At Geosys, we are privileged to partner with some of the leading AgTech companies across the globe. To help highlight their great work and innovation, we’re starting a new series titled “5 Questions with…” where we talk with a member of the company’s leadership team.
We have partnered with Farm Dog to help integrate field maps into their pest and disease management platform. We’re also exploring how we can connect Farm Dog with tools such as Croptical for seamless scouting integration into our field monitoring application. Recently, we connected with Liron Brish, CEO at Farm Dog, to have him answer five questions learn more about his business and their work with our analytics.
Question 1: Tell us about Farm Dog
Farm Dog was founded to help growers and agronomists make more informed pest and disease management decisions. From the simplest level, it’s an in-field scouting application that helps growers and agronomist save time in the field, improves communications with their team and starts to create a digital record of what they are finding out in the field. Over the longer term, that essentially transforms into a pest and disease management hub with additional data layers – such as Geosys’ – coming in to provide our users with the insights they need to make their ultimate decisions about what to use in the field. And then, over time, as those decisions become smarter and more informed, the goal is to help users save on crop protection products, protect their yield and promote environmental sustainability.
So, it starts from a simple operational value proposition for time savings and communications improvement, and then leads into the much longer-term pesticides savings and impact on yield.
Question 2: What makes Farm Dog Unique
We were recognized just in the last month-and-a-half by two publications and I’m really proud of our team for getting the recognition – we were named one of the 9 Apps Your Shouldn’t Farm Without by Agriculture.com and a 20 Agriculture Apps You Should Know in 2020 and Beyond by CropLife. I think the reason why we’ve been recognized by the industry is that we built our product with two parallel missions. The first is to provide a day-one value proposition to our users which is the time saving and communication – and really, just helping to lead their analog to digital transformation. So, completely not sexy technology whatsoever, but something that is needed and is foundational. And something that folks can essentially use straight out of the box while, at the same time, having an eye towards that longer-term vision of the data insights and providing the decision support tools for users.
We put a whole lot of emphasis on building out a product that is easy to use in the field, doesn’t frustrate our users and really aligns with best practices of 2020. Without naming other companies, there are other folks out there that, just to get a started, just to get a demo, just to get a user name and password, ask you to jump through so many hurdles and hoops that it really makes you think you’re stuck in 2007 and the iPhone just came out. So, really, we just try to build this out in a way that aligns with what folks actually need in the field. We work a lot with design partners and actual growers and agronomists to provide candid feedback on where we’re great and where we’re less great.
We built two parallel paths: one with a day-one value proposition and the other is building towards that longer-term vision.
Question 3: What made you decide to work with Geosys?
I think it’s a few things. The first is that to me agriculture is a relationship-based industry. So, for folks to want to work with us, for our users to want to work with us, they have got to look at us as a trusted partner and someone that shares their vision. And that feeling, if you will, permeates into our company and how we look at companies that we want to work with – meaning that for us to provide such a value proposition to our users, our partners have to align with the way we work and what we’re building towards. With Geosys, we found a partner that, from a relationship aspect, has folks that are just good to work with. Easy to work with. Folks that you want to work with, I guess is the best way to say it. And then at the same time, a company that shares in our vision of what can be done in the space, as well as each company’s very important role.
At the end of the day, it’s an ecosystem here and the folks who will be successful in the end – which essentially makes our growers successful – are the folks who understand how the pieces of the ecosystem fit together and how to push that forward. So, we found a partner in Geosys that aligns with what we’re doing, with that we believe as a long-term vision and that we want to work with. Then, at the end of the day, there is also the technology aspect of it in terms of being able to pull in the data layers that our users have requested. For a while we were looking for a satellite imagery partner to help us out with that and Geosys fit the bill.
Question 4: How are you using satellite data analytics to advance your business?
Basically, the way we believe the future of agriculture will work is that there will always be boots on the ground that are going to be augmented and strengthened by remote sensing solutions. So, the way we look at our integration with Geosys is to give our users – whether it’s before they go out to the field or once they’re in the field – a way to prioritize how they are going to manage what’s going on in the field and a way to really just make their work more efficient. So, the way we’ve integrated today with Geosys, our users can view Geosys maps inside Farm Dog, overlay on their fields and view that as they go out to the field to really just drive directed scouting – that way our users can go out to the right spot, see what’s going on and ground truth things to get to an informed decision on what to treat (if anything) in their fields.
Question 5: Where do you hope to see Farm Dog in the next 3-5 years?
The vision here is farmer Emily comes to her Farm Dog platform, we say “Hey, Emily watch out! In 3-days you’re going to have a whitefly outbreak. Your treatment options are A and B, the efficacy of those are 40% and 80%. Based off the market value of your crop and cost of treatment, here is the ROI of different treatment decisions.” Farmer Emily chooses which one she wants to go with, but here is a decision support system that helps get to that decision.
Now, to get there, it’s going to be a combination of historical data that our users can collect in their fields today, as well as the different data layers that we’re pulling in from third party partners – such as Geosys – to see what’s going on in the area, historically how that field has looked and where that field is going. So, really pulling in all these data layers to provide that ultimate solution for growers. And we hope to be there sooner than 3-5 years, but that is the long-term vision.
To learn more about Farm Dogs, check out this brief demo. Want to try if for yourself? You can sign-up on their website or download the Farm Dog app to your mobile devise for Android and Apple.
