About 5,000 members are already using Tillable
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A new online marketplace is helping landowners connect with prospective farmers.
Tillable collects data from property tax records and then contacts landowners for more information. Prospective farmers can access that data to determine if a possible working relationship could exist.
Nearly 40 percent of all U.S. farmland is rented or leased, the USDA reported in 2014.
But a shortage of available data means landowners aren’t receiving fair market price for their acres, said Corbett Kull, CEO of Tillable.
“Land owners don’t really know what the market value for their farmland is,” Kull told Bloomberg Wednesday. “What we’re doing is running a price discovery process for them.”
The marketplace works differently for farmers and landowners.
Landowners set parameters for their land and receive price bids from qualified farmers. The leaser chooses who they wish to do business with.
Tillable also tracks soil management and yield performance, allowing landowners to compare performance to surrounding parcels.
And the marketplace doesn’t operate like an auction. So, just because one farmer may outbid another, that doesn’t mean the landowner will choose him or her.
Farmers looking to rent land must build a profile about their ag experiences and equipment that landowners can view.
Growers can make offers on farms they find appealing and Tillable will notify them when similar farms become available.
When the two parties reach an agreement, they can complete a lease document and transfer payments electronically.
Tillable operates in Illinois, Iowa and Southern Minnesota, but has plans to expand.
Farms.com has reached out to Kull for more details about Tillable.