Get the Big Picture with COMPASS Grower Advanced

Mar 12, 2015

2015 Precision Agriculture Conference Breakout Session

How many tools do you use to manage your operation? From data inputs, accounting and marketing management responsibilities, the number of tools needed to make informed decisions is endless…until now.

A partnership between BASF and Affinity Management wants to help you streamline your business with the launch of an all-in-one mobile farm data management system that allows growers to have complete control of data from farm inputs to accounting. Scheduled to be available in the summer of 2015, Compass Grower Advanced is a central solution for your agriculture business needs.

Andrew Elgersma, Grower Services Manager with BASF, and Trevor McCormick, Business Solutions Manager with Affinity Management explained the tool and provided a live demonstration to attendees at a breakout session at the 2015 Precision Agriculture Conference.

“The tool helps growers by enabling them to make more informed decisions and get valuable reporting on crop, financial, and grain marketing data in one solution,” said Elgersma.

Some features of Compass Grower Advance include data security, mobiles access, real-time report generation, GIS/GPS mapping, crop budgeting and more. The tool collects valuable information from machinery, such as tractors, combines, and sprayers and delivers it to one location.

The tool is based on a secured cloud-based Microsoft system and is compatible with smartphones, tablets, PC and MAC. McCormick demonstrated the tool to the audience while using his iPad. The easy to use tool allows you to manage your information with the ease of drop down menus, as well as customizable features. The tool also allows you to add multiple users and provides you with the option to change permissions for each user, based on their role in your business.

Some other unique features of Compass Grower Advanced include taking photos with your smartphone from the field and uploading them to the tool in real time, as well as an easy to use calculator to help with best processes and blended results.

Get one-to-one online training and ongoing user support from the dedicated Affinity Management support team, located in Ontario.

If you’re interested in Compass Grower Advanced and have questions, including how to get the tool, please contact BASF’s AgSolutions Customer Care: https://agro.basf.ca/basf/agprocan/agsolutions/ASMain.nsf/contactUs?OpenNavigator.

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.