$9.5 billion in farm revenue lost in 2014?

Jan 13, 2015

FarmLink seems to think so

By Diego Flammini, Farms.com

Face it, when it comes to the almighty dollar, there’s never enough of it and everyone is always looking for ways to make more without doing any extra work.

Farmers and agriculture professionals are already responsible for somewhere around $129 billion in revenue and according to Kansas City, Missouri’s FarmLink, they missed out on almost an extra $10 billion in revenue.

FarmLink estimates that 50 million corn and soybean acres were unprofitable in 2014 because farmers didn’t have the proper tools to increase the profitability of some of their fields. FarmLink identified 1.6 billion bushels of corn and soybeans farmers could have taken advantage of, if their fields performed as high as some others.

Enter FarmLink’s TrueHarvest, a service that uses objective, unique, and accurate data to show the full potential of a field, down to 150 square feet areas. It analyzes similar land in similar conditions to determine the range of performance, coupled with 62 additional weather, soil, evapotranspiration and topographical variables, to determine peak performance capabilities.

"Farmers need 'actionable data', not just 'big data', to answer critical questions about performance and profitability," said Ron LeMay, Chairman and CEO of FarmLink in a release. “Unfortunately, due to inaccurate collection and inadequate data management capabilities, much of the data in agriculture today is of suspect quality and not organized and formulated into tools that make it actionable for farmers.”

"A lot of yield maps show you what the yield was, but it doesn't show you the potential of that acre," said Brent Schipper, a TrueHarvest subscriber who farms near Conrad, Iowa. "Benchmarking, and yield gap maps provided by TrueHarvest, allows you to see where maybe you should put some extra inputs, or instead of putting them on one acre, shift them over additional acreage and be more responsible with what you are using."

The introductory price for TrueHarvest is the equivalent of about one bushel of corn or 4/10 bushel of soybeans per acre, requiring an up-front deposit plus a payment at Fall settlement.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.