A tech-focused family farm in the Scottish Highlands is one of first in the country to adopt new farm management software created by AgriWebb.
Fearn Farm, situated in Easter Ross, recently announced it will hold the UK’s first online breeding cattle sale using the New Zealand-founded yourbid platform.
Following suit, they have chosen AgriWebb. Built with British farmers, it digitises record keeping and provides actionable insights from farm data, helping to increase on-farm productivity, traceability and sustainability.
“We follow a lot of Antipodean developments and agricultural best practice from elsewhere in the world,” said John Scott, farmer at Fearn.
“Bringing in the best available technologies is vital to ensuring our success, and we’re proud to pioneer methods that will help Scottish farming to thrive.”
AgriWebb, founded in Australia and backed by British agtech investor Wheatsheaf Group, launched in the UK earlier this year.
The app, which was tested by 100 British beef and sheep farmers in an early adopter program prior to launch, has been developed to meet the demanding requirements of the industry.
For example, AgriWebb integrates with all government databases across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Data entered into the app automatically syncs with a farmer's government account, removing the need to regularly log in, and makes potentially stressful audits easier.
Fearn Farm breeds commercially relevant livestock suited to modern, sustainable livestock farming systems and that can thrive off high forage diets.
It currently grows malting barley alongside commercial and pedigree sheep and cattle, keeping around 5,000 sheep and 240 cows across five farms along with 200 hectares of cropping.
“We were looking for a farm management software package that would enable our guys in the field to communicate well with our office team, rather than rely on bits of paper and disjointed systems,” said Mr Scott.
“We gather a lot of data on daily rounds and have been using other programmes to capture this. But AgriWebb is one fluent system that will work for multiple staff here."
AgriWebb provides tools to improve livestock management. It can be used anywhere, anytime, both online or offline, on a single farm or across multiple sites.
It digitises farm mapping, herd management, tasks and record keeping, empowering livestock farmers to grow their businesses in increasingly tough conditions and in the face of current market uncertainty.
“We expect our team will get far more insight from record keeping, and in turn, this will inspire everyone to input more data,” added John Scott.
"Historically and typically in farm businesses, information is gathered and sent to the office, but not also given back to those on the ground.
"For example, with AgriWebb we can take a tag number and understand why the cow isn’t performing well. We can drill down on this and decide whether that animal is a keeper or not.
“Our focus as a business is to try to develop long-term working relationships with others who have the same values and goals."
