Why Inventory is the Ticket

In a summer of drought in much of the US, agriculture is ablaze with new market opportunities - and a lot of big promises. Yet, when you cut to the core, most farmers I know want to produce the best product in a way that is feasible - I'll even use the buzzy "sustainable" -  for their team, their business, their land. My career has been focused on solving persistent problems in food and ag, and I joined AgriDigital at the end of 2020 because we have real solutions to power farmer success.

The list of skills a profitable farming operation needs to have on hand is extraordinary: agronomy, mechanical know-how, team manager, marketing savvy, trend watcher...the list goes on. I work at AgriDigital because I believe our tools make it easier for farmers to get every drop of value from their hard work. I'll focus on one of our products: AgriDigital Onfarm. The average farmer has 40 harvests in their career. When that grain is harvested and moved into storage, it represents an entire seasons' work.is making it easy to capture the most value from all that work.

I get fired up talking about AgriDigital Onfarm because it's an easy to use tool that unlocks so much opportunity. It is digital record-keeping, it is real time information on inventory - the fruits of an entire season's work. AgriDigital Onfarm enables team collaboration where farm teams actually are - in the field with no cell service, in the home office, at the bin site, with trusted advisors miles from the farm.  AgriDigital Onfarm smooths the critical path from harvest, through to sale, from the palm of a farmer's hand. It's that simple.

In Accelerate Montana's Rural Innovation Initiative panel I was asked how I convince farmers they should adopt new tools when it's not "the way it has always been done". My response was, "I don't". If a farmer's business is running smoothly, that is wonderful. AgriDigital is focused on working with farmers who see opportunity to work more efficiently over harvest and get more value from their grain to do so.

As anyone who works in agtech can relate to, there is nothing more satisfying than hearing from customers about how your product has made their business better. One of my favorite stories this winter was a customer telling me how when he was thousands of miles from his grain bins he jumped into AgriDigital Onfarm, saw how much grain he had left to sell and acted right away on a marketing opportunity. My response was fantastic, and what would you have done previously? His reply: call his site manager to drive out to the bins, climb the ladder, bang on the side of the  bing to estimate what is left, check what was committed on contract, call him back. Phew. To me, this is a win - it was that easy for our customer to act on a dime.

We have lots more up our sleeve helping farmers unlock new opportunity from their grains. For example, this summer we're proud to be partnering with Genesis Feed Tech on their Seed to Feed pilot at the Grand Farm (many cool partners involved including Geora, Bushel, Verigrain- see the list here). With all the demand for premium soybeans, together we're showing premium beans can be traced from seed to feed, and testing whether or not meeting a premium standard does create more money for the farmers. Why? Because for farmers to be able to meet industry demand, it has to be profitable - that is sustainability.

We have lots more up our sleeve helping farmers get more value from their grain inventory (check out Emma Weston on Ag News Daily to hear sneak peaks). At AgriDigital we're not trying to solve everything, we're provide the essential link from harvest to buyer through their inventory. The best part of my job is solving these problems together - with farmers, with tech partners, with other companies. My sleeves are rolled up, come join us.

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