Global leader in agriculture partners with local companies

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Global leader in agriculture partners with local companies

Details: Published on Friday, December 4, 2015

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

On Nov. 25, Farmers Edge announced that they will be partnering with Redfern Farm Services and Neepawa-Gladstone Co-op to provide their services to southwestern Manitoba.

Farmers Edge, an international company that originated in Manitoba, uses technology to help farmers grow their crops more efficiently. They use Variable Rate Technology (VRT) to show where in a farmer’s field needs more or less seed, fertilizer, herbicide and other products to minimize waste and maximize yield. The company has staff who go out and take soil samples, access satellites to get pictures of the fields and weather stations set up at their customers’ farms to collect data. The data gets stored in a database to which the farmers and the company have access. Farmers Edge also analyzes the data and gives the farmers recommendations based on the information they get.

Farmers Edge has partnered with Redfern and Neepawa-Gladstone Co-op to give customers a convenient way to get their services.

Redfern already provides some of the components of the programs that are now available with enhancements through Farmers Edge. Now, they will have the ability to offer the more comprehensive Farmers Edge services and provide their customers with the innovative VRT, as well as the services they already offer.

Ray Redfern, founder of Redfern Farm Services, said that his staff will be able to deliver much of the components of these services. He said they already do soil sampling and will continue to do so. The main difference is that they will be sending that data and the other information that they collect with the new technology to the Farmers Edge database for analysis. He said that along with the computer analysis at Farmers Edge, Redfern personnel will also analyze the data and give interpretive observations to their customers. They will work with the customer and Farmers Edge to create a VRT program that works best for the customer.

Redfern said that the reason they partnered with Farmers Edge was to combine resources of both organizations to give customers more options and the ability for more precise farming. He said that VRT is a tool that will be used more and more in agriculture, so it was the logical next step to partner with Farmers Edge.

For Co-op, the partnership means that their Agro customers will have access to the Farmers Edge VRT packages if they want. Rob Melnyk, Co-op’s Agro division manager, said that Co-op will act as a third party to get their customers in touch with Farmers Edge and Farmers Edge will provide all the services. Co-op has offered agronomy services in the past, but now they will be able to offer access to the technology that Farmers Edge uses. Melnyk said that Neepawa-Gladstone Co-op chose to partner with the company because it has been providing these services for a long time and they have the expertise in this field with advanced VRT programs.

Melnyk said that Co-op wants to keep in the forefront of the agriculture business and VRT is the future of agronomy. With technology playing an increased role in modern agriculture, this partnership allows Co-op to supply their client base with the expertise they need to keep up.