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Farming always has numerous “x-factors”
attached to it that make the outcome
difficult to predict. One group of farmer
entrepreneurs built a company on their
desire to help farmers and save the planet.
Here’s their story.
Verge Agriculture
—produces one product only,
Launch Pad
, which it calls a “the only interactive
planning experience ever made.”
The privately held company currently employs 23
people (and growing), and has established itself as
a SaaS (software as a service) company that lacks a
brick-and-mortar-office, instead having its workers
located across North America, as it establishes
partnerships in numerous countries around the world.
Lyndsay Barch
, Marketing Manager of Verge
explained: “Launch Pad came about with the
realization that farmers were lacking a solution which
helps them manage the dependencies between their
land and equipment.”
“We saw that farmers needed planning software with
an intuitive interface to realize cost savings as it relates
to increasing efficiencies, reducing the use of inputs,
and managing equipment and labour,” she said.
To resolve it, a team was formed, including farmers,
entrepreneurs, and yes, rocket scientists. Plural. Barch
said that the team set about to develop the world’s
first interactive software to help farmers plan their field
operations.
Launch Pad was introduced to the market in 2020
as a software solution that “enabled farmers to plan,
simulate, and validate the movement of equipment
in the field and execute field operations efficiently,”
Barch noted. “The combination of climate crisis and
an already-declining net farm income is a perfect
storm that threatens farmers’ livelihoods and our food
supply. We wanted to develop a solution that led with
an economic driver (increase efficiencies and reduce
costs) but also solved the climate crisis (reduce
GHG emissions, increase soil value, and long-term
sustainability).”
As Barch pointed out, Launch Pad is the first product
of its kind, and Verge is, as far as it knows, the only
company focused on exposing the relationship
between land, equipment, and best practices. It has
doubled its customer base from 2020 to 2021 and is
continuing to grow.
“The only input our product requires is a field
boundary. This can either be created on Launch Pad
or uploaded in the appropriate format by the user.
With just that, farmers can plan, analyze, compare and
manage the routes their equipment take across all of
their operations,” said Barch.
LAUNCH PAD
TO THE
VERGE AND BEYOND
Software company helps farmers manage operations and
provide carbon footprint savings before setting foot in the field
MATHEW MACDONALD
FARMS.COM
PHOTO: Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Wavebreak Media/Getty Images Plus