YOUR Data Holds YOUR Answers – Put it to Work

Every farm cleans their combine, sweeps their yard and looks after their tools – your data is no different. Those who are looking after it are finding the value in return.

What's the benefit of having detailed records of on-farm activities?

Farms are constantly being tasked with reducing costs and finding savings/improvements within their enterprises. With the majority of savings coming from a multitude of marginal gains.  To find those marginal gains, farms are having to look at their businesses in much more detail. To get into that detail, you need to have detailed data to explore through.

Producing and keeping detailed records affords farms an understanding of current performance. Farms with a good grip of current performance, can look to find efficiencies and savings to continuously improve and grow. 

Do I already have good data practices and processes?

Almost certainly yes; more than enough to get started on finding those marginal gains. And variable costs are the simplest place to start. In the UK, aside from being good business practice, farms are required for compliance purposes to record much of the data that would be used to find some of those savings. Many farms will use a Farm Management System (such as Gatekeeper, Muddy Boots, Geofolia) to record their chemical applications, fertiliser and seed information on a field-by-field level. It might not have any/all of the prices of the products that have been applied, but that's not an issue, as pricing information is held in other areas, such as on invoices or in a farm's accounts package. 

Yield follows the same principle. Some farms will record their yields on a field-by-field basis, which is the ideal level of detail, but all will have the total yield, ie crop sold. Combine yield data can then be used to help turn overall tonnes sold into field-by-field yield

How good is a typical farm's data? 

Farms tell us they want to trust their data more so that they can make decisions from it. We see data in different formats and in various states of completeness. Part of what we can help with is to gauge the condition of a farm's data in terms of completeness, quality and useability. If a farms data is incomplete, we have built systems to help clean and validate information to get the most value out of it.  

We built YAGRO Analytics following consultations with farms that varied in size and location but who were all facing the same challenge. That challenge was the sheer volume of information on-farm management systems, excels and accounts software that, individually, weren't adding value to the farming operations. YAGRO Analytics provides a platform which enables that information to talk to each other, with no manual entry and drawing answers from the numbers. 

How does YAGRO take my data and help me take value from it? 

Data is sent to us in various formats. We have automated systems that can read various formats of information and pull out and structure products, prices, rates, varieties, dates, yields from different data sources that wouldn’t typically be compatible. That information is fed into anonymised ranges to show how you compare to the wider data set we hold in terms of price, rate, cost of production per tonne produced, and also to look internally at how your fields compare to each other, which variety is more efficient to produce and to generally provide sufficient information for you to make the most informed decision. 

If data accuracy is important, how is it verified? 

We have a unique, rigorous, multi-step data verification process to ensure that data is accurate. In addition, we have algorithms that check all aspects of cost of production, analysing them against the entire dataset, looking for outliers. If a product sits outside of the expected range in terms of cost, price, the rate used, or the date applied, etc. – it's a simple check with the farm data handler and corrections added if required. We verify and validate anything that stands outside of our expected ranges by asking for proof – be that an invoice or sales receipt etc.  

The key categories of data required to run YAGRO Analytics

1. Seed / Plant drilling rates and dates 

2. Fertiliser Applications 

3. Chemical Applications 

4. Yields - by field ideally, but total is also fine

5. Invoices for inputs

Seed, Fertiliser and Chemical applications are typically recorded in a farm management software. Yields can be pulled from a combine telematics, worked out from sales contracts or weighbridge reports. Invoices can come as PDF’s, end of year summary excels from your supplier or paper copies. 
 
What file formats can YAGRO handle? 

The ideal format to receive data is as a CSV file emailed to us; however, some farm business tools only allow PDF format, which we can also ingest. Excel is commonly used to record yields, we can process invoice data from PDF’s, photos, scans or hard copies. We’ve even ingested photo’s of blackboards from the walls of farm offices!

How do YAGRO use a farm's data?

A question we are often asked is that if we are telling farms their data is valuable, what do we do with it? 

Quite simply - our systems have been designed for farms; we will never sell your data.

Your data is used within anonymised ranges with other user's data, so that you can draw value from it. Your data is shown anonymously within the system for as long as you use our tools – if you decide to stop, your information can be easily removed and permanently deleted. 

"Every farm cleans their machinery, sweeps their yard and looks after their tools – your data is no different. Look after it and it’ll add value in return."

The partners we work with have the same view as a farm, and are a good source of information for those farms that want help driving value from their Analytics account. 

Is all this data recording worth it then? 

We are seeing that there are efficiencies to be found on every farm, the value of those will vary but farms are targeting £10 per acre/£25 per Ha savings off the back of doing Analytics.

Would you like a 15 minute data audit with one of our data team? We at YAGRO are on a crusade to show the value of your data – do get in touch with our data team for a quick data audit or just for a chat as to the accuracy of your data. Email data@yagro.com for more information.

If you would like more information about YAGRO Analytics or how we can help with your data management and analysis, please do get in touch with a member of the team.

Your data is treated with confidence; we never sell or share your data with anyone. For more information on data usage, please read our terms and conditions.