Driven by a determination to lighten the administration load of their farming operation, Lee and Cassie Coleman and their farmhand Matt Higham created their own solution – a single app to eliminate unnecessary paperwork.
FarmSimple delivers a concise picture of an entire farming business, from managing paddock activities, equipment maintenance and contracts to staff workflow and timesheets.
The groundbreaking one-stop shop platform is available for all smart devices and is already used by more than 100 Australian farming businesses.
The innovative solution is currently being fast-tracked through the 2024 GRDC GroundUp program, which aims to accelerate solutions for Australia’s grains sector.
Lee said FarmSimple was a game-changer for farmers, who often juggled multiple apps with a single focus only delivering part of a farm management and compliance solution.
“The platform is laser focused on lightening the administrative load for farmers, with an emphasis on connectivity to other systems and ultimate aim of having to enter data only once,” he said.
“Our vision is to create connectivity between all paddock activities and record keeping, straight through to the cash book. This enables business efficiency, ease of management and detailed insights between decision, action and outcome.”
It was the day-to-day running of their 3000-hectare dryland cropping operation at Croppa Creek in Northern NSW that first saw the Colemans identify a gap in the market for an all-encompassing farm-management platform.
“I have a background in statistics and Lee in engineering, so we are very data driven,” Cassie said.
“Physical notepads and excel spreadsheets weren’t enough, so we subscribed to a good number of apps. However, we became frustrated that each app only satisfied one part of our farming picture, so we built and tested our own solution.”
With the help of software engineer and farmhand Matt Higham, Lee and Matt created an app that met all their requirements and could work in paddocks with no mobile reception.
FarmSimple’s extensive features and functionality include maps, farm assets, safety records, farm records, plant and equipment manuals and full-service history, heavy vehicle maintenance reports, spray logs, grain management tracking harvest to contract, stocktake and inventory of inputs, livestock, employee timesheets and inductions.
Growers can even use the app to demonstrate sustainability and carbon-neutral farming.
Cassie said with an increased focus on the paddock to plate story, and consumers’ growing interest in sustainably grown food, FarmSimple was the perfect solution should growers wish to share their data with end users.
App subscribers solely own the data and can choose who they share and collaborate with.
FarmSimple joined the GroundUp program to help spread the word about their innovation and, ultimately, increase its adoption.
Supported by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), GroundUp is a 12-week accelerator program run by the Agtech and Logistics Hub, which is powered by AgriBusiness Connect.
It was launched to drive innovation in the Australian grains sector, with a grower-led focus to find real solutions to improve productivity.
AgriBusiness Connect CEO Thomas Hall said the innovators selected for this year’s GroundUp program offered a host of remarkable solutions.
“We are incredibly excited about the 10 innovators in this year’s cohort, who were selected from a large number of quality applicants from across Australia and beyond,” he said.
“It’s great to see FarmSimple working towards solving a major challenge in the grains industry – the collection, storage, analysis and sharing of farm data.
“We can’t wait to see how they further progress their solution throughout the program.”
FarmSimple will be among the participants who will showcase their solution to potential investors and end-users at the 2024 GRDC GroundUp Showcase Day on August 29.
Held at the Agtech and Logistics Hub, the event will also feature other leading innovators with technologies to complement supply chains.