A resurgence of youth in ag, farming profitability and a wider openness to ag-tech, has all lead to a skyrocketing interest in agricultural software. Due to this new-found interest, there has been an increase in products available, which means plenty of choices but a difficult time choosing the right one. So, how do you go about choosing the right software for your operation?

After many hours of wasting time searching for the right software for our own family-farm, I wish I had taken these two steps:

1. Understand our pain points
2. Confirming product fit

Pain points

(1) Pains are personal, everyone has them but not everyone goes out to solve them, so kudos to you. On any farm there could be a variety of pain points, maybe your rainfall records are up shit creek, maybe you’re constantly losing track of livestock movements or your chemical inventory is in total disorder. It’s different for every operation.

So, what are the pain points in your operation? Once the pain points have been established, you can narrow down your search to these areas.

Product fit

(2) Software should assist the way you farm, supplying the tools to increase productivity and save time. So how do you know if a product is a good fit for your farm? It comes down to three questions:

• Is the software flexible enough to accommodate your farming style?
• Is it practical, does it save time and/or increase productivity?
• Is it simple to use?

If the software passes all three requirements, fantastic, you have the perfect fit. If not, back to the drawing board.

What now?

In the last few months, I have been engulfed in finding and comparing good software solutions in agriculture, which, to your benefit, means I can give you recommendations to narrow down the spectrum of software available. Below is a list of software/apps that represent the values of flexibility, practicality and simplicity for various farming operations. I hope you find it useful 😊

• Farm Simple - Crop Farm Management
• Google My Maps  - Free Farm Mapping
• Black Box Co - Individual Animal Management
• Mobble — Livestock Farm Management
• Xero — Farm Accounting

If you have read this far I expect that you are pretty interested in Ag Tech. if you would like to receive a lazy once a fortnight email on everything Ag Tech and Mobble development feel free to join my email list.

Happy farming

At Mobble, we have simplified farm management for livestock producers with our Livestock Farm Management App. If you're a livestock producer, check out out demo video here and let us know what you think :)

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Signing off,

Jock Lawrence (Chief Mobbler)

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p.s. If you know of any great products that I haven’t mentioned feel free to let me know, [email protected]