerate perishable foods and leftovers promptly and be sure to cook the food you eat, just as you always do. PHOTO BY ELAINE CASAP To conclude, it seems that technology will once again help to overcome the hardship we are facing and bring food to our tables. Digital market places are proving to be the solution for the current problem of closed local markets and quarantined citizens all around the world, whilst washing the food will keep it safe for consumption. We at Agrivi are grateful to all our farmers for their commitment, and very proud to work in the agriculture sector, as well as to have the chance to be an important link between producers and consumers in these difficult times.   Text sources: THE ONLINE GROCERY REPORT - Business Insider E-COMMERCE STATISTICS FOR INDIVIDUALS - European Commission ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT CORONAVIRUS AND THE FOOD YOU EAT – Consumer Reports HOW CAN PRODUCERS ADDRESS COVID-19? – GLOBALG.A.P. Image sources: Unsplash

New Products in Agrivi Digital Agriculture Offering   Agrivi, one of the global market-leading farm management software companies, has announced the launch of new products within its digital agriculture solution offering. The company introduced two new products: Agrivi Precision Field which will support growers to manage their precision agriculture activities Agrivi Farm Fleet for real-time machinery monitoring and automated machinery data collection Newly introduced products are complementary additions to Agrivi's core product, the award-winning farm management software platform, supports farmers to digitize their farm operations, make farm administration easier and achieve economically and environmentally sustainable crop production. It serves as a central platform for all farmers' data and brings powerful farming analytics to identify yield drivers and cost savings. Agrivi farm management platform is available in a simpler version for small and medium sizes growers and as a comprehensive enterprise farm management platform for large-scale farms. The platform is being used by farmers in over 100 countries. „We are on a mission to make a farmer's life easier and more profitable. By introducing two additional products, we aim to reduce the need for manual machinery data entry and make it fully automated. Also, we focus on reducing the number of different software solutions farmers need to use by offering them a full precision agriculture tool completely integrated with the central farm management platform.“ – Matija Zulj, CEO at Agrivi. Agrivi Precision Field is a comprehensive precision agriculture application that empowers farmers with real-time insights into field conditions, offers a multi-layered analysis of all georeferenced field data and allows the creation of management zones and prescription files for execution of precision agriculture practices. Key features of Precision Field product are: Multi-layered map analysis of geo-referenced agricultural data Support for satellite imagery, soil maps, weather maps, crop health maps, scouting observations, yield maps, profitability maps and other Creation of scouting routes based on identified real-time insights Management zone creation for variable rate application Prescription files creation for machinery use Possibility to upload application data and yield maps Agrivi Farm Fleet is a fleet management system that enables farmers to have real-time control over their machinery and fuel usage. The product is fully integrated with Agrivi Farm Management Software and enables automated machinery data collection which eliminates the need for manual entry of machinery usage by tractor drivers or agronomists and improves the accuracy level. Key features of Farm Fleet product are: Farm machinery fleet monitoring in real-time on a map Tracking machinery routes, work hours, fuel consumption and speed Machinery usage log automated synchronization with Agrivi Farm Management Software    New products within Agrivi's product portfolio, Agrivi Precision Field and Agrivi Farm Fleet, are fully integrated with the Agrivi Farm Management platform, providing farmers with seamless user experience and a central platform for managing all farming operations and data. Products are currently launched in a test flight mode with first customers and will be available for all customers for the spring season 2020.

Over the last six years, large-scale farms became one of our major customer segments, as the complexity of their operations and risk they need to handle are the highest. Experiences we gathered through our work with large-scale farms from 2,000 hectares to more than 50,000 hectares enabled us to identify patterns that strongly influence farm management software (FMS) implementations and can determine its success. In this article, I will try to share three decisions that need to be made and that influence the success of FMS implementations. Decision #1: Strong Sponsorship vs. Trying Out Deciding for an implementation of a farm management software on a big-scale farm is a decision that will determine the software support for total farm operations for at least the next 5-10 years. Such a big decision deserves the right attention of the management board and/or farm owners, depending on the level of their involvement in the decision-making process. We have witnessed strong project kick-offs and high-quality project steering where the management board provided strong and dedicated project sponsorship as a sign for all employees that the farm management software plays an important role for their business and providing clear and strong messages resulted in much faster and smoother adoption of the software by all employees. We also experienced some projects where management decided to implement a farm management software with a good will to follow the trends of digital transformation but had a soft approach in communication to their employees like “Let’s try it and we’ll see how it will go, whether it will be useful for us”. If a manager/owner is not fully convinced that farm management software will serve as a backbone of farm operations and deliver important insights, there will be a very few employees in the company that will think differently and engage efforts needed to adapt the software as a daily operations tool. Even if a manager is fully convinced in the value proposition and benefits, but follows a soft approach, employees on a farm very often don’t want to change way of working if they don’t need to and the “Let’s try” approach opens the space for excuses. Such soft approaches often lead to project failure and represent a bad management decision. Every implementation should be started with a strong management sponsorship and a clear understanding of the value proposition and all benefits a company will have from a farm management software, which also needs to be communicated to all stakeholders. Decision #2: Buy vs. Build Farms often tend to think they will make a lower investment if they go with a bespoke farm management software that will be tailored exactly by their needs rather than selecting one of the farm management software products available on the market which usually comes on a subscription business model. One can argue that it is a question of ROI for getting the right solution and I fully agree — it indeed is. Approximately 50% of large-scale farms we work with have replaced their old FMS with our FMS product. A common reason is that they wanted to move away from tailor-built solution where every innovation needs to be ordered and financed by them which brings the total cost of ownership (TCO) too high. Additionally, as technology in which the bespoke solution is built is not maintained and upgraded continuously, it gets phased out in several years making further upgrades less possible and again too expensive. The core business of a farm is not to think about innovating and maintaining an FMS, rather to continuously get innovation pushed to them by a specialized FMS company. Continuous innovation and lower TCO are key reasons why we see a growing number of large-scale farms moving towards FMS platforms that are available on the market. Farms often fall into a trap that their processes are very different and specific comparing to other farms. A good analogy for these situations is an ERP implementation. When implementing an ERP system into an organization, the goal is not just to get a new software support, but to use this as opportunity to align the organization’s processes with common industry accepted processes. FMS platforms available today on the market often offer quite high level of flexibility to track farm processes in multiple ways to fit the majority of farms. It is important that integration possibilities of an FMS platform provide opportunity to connect the platform with the existing eco-system of software and hardware solutions on the farm (ERP, machinery, etc.) and if there actually are specific processes on a farm that need to be maintained, to be able to integrate a solution that supports these processes with the FMS platform. Decision #3: Utilizing Key Resources vs. Full Process Digitization Large-scale farms often seek to kick-off the farm management software usage by giving the tool to key employees who will manage and track the entire operations. Usually, those employees are the powertrain of the company and by putting all the burden of an FMS adoption and usage on their shoulders, they simply get additional jobs to do rather than additional support to make their life easier and get better information for decision making. In general, there are three possible decisions on which employees will be using an FMS platform: Full digitization of operational processes on farm and including all employees to utilize the FMS (from managers, agronomists to tractor drivers). This should be the end goal of every farm as it brings full digital transformation benefits through higher operational efficiency. Ability to go immediately to this option depends on internal ability of a company to start with implementation/adoption on all areas. Digitizing one vertical unit (usually a single production unit or a single farm location) by covering all unit processes and including all unit employees and then scaling it to other units in the next phases. This option is the best option if option 1 is not applicable from start as it represents a phased approach unit by unit. Digitizing horizontally all production units, but including only key personnel like farm managers and agronomists from those units. The benefit of this approach is that a farm gets an immediate improvement in all areas of farm operations, from getting better insights for overall decision making to simplifying traceability reporting for authorities and certifications (Global GAP and similar). However, we recommend utilizing this option very carefully to avoid overloading your key employees and utilize it only as a temporary phase before rolling out FMS usage to all employees. There are many important decisions that are made during the FMS implementation that impact the success of the implementation and adoption. Three decisions covered in this article represent few major decisions we often see on large-scale farms and making the wrong step here can often lead to unwanted project outcome. We are strong believers that FMS implementation needs to make a fast ROI, so choosing the right farm management software vendor that understands local market opportunities and will guide a large-scale farm carefully while deciding on the appropriate approach is the biggest and the most important decision the farm needs to make. -- Agrivi is one of the key global leading farm management software companies that supports farmers to reach sustainable crop production. If you are interested in learning more about Agrivi implementation projects, contact us at sales@agrivi.com. Contact UsNOW

Agrivi Farm Management Software has been officially launched to the market on February 1st 2014 and that was the day we have started our incredible journey with vision to change the way food is produced, positively impacting over a billion people. 5-year journey took us through some amazing experiences, we witnessed fantastic farmer improvements like increasing their profit margin for more than 100%, we reached farmers in 150 countries, established collaboration with the entire value chain, but also gathered very valuable learnings from hard moments and challenges we went through. 5 Learnings from Our 5-year Journey If I need to summarize some of the important things we learned, then I would select these 5: #1 Life Has a Different Timeline in Agriculture Agriculture is the largest industry worldwide that employs over a billion people and generates over 2 trillion USD value for the global economy. In the same time, it is the most conservative industry that waited for a decade longer than other industries to start with digital transformation. Climate change brings many challenges, old and inefficient growing practices are in line for replacement, low profitability makes farmers on the edge of sustainability. With so high needs for improvement, why didn't the industry accept the new technologies and positive change earlier? The answer is multidimensional, but can be shortly explained through: Seasonal way of working where agricultural season (mostly) has annual life-cycle and farmers are used to make important decisions on investments/improvements once per year, not every day or month, so this makes adoption slower compared to other industries. The critical mass of new generation of farmers is needed for a transformation and we needed to wait for such farmers who bring business mindset into agriculture, are keen to improve and are tech-savvy. This finally happened. #2 SaaS Is Great, but for Service Delivery 99% of software companies in agtech space heavily rely on SaaS business model and this is really great. However, there are few things that are a bit different compared to the most of other industries: Farmers still prefer in-person contact which simply beats the digital interaction and makes online customer acquisition not the most attractive primary channel for go-to-market strategy. Physical access to farmer gate is hard, unless you are not addressing the premium high-value market segment, there is simply no business model for going directly to SME farmers just with the software. Partnering with companies from the value chain who already have access to farmers is a great leverage that brings results. This means that SaaS is great business model for delivering the service, but farmers are initially reached mostly through the existing non-online channels and with the support of the companies from the value chain. #3 Set the Right Customer Expectations and Deliver the Results Over $30 billion USD investments into agtech industry in the last 5 years empowered many agtech companies to build solid products and strongly push their marketing activities. Most of the companies promised incredible yield improvements to farmers and rarely they were able to deliver such results. All these false promises made farmers careful when deciding about digital technologies usage. Our goal is to help farmers be economically and environmentally sustainable by empowering them to make better agronomic and business decisions through efficient management of their operations, costs, yields, risks and time. Things don't happen overnight and we really do see significant farmer improvements in few years (e.g. 100% profitability increase), but expectations need to be set right and with a clear timeline. False expectations never lead to a success, but delivering promises brings happy and long-term customer relationships. #4 It Is About Change Management Companies often compete in having better products, finding the best product-market fit and that is very important for achieving the success on the market. What we have learned is that we really are in a blue ocean market where most of the farmers do not use anything like our product yet. Our biggest competitors still are pen and paper or sometimes spreadsheets. Digitization of analog way of managing farms means we need to change habits of a farmer to switch him from gut-feeling decision making to data-driven decision making. By default, most people resist to a change, even though they might know the change brings better times. To make this transition successful, we need to bring the farmer into a comfort zone where the change is perceived with no or minimum risk. That's why, we take a lot of attention on our customer success activities to ensure we really are there for farmers in every single situation. I dare to say, having the best product seams like prerequisite, so having extraordinary customer success team is more important for the market success. #5 Creating Win-Win Scenarios Through the Value Chain A lot of agtech companies are funded by investors who seek for disruption and unicorns. Disruption usually brings significant business model and/or conceptual changes within the industry where shortening the value chain and weakening the power of incumbents (long-established businesses with dominant positions) are some of the most common expectations. I am a strong believer in an efficient value chain with minimum amount of stakeholders needed to deliver the goods from producer to the consumer. However, it is important to understand that this doesn't mean everyone between producer and consumer will or need to disappear. There are valuable stakeholders without whom the industry simply wouldn't work, or would work less efficient. If an agtech company is capable to create a win-win partnership with companies within the value chain who have direct access to many growers, than the company has a high chance for the strong growth. No Matter the Challenges, Progress Is Significant, Future Looks Great There are many challenges when it comes to agtech industry, but the progress made in the last 5 year is significant. Industry has matured, is growing further rapidly and new generation of farmers leads the adoption of new technologies. Entire agricultural value chain has started to change and all stakeholders base their future strategy on digital agriculture technologies. This is already empowering and speeding-up a lot of agtech companies. The time for digitization of food and agricultural value chain is here and will never go back. The future looks positive and I am looking forward to see how the next 5 years will look like. -- Agrivi is one of the key global leading farm management software companies that supports farmers to reach sustainable crop production. If you are interested in learning more about Agrivi implementation projects, contact us at sales@agrivi.com. Contact UsNOW

Without food, there is no life. Still, the need for food is much more than just a basic human necessity. Food is literally the beginning of everything; food is the driver that sustains our organisms and provides energy to our bodies, as well as a way of life. With food we celebrate special moments, make business deals, and nourish relations with other people. In fact, what we eat defines how we live. In light of aforementioned, have you ever wondered who stands behind the food on your table? Whose hands worked hard so you can enjoy the taste of orange juice or fresh salad? Each day, farmers throughout the world tirelessly work to produce the food that we all eat. In their honor, on October 12th, we celebrate National Farmer’s Day. National Farmer’s Day is a special occasion, celebrated with one purpose- to honor the hard work of all farmers who are laboriously trying to feed the world.   A Profession That Requires Special Skills Being a farmer is much more than just driving a tractor and cultivating the soil. Farmers are purpose-driven people who perform one of the oldest and noblest human activities. Farming is a profession that requires special skills and a lot of knowledge. Farmers have to listen to their soil and their crops. After all, they both require constant dedicated work and care. This involves numerous activities like soil tillage, fertilizing, field scouting, irrigation or drainage, and many others. Every successful farmer has to be the doctor of his plant’s health and protect his crops from various pests. Furthermore, a farmer has to be an economist and understand the market. While making a profit, every devoted farmer will also be a true leader and the right example to all his workers. Rapid technological development, together with global problems such as world hunger and climate change, derived new challenges for today’s farmers. As a response, today’s farmers have to maximize their yield, while at the same time lower their environmental footprint. Along with that, they have to keep up with new technology, have an open mind to various agricultural innovations, as well as process big data and turn it into valuable information.   In Farmers We Trust It takes a lot of courage to be a farmer. When the farm season begins, they work from dusk till dawn, without a weekend or a holiday to rest. Growing crops to feed the world is their only occupation. After all, we owe them thanks for our food and we all put our trust in them.

Farm management software (FMS) implementations for enterprises in the food and agriculture value chain are usually larger projects with a strategic goal to impact the way food is produced. Hearing the statistic that over 30% of signed software projects are canceled before they ever get completed (Source: Standish report) is shocking. In order to make sure an FMS project is going according to plan, here are a few key learnings companies need to take into consideration: 1. Setting the right business expectations from an FMS project Both, the FMS company and the company implementing an FMS solution need to agree on key goals before the project kicks off. Implementing an FMS solution solves a lot of challenges that companies working with farmers and manufacturers have, some of which are improving the value chain KPIs, profit, traceability and data centralization. Clear expectations keep both sides focused on the project success reminding them what is the problem they are solving and what value it is providing. 2. Standard vs. specific company needs FMS helps with planning, monitoring and analyzing all activities manufacturers and farmers do, it does not replace a CRM system, accounting software or hardware and its role is not to be a single ultimate solution for all customer needs, but to be a central digital agriculture platform that integrates all Agtech solutions and data in one place. An FMS also collaborates with existing company business systems (ERP, accounting, CRM...), meaning, specific company needs can be covered through different integrations with specialized 3rd party solutions or FMS customizations (it’s important to be informed and understand costs of both). 3. Clear project scope based on expectations Defining the right solution that solves business expectations is the key. The solution package consists of an FMS solution, customizations, 3rd party systems, and integrations. Defining a project scope helps to focus on priorities during the FMS research phase and, most importantly, during the whole duration of the implementation process.   4. Phased approach Trying to implement an ideal solution at once, often faces a barrier not from the solution side, but from the change management side within the company, due to in-house resource capacity for execution and trying to implement too many new things at once. Companies that successfully implemented an FMS solution were doing these following steps: defining priorities for all requirements defining manageable phases organized per requirements’ priorities defining milestones and timeline. Pursuing an entire project scope at once leads to failure because it is not manageable. 5. Top management strong strategic decision and dissemination for all people Change management cannot be done without a strong decision from the top management and without everybody knowing why the project is important for the company. Change starts at the top and determination of the top management as well as direct project sponsorship of a Board Member, significantly helps with ensuring successful project implementation. 6. Project manager FMS implementation projects have multiple steps, phases, and deliveries. That’s the reason why there must be a responsible person from both sides who will monitor the progress, discuss all ideas and steps internally, organize team meetings, provide summaries/updates and be a central point of communication. 7. Kickoff meeting Organizing a good kickoff meeting where all key stakeholders from both sides are involved, from the top management to key operative personnel is a great project start. In this meeting, the top management should define a clear focus of the project, expectations and overall importance for the business, and the project manager should explain all phases, key milestones, and first action steps.   8. Internal FMS champion Recognizing which internal company’s employee (internal FMS champion) will be trained to be the knowledge center within the company is important for building trust within the team and encouraging them that they are capable of doing the project. A great approach is using the “train-the-trainer” method to educate all stakeholders within the company. 9. Regular steering committee meetings Everyone needs to be on the same page. Ensuring biweekly/monthly meetings will result in having control over project execution and the possibility to address challenges timely, update all parties involved and avoid miscommunication. 10. A reliable FMS partner Key things to have in mind when searching for an FMS provider partner is to find a reliable partner with a lot of know-how, experience, who understands the value chain, someone that has the ability to provide an integrated solution and is dedicating an Account Manager in order to support people continuously. Nowadays, it is very expensive not to have an IT farm management solution, but at the same time, it can cost double the investment if companies choose the wrong partner to work with or even worse, make mistakes that lead to project failure. If you are interested in learning more about Agrivi implementation projects, contact us at sales@agrivi.com. Contact UsNOW

Fruit and vegetable processing is seen widely in the food and beverage industry. A recent report from Markets&Markets states that the global demand for fruit and vegetable processing is expected to reach $319.9 billion in 2020 when it is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 7.9% between 2016 and 2020. The question that is being imposed here is how food processing companies can manage their supply chain easier. There is one big issue firmly rooted at the base of every agricultural supply chain—how to ensure consistent quota and quality of the products being sourced. Mission: Sustainable Sourcing of Agricultural Products From a business perspective, supply chains are often difficult to manage, with challenges such as low and variable yields, or poor product quality which most commonly results in food losses and waste. Some of the key issues regarding product quality management are described below: Harvesting during inadequate stages of maturity; the immature, properly mature and over-mature crops should be sorted out for the best attributes. Irregular size or shape of the products; when conducting quality grading all products must comply with the certain standards of a specific grade or class. Improper handling during the production-to-processing stages or post-harvest management; some of the major causes of poor quality of crops are the failure to apply fertilizer, ineffective weed, insect pest and disease controls. Quality can also be affected by any improper on-farm handling or when the products are brought to the company's processing facilities. A dispersed supplier network and differences in knowledge; having suppliers in different geographic locations complicates the supply chain and disables the sourcing company to efficiently manage product quality. Crop production requires close supervision, especially when farmers are unfamiliar with new methods and technologies. Supplier networks consist of farmers whose skills vary from advanced knowledge of top-notch best practices to basic production methods that are considered outdated. All this can greatly affect the outcome of the farmer's season and have a negative impact on the final yield quality.   Ensure Product Quality Meets Your Customer Requirements A major problem with quality standards is that they are frequently vague and not clearly understood. To avoid significant crop losses, sourcing companies need to find a solution that will help them sustainably manage their supply chain. The key to ensuring a consistent level of product quality in crop sourcing is: Presenting parameters and standards in clear and understandable terms. Extension staff or sourcing managers should demonstrate to farmers the parameters in question at the beginning of each season and explain the specifications for each grade or class. Specifying the maximum content of each delivery container. Quality can suffer if containers (boxes, bags, slings, bales, etc.) are overpacked. Empowering farmers with best practice knowledge. Companies need to recognize and eliminate unproductive practices within their own supply chain, and identify key productivity drivers with successful farmers and push it to the less educated ones. “Lifting the veil“ of the entire supply chain. Establish transparency and traceability in order to know what's going on behind the supplier's closed doors. Having all data in one centralized An efficient software tool would do the trick, and enable easy management and collaboration with farmers. This gives complete visibility of the field performance, suppliers, and products in real-time. Nurturing the relationship with farmers. Simple communication through the platform via laptop or a mobile device, removing the need for paper. Creating a long-term partnership with the farmers, ensuring attention is being dedicated to specific pain points of each farmer, reducing the risk of poor quality products getting onto the shelf.   Finding a Digital Solution to Reduce Bad Quality Products Agrivi farm management software is a cloud-based solution built for collaboration with your network of farmers and boosting them with the knowledge necessary for delivering required levels of crop quality and quantity.  By empowering both food sourcing companies and their farmer network with an integrated management platform Agrivi is giving companies much-needed visibility and control over all of their supply chain processes. Contract management—Agrivi platform allows crop sourcing companies to maintain a central registry of growers and manage contracts with them Crop growing practices—create localized best practices and standard guidelines; push them through the platform and ensure higher yields and standard compliance Monitor and measure performance—a real-time overview of the entire production progress, planned quantity delivery level and complete product traceability Communication—simple information sharing and fast communication with the farmers; integrated bidirectional communication through the platform (e-mail, push notifications, chat in real-time) Risk management—access to farmers data, anytime, anywhere; minimizing the impact of real-time risks through timely alerts from unexpected yield risks caused by pests or unfavorable weather events Contact our Sales team if you would like to schedule a live demo to see how Agrivi can help you overcome your supply chain management challenges. 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Enterprise farm management systems companies are having an increase in demand and receiving more and more inquiries on a daily basis. The main question here is how food processing companies can manage a farmer supply chain easier. Some chain issues are usually ingredient availability, vendor pricing, squeezing margins etc. Food and beverage manufacturers report that the typical availability of their primary supplier materials/ ingredients is either “readily obtainable” (44%) or “somewhat obtainable” (49%). Six percent of respondents indicate that their materials/ingredients are difficult to obtain, and one company indicates that they could not obtain their primary ingredient.   What does this mean? They order a specific crop from the farmer, they set up the contract and pricing, but what happens from that moment up until the crop is in their warehouse—they simply do not have the information.   If we sat down with an executive at a food processing company responsible for the supply chain and ask some of these following questions, it’s possible that we wouldn’t receive a specific answer because they usually just do not know it: How much crop is the farmer actually producing? Is he doing it in the best and most efficient way possible? Could he do something better to ensure everything is going smoothly, from the order of crops to the point of delivering them? Are the producing targets realistic and achievable or did something changed in the meantime? Do they (food processing companies) need to find an additional vendor for the crops in case the farmer cannot produce enough as agreed initially? When do they need to find that vendor? What kind of price difference will it make? How much of the final product can they produce? Is there something they can provide in order to help their farmers have better productivity? And last but not least; how much money from their sales will they be able to make in the end? They think and talk internally about these questions daily, and they don’t have one farmer or producer in their value chain, they have hundreds and thousands of them, which means a lot of question marks. In order to answer these questions, food processing companies must receive data from the farmer in real-time. Having all the necessary information at the right time, helps them plan their activities (like sales, marketing, targets, strategies…). Making rough estimates cost much more in the end, with very high risks for the food processing company in general! Implementing a farm management system in place helps to fill the gap and answers all of the aforementioned questions. Both farmers and food processing companies use the same software with different feature sets.   Here are 5 key points how a Farm Management System solves the problem: Reducing risk Providing data collected from individual farmer accounts helps food processing companies to have an insight into farmers practices, quantity, and delivery. Cost saving Monitoring farmer accounts on one place in real-time affects traceability and their overall supply chain management. Having information about how many additional crops to purchase and when to make the purchase from another producer is crucial and directly affects the sales. Transferring knowledge Sharing advice and best practices to all farmers through one centralized system is boosting farmers’ productivity both in the short and long run. Quality Having an insight into the quality of the products they order from the manufacturers because it is important for the quality of their end products they put on the store shelves. Having this insight through a user-friendly dashboard solves this problem. Traceability A FMS solution gives an automated and real-time insight into how manufacturers produce and are they compliant with the required industry standards.   If you are working with or within a food processing company and would like a personalized presentation of how Agrivi FMS can help increase sales and planning, contact us at sales@agrivi.com. Contact UsNOW     Text sources: Food Processing

THE RISE OF THE CONSCIOUS CONSUMER An international study conducted by Unilever reveals that more than a third of consumers (33%) are now choosing to buy from companies they believe are producing in accordance with ecological principles, and the majority of consumers nowadays expect that products they buy fulfill high social, ecological and ethical standards (source: Unilever). When buying, consumers are wondering: 'Is this product good for my family and me? Is this produced in a healthy way? Although the label claims it is organic, is it really? Is it possible for a false statement to be on a label? Is the price I’m paying justified? Buying a poor-quality product or an incorrectly classified product can have a significant impact on the reputation of the manufacturer, grower, cooperative and the store where the product was bought. Once a company gets a bad reputation, business is more difficult to conduct, and it becomes challenging to retain customers and stakeholders.   GLOBALG.A.P. STANDARDS AS A MEANS OF REGULATION IN GLOBAL AGRICULTURAL TRADE     Although there are already many certificates that seem to guarantee the origin of the product, there is only one which has definitive rules for growers to follow. The GLOBALG.A.P. is a food safety standard developed to regulate food production processes from micro to macro level of producing. GLOBALG.A.P. certificate can provide the customer a complete transparency of the food production process, from the farm to its final product. Also, unlike with other certificates, each production unit is evaluated by independent third-party auditors. The idea behind such standard is to ensure that all agricultural products, marked with this specific certificate, are handled in a way which is safe, healthy and sustainable for consumers and for environment as well. The main goal is to strengthen customer confidence in quality and health of agricultural products of a certain producer. Only those who have good agricultural practice, integrated pesticide control program, quality management system and HACCP principles can get the certificate. Apart from benefits and safety for the buyers, the possession of a certificate like this is a significant advantage for both growers and grower’s organizations (cooperatives). Having in mind the newest trends makes it easy to conclude that it directly affects the financial profit for both growers and grower’s organizations. GLOBALG.A.P. is thus responding to direct requests by consumers and offers them trust and security. Also, it's reasonable to assume that GLOBALG.A.P. standards will play an increasingly significant role in international retail corporations in coming years. ADMINISTRATION REMAINS IN THE PAST Although the process of obtaining such a certificate is not imagined as excessively complex, the process often gets complicated by administrative procedures. The process of applying can be pretty challenging and time consuming if done manually. Biggest challenge when applying is definitely the number of documents needed, specific checklists for each country, level of accuracy, self-assessment process, history of data provided and checking out the points which don’t comply with criteria. Although it may appear confusing, the process can be significantly simplified. By choosing to use a farm management software in running a business, you are choosing strategic, tactical and operational help in running a business, as well as getting the needed information for applying for submitting to GLOBALG.A.P. If regularly filled out, a good farm management software can provide you with everything mandatory for submitting your application within two mouse clicks. Agrivi is a perfect match for manufacturers, growers, cooperatives and stores that see the importance and want to apply to GLOBALG.A.P. certificate since Agrivi, as No. 1 farm management software in Europe, supports it fully. Interested in simplifying your Global GAP administration? Book aDEMO     Text sources: Unilever || GlobalG.A.P.

World Population Day is an annual event, observed on July 11 every year, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues. The event was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989. It was exalted by the interest of the public when the global population became near about five billion at 11th of July in the year 1987. World Population Day aims to increase people’s awareness on various population issues such as the importance of family planning, including gender equality, poverty, maternal health and human rights. The day is celebrated worldwide by business groups, community organizations and individuals in many ways. Activities include seminar discussions, educational information sessions and essay competitions. The objectives of celebrating the world population day: It is celebrated to protect and empower youths of both genders like girls and boys To offer them detail knowledge about the sexuality and delay marriages till they become able to understand their responsibilities Educate youths to avoid unwanted pregnancies by using reasonable and youth friendly measures Educate people to remove the gender stereotypes from society Educate them about the pregnancy related illnesses to raise the public awareness about dangers of early childbirth Educate them about STD (sexually transmitted diseases) to get prevented from various infections Demand for some effective laws and policies implementation in order to protect girl child rights Make sure about the access of equal primary education to both girls and boys Make sure the easy access of reproductive health services everywhere as part the basic primary health for each couple.   World population distribution map   The world today has its largest generation of youth in history – 1.8 billion young people, mostly in developing countries – with enormous potential to help tackle the major challenges facing humanity. But too many are denied their rightful opportunities to get a quality education, find decent work, and participate in the political life of their societies. World Population Day is an opportunity to renew our commitment to help young people unleash progress across society. Action is urgently needed. Too many young people lack resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Adolescent girls are mostly vunerable, due to face discrimination, sexual violence, early marriage and unwanted pregnancies. And even among those young people fortunate enough to receive university degrees, many find themselves without employment or stuck in low-wage, dead-end jobs. The solution lies in investments in health, education, training and employment for young people as they undergo the critical transition to adulthood. This will improve prospects for their lives and our common future. By empowering today’s youth, we will lay the groundwork for a more sustainable future for generations to come. TRY AGRIVIfor free

  We are what we eat. Awareness of the food quality, origin and traceability have never been so high. Consumers are interested to know where the food they eat was grown, how it was produced and who is the farmer who grew it. More and more consumers want to go to a farm, see how a farmer is producing food and even buy directly at farmer gates. The era of food traceability and transparency is here. Farmer cooperatives play a huge role in US economy and are the enabler of the agricultural industry whose role is to protect farmer interests in acquiring inputs at lower prices, providing agronomy advice to farmers and helping farmers to market their products and sell them at better prices. All in all, the key role of farmer co-ops is to help farmers improve their farm profitability and ensure long-term sustainability. In 2016, there were 1,953 agricultural co-ops in USA with 1,9 million farmer memberships (source: USDA). Even 1,040 of all cooperatives in the USA are Marketing Co-Ops, which means that their key focus is on crop marketing and selling their member commodities.   Bringing Farmer Stories to Consumers Marketing Co-Ops do the crop marketing, buy commodities from farmers, package them and often deliver to end consumers under the joint brand. This is the base point when we speak about traceability and food origin when it comes to farmer co-ops. Let's see the customer journey and experience when buying and consuming the products.   Consumers meet the co-op joint brand when buying the product. This is the reason why co-op needs to provide traceability information about the produce, as well as why it is extremely important to provide consumers with a simple way of leaving feedback about the product quality, tasting, and general impressions. However, the moment of providing traceability information to a consumer is a very precious moment. At that point, we have all attention of a consumer-focused on this information and making a great impression by showcasing the real farmer story, what was the effort to grow those apples or pears, from which field do the apples come from, how do farming activities look like (photo gallery), which inputs were used for production and much more.   How to Secure Traceability? It might seem that ensuring data like that is complex, but the solution to this is quite straightforward. I will immediately exclude all manual and analog options that include physical paper reporting on traceability or old-school approaches and focus on digital options and scenarios: Spreadsheet approach— Farmers submit their traceability reports (spraying, fertilizing, harvesting, irrigation, etc.) to a cooperative via e-mail. Cooperative aggregates all the reports, but there is no platform for showcasing the traceability of those farmers to end consumers. This makes the spreadsheet approach not so appealing. Multi-platform approach— Farmers use various farm management solutions. They can export traceability data to a spreadsheet and send it as a report to a cooperative, but in this case, cooperative will get reports in dozens of formats (every farm management software has different report formats). Expecting that farmers will convert their reports to a format requested by the cooperative is a false expectation, we see that approach failing. Also, expecting that cooperative will reformat all the reports into a single format to be able to aggregate the data doesn't work—it is too much work and generates too many errors. There is another possibility, that a cooperative has a central solution with API and then all farm management systems used by farmers within a co-op integrate with the central platform to automate traceability data collection. The question here is who will bear the cost of such integrations (farmers or co-ops?) and how to include traceability for farmers that don't use any platform. Central-platform approach— Cooperative selects the farm management platform like Agrivi that supports management of a farmer cooperative. Each farmer gets his farm management account on the platform where all farming data can be tracked. Cooperative gets a top-level advisory account where there is a farmer registry, farmer contract management, messaging with farmers and reporting module. As farmers are entering the data, co-op gets real-time traceability reports in an automated and structured way. Also, after harvesting, farmers can create a public traceability report that is accessible to consumers via a QR code that can be placed on the product   How to Tell a Farmer's Story Farmers are the heroes of mankind today—without farmers, there is no food. Without food, there is no mankind. Showcasing how the food was grown, where does it come from and who are the farmers behind the food means giving credit to farmers and saying thank you for feeding us. If a co-op uses a central farm management software platform like Agrivi to collaborate with their farmers, then giving credit to farmers is easy. Take a look at the video here: With the possibility to design a public traceability report with your co-op branding and data that you would like to show, Agrivi farm management software provides you endless possibilities to deliver your farmer stories right to the hands of consumers.   Book a demo with Agrivi—leading FMS for farmers and ag co-ops Experience in working with over 40,000 farmers and ag co-ops in 150 countries makes Agrivi an ideal agtech partner. Get in touch with our sales team and arrange a FREE live demo to learn how Agrivi can support your farmer cooperative! Book a FREElive demo

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.   Book a demo with Agrivi—leading FMS for farmers and ag co-ops   Experience in working with over 40,000 farmers and ag co-ops in 150 countries makes Agrivi an ideal agtech partner. Get in touch with our sales team and arrange a FREE live demo to learn how Agrivi can support your agricultural cooperative! Book a FREElive demo