Using a trial group of 50 farmers they will find a way to bring together milk production and quality data, herd details, pasture measurements, local weather forecasts and more into one easy-to-use online portal.
Farmers would be able to see their private, individual farm information in one place, allowing them to make faster and better farm and animal management decisions.
A first release of the common platform would be made available to all farmers by the end of the year.
Early adopters of Fonterra’s online applications and the more-established LIC products MINDA and Protrack had called for convergence.
Ideally, all online services should also be accessible through smart phones, to provide paddock inputs and appeal to younger managers and farm workers who ran their lives on mobile phones.
As farmer-owned co-operatives with 80%-plus overlapping shareholding, Fonterra and LIC were obvious companies to team up, with the fertiliser co-operatives close behind.
Farm Source chief operating officer Miles Hurrell said farmers had a number of data sources, developed in isolation.
“They have asked for a way to bring them together, avoid the need for double entry and the ability to benchmark their farms using aggregated data leading to more productivity.”
LIC chief executive Wayne McNee said farmers wanted simplicity – one place to see all records and information in real time.
It was critical to link with other industry partners such as Fonterra to reduce duplication and capitalise on existing expertise and resources.
Northland dairy farmer, Jersey breeder and LIC director Murray Jagger said he had been collecting farm data since the 1980s and now had several programmes and applications run on computer and smart phone.
“We now need intuitive programmes that self-populate. It’s not just about compliance but using our farm data to make better decisions and create efficiencies.”
Murray Jagger
Farmer, LIC
He wanted them to talk to each other so packages of aggregated data could be exported to the farm accountant, dairy company, bank manager, breed society, regional council and fertiliser supplier.
“We now need intuitive programmes that self-populate.
“It’s not just about compliance but using our farm data to make better decisions and create efficiencies.”
For instance, the Jaggers’ Whangarei Heads farm now did weekly growth measurements of every paddock with a C-Dax tow-behind pasture meter.
The GPS track and the readings were displayed on an LIC FarmKeeper platform and a feed wedge chart populated to generate the cow herd rotation, which needed to be communicated to all farm employees.
The pasture measurements should then flow on to nitrogen applications and recording for Fonterra.
Fonterra’s general manager of farmer services, Evelyn Seewald, said 70% of supply farms were checking their milk pick-ups daily with the On Farm application and about 40% were using the My Co-op application for news.
A monthly plant check application had just been added to the online services.
“We anticipate farmers moving quickly to being large users of our digital services although we will provide the traditional alternatives as long as they are needed,” Seewald said.
