Ohio Ag Cooperative Realizing the Key Benefits of a Digital Transformation

Luckey Farmers Overview Gro Mor Meridian Tanks

Headquartered in Woodville, OH, Luckey Farmers is a full-service cooperative with 11 locations that stretch across the north-central and northwest farming regions of Ohio. Its Gro-Mor seed line is popular in the region.

Six years ago, the leadership at Ohio cooperative Luckey Farmers, Inc., could see clearly that its business was in need of change. Internally, managers and employees were struggling with efficiency and customer management processes that were less than optimal. From an antiquated phone system to its prescription and application process, “everything was a paper trail,” recalls Andrew Gladden, Luckey’s IT Director.

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An ex-Marine, 17-year business owner, and expert in network administration, Gladden joined the company in May, 2014 to lead an evaluation of the organization, implement digital tools to streamline business practices, and create opportunities for Luckey Farmers to grow.

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Headquartered in Woodville, Luckey is a full-service cooperative with 11 locations that stretch across the north-central and northwest farming regions of Ohio. Full-service agronomy programs feature soil sampling, prescription writing, custom application, scouting, and harvest data collection. It carries both liquid and dry fertilizer, and Luckey’s Gro-Mor seed line is popular in the region.

Andrew Gladden Luckey Farmers

Andrew Gladden, IT Director at Luckey Farmers.

When Gladden arrived, he found managers and employees that were doing their best to keep trains rolling in an analog-centric, paper-driven process. But it was becoming apparent that everyone could be more focused and efficient with better underlying systems that reduced busy work and redundancy — and that would lead to deeper engagement with the most progressive farmers. With a top-down commitment from CEO Andy Swerlein and the cooperative board, Gladden dug in and got to work.

Agronomy Opportunity

Grain is king at Luckey, as it accounts for 70% of revenue overall. The remaining 30% is spread across fuel, feed, and agronomic services. And the latter is where Gladden could see the biggest opportunity for company growth, driven by the addition of technology that would simplify data collection and open up connections with farmer-customers.

It wasn’t all about technology. Luckey also took stock of its physical plants and made some adjustments to increase overall efficiency, and to anticipate the impact of the impending move to digitize the business. Seven existing agronomy offices were reduced to two — each on a different rail line — to the north and south of the sales area. Investments were made in each to increase capacity, and some smaller facilities were shuttered.

“We were doing paperwork orders, our agronomy system didn’t have mapping, we needed an overhaul,” says Gladden. “So, we started looking at different software platforms, and ultimately chose to partner with Agworld.”

Andrew Gladden Luckey Farmers tablet

Luckey Farmers uses the Agworld farm management software. Agworld was able to develop their product to match Gladden’s vision for efficiency and connectivity.

Based in Australia, Agworld broke into the U.S. market as a farmgate-focused agronomy program in 2011.

One of the appeals of choosing Agworld in the summer of 2015 was the ability to shape the software offering as it shifted toward the service provider market. “I worked with them closely the first year and really helped them understand how the cooperative and the custom applicator works,” says Gladden. Agworld was able to develop their product to match Gladden’s vision for efficiency and connectivity. “From when we first started talking about what we needed through today, they have made leaps and bounds,” he says. “I could not even imagine them doing what they are doing today back when we started five years ago.”

Everything has flowed from the goal of fully digitizing customer information, products, prescriptions, and agronomic data, allowing for seamless data movement and wireless connectivity between the coop, the operator, and the farmer. It’s a lofty goal, and four seasons in not everything is fully functional. But Luckey Farmers has made tremendous progress.

The system is built over an iOS platform, and everyone in the field is carrying an iPad or iPhone. Field communication, data exchange, and farmer engagement are centralized to reduce error and redundancy.

Today, with customer records in place on Agworld, prescriptions are created and dispatched to operators electronically. The dispatcher has full control of the workloads for each vehicle and can make changes throughout the day — for example, if a machine goes down, the dispatcher can recall the jobs and reallocate to other applicators. He can also re-prioritize jobs for an applicator if an urgent need arises. Once a job is completed, the information moves back to the home office.

Luckey uses AgVantage for its ERP system, and an API with Agworld moves the job information quickly and seamlessly to the customer’s account to be billed. “We have one person in centralized billing who watches the screen, and when the job pops up in the customer’s account, they have Agworld on one screen and AgVantage on the other,” explains Gladden. “They check to make sure everything matches up and move it to the customer account.”

In addition to overall work efficiency, billing becomes virtually instantaneous and inventory is updated immediately to truly reflect what’s been applied.

“Before, our applicators would have to fill everything out on paper by hand, that might sit for a week in the cab before it got turned into the coordinator,” he explains. “It could spend a week in his inbox, and then another week in billing before it ever got charged to the farmer. Now, the information is all moving in real time.”

Full Farmer Engagement

Another critical element to the plan has been to provide unfettered access to data and decision making through a digital customer interface. With Luckey Farmers’ Agworld based platform, farmers have a range of options for engaging with their cooperative.

A free alternative allows them access to the basic data and communication features, and a tiered, subscription-based program allows increasing levels of engagement and interaction. Customers that opt for the higher level of service gain substantial value, including data input and warehousing and deeper insights into profitability and efficiency.

For the fully engaged farmer, every aspect of the season is determined and costed out, allowing them to truly farm based on P&L rather than bushels per acre. Surprise costs, like a late aphid infestation, can be weighed against the plan and anticipated yield to determine whether the application would likely pay off.

Gladden and Luckey Farmers are banking on increased adoption of the higher level of service growing across its customer base, and the investment is paying off for them with higher engagement and loyalty with its most progressive farmers. “It’s the 80-20 rule — 80% of the business is coming from 20% of the customer base, and this is the level of service they are looking for,” says Gladden. “And, we’re also seeing the next generation coming on to the farm, and they want more digital offerings and service.”

Other Benefits

Digitization has put Luckey Farmers in a strong position to grow with its employees and farmers, but it provides that added benefit of streamlining compliance with stewardship programs that have become critical, and high profile, in the Lake Erie Basin.

Luckey Farmers has been 4R Certified since 2015, and Gladden remembers the pain of gathering information for those audits in the early years. “We had people bringing over flash drives and file cabinets and computers to centralize the information, and it took a long time for the auditor to get through it all,” says Gladden. Our audit in 2019 was one auditor sitting in one room at one computer, and he was done in no time.”

The state-based H2Ohio program requires farmers to provide specific fertilizer application data, and Luckey Farmers is able to provide all the data required.

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