Introducing YAGRO Analytics

A new product launched to plug BPS hole in farm businesses

We are excited to announce the release of YAGRO Analytics™, a ground-breaking new product which aggregates on-farm business data into a simple online tool, and gives the farm manager incredible detail and insight on the farm’s current and historical performance.

“It’s answered questions I’ve wanted to know for years,” describes Jamie Lockhart, Director of Farming at Honingham Thorpe Farms in Norfolk, and 2020 Nuffield Scholar. “If we had this Holy Grail of data collection that was delivered to us in a usable format, it unlocks so many options for us. Our data is clear, I can see the cost of production per tonne and I can start treating individual fields as cost centres.”

“This is game changing for the farm manager,” explains Gareth Davies, CEO of YAGRO. “It's the first time a farmer's data actually pulls its weight and becomes intelligent and helpful. For a very long time, UK farmers have been pulling their hair out trying to get their business data together in a sensible way. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to know where you stand, and how to improve. Here’s the answer.”

YAGRO Analytics solves this by effortlessly ingesting and processing data on variable costs yields, to produce cost of production figures across crops, varieties, and down to individual fields. Behind all this sits detailed analysis on prices, rates, and products – even analysing the quantity of active ingredients applied per field.

“Managing data is one of the limiting factors on the growth of the business,” adds John Barrett, Director at Sentry Ltd. “YAGRO Analytics really shows the variance in performance from field to field, and highlights what we can change to make an improvement to the business.”

Farm Managers looking for the extra edge in their business can rely on three benefits of the system:

• Better understand your farm business by bringing together your own information, seeing how fields compare to each other and over years

• Gain a reliable comparison against others, through highly detailed and verified analysis against similar farms to see where you stand, and the art of the possible

• Collaborate with farms you trust, by forming a private group where you can explicitly share and compare key performance metrics from your farms

With these, the system aims at critical business questions such as ‘which varieties are performing best financially?’; ‘in which crops do I hold a cost advantage?’; ‘can I share performance data with farms that I know and trust?’; ‘what drives my excess costs in poor performing fields?’, and many more.

The process is simple for the farm manager, only requiring basic data exports, and minimal correction on data flagged by YAGRO’s proprietary Data Ingestion Engine.

Daniel Jolly, Head of Business Development, describes: “It’s all about giving the farm manager that confident decision-making ability, as well as helping sharpen the edge for the business in these challenging times. How are we going to replace Basic Payment Scheme payments? The best businesses have to keep on getting better, and we hope to play a huge part in that with this Analytics tool.”

The tool is the result of 18 months of intense R&D, partly funded through the UK Government’s Transforming Food Production Initiative. Over this time, YAGRO has established a National Steering Group of 15 high profile farms from across the UK, guiding product development to ensure it delivers for the farm. This group has tasked YAGRO with delivering value equivalent to the loss of BPS.

Andrew Francis, Farms Director at Elveden Farms Ltd, and member of the National Steering Group, describes the challenge, “We know we want to measure and analyse more than most, the tough bit is processing that data so we can draw conclusions before it is out of date.”

Jamie Lockhart picks up, “I’m drawn to YAGRO by their independent nature. I know my data isn’t going anywhere there’s no hidden agenda, and I know they are acting on my behalf.”

The system is available to farms at an annual subscription of £1 / acre, with a minimum of £1,000. To ensure the highest quality and trust in data sets, YAGRO is restricting intake to only 200 farms between now and the end of 2020.

Mr Davies adds, “As a fully independent company focused solely on the farmer, we live or die by the value we provide to the farm. The response so far has been outstanding. This is the first module in an exciting range of tools we are bringing to market over the next 12 months, helping the farm manager make better business decision through information and analysis.”