7 ms·

FarmLogs (YC W12) Letting the Cloud Watch Over the Farm

113 points by vollmarj 14y ago

radagaisus 14y ago
Also relevant: http://www.farmigo.com/ http://www.farmigo.com/
- bira 14y ago
  Maybe also the italian http://growtheplanet.com http://growtheplanet.com - a real-life farmville?
- will_work4tears 14y ago
  We have a local one: http://www.terra-organics.com/ http://www.terra-organics.com/
  - ivanbernat 14y ago
    Also relevant, http://farmeron.com http://farmeron.com from Croatia.
jcarden 14y ago
Congrats to Jesse and Brad. Way to go!
jruppal 14y ago
I demand a Venn Diagram.
- vollmarj 14y ago
  https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-aY4yLGeeNDY/UB22veANSoI/AAAAAAAABko/e805Mfelw6Y/w415-h220-n-k/venn_zoom_out_text.png https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-aY4yLGeeNDY/UB22veANSoI/A...
nikkidurkin 14y ago
Congrats Jesse and Brad! Smashing it!
chimi 14y ago
http://farmlogs.com/ http://farmlogs.com/ I'm all for this. It's a field I've considered many times. I'm an urban homesteader and programmer, so I see the value. I want you to succeed. Please understand my criticism is meant only to further your progress. I love what you're doing. My concern is that your product looks like a toy. Farmers are serious about their work. They aren't playing a Zynga game or... Agricola. That farm equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Farmers across the nation have lost $20 Billion worth of crops this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-insurance/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-in... Please, get a more sophisticated look. Let farmers know you are serious. If I could look at your website and believe you are serious, I may not need someone else to tell me you are serious.
- vollmarj 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback.
  - defrost 14y ago
    Something that might interest you re: Australian agriculture - http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm there's been keen interest in computers and software in agriculture for a good 30 odd years that I'm aware of, the first thought that crosses my mind when reading about your software is it's apparent dependence on the internet and regular cell towers. I'm nor sure how widespread good Internet is across the US farming areas, in Australia nothing is taken for granted in most farming regions - telephone, power, cell phone coverage, gas supplies, etc are all more or less present in many places but all are subject to accidental cut out from a few hours, to a few days, to sometimes a few weeks. There's always been a strong interest in solutions that continue to function when connections to the rest of the world are lost for a bit.
- jswinghammer 14y ago
  Are you talking about the icon sets? They seem nice to me. There isn't anything cartoony about them and they are very clear and easy to understand. Honestly it's better than many icon sets I've seen in web applications. The site looks fine to me. I'm not sure anyone thinks "I'm losing money and dammit this web app isn't reflecting my mood at this moment."
waxman 14y ago
Congrats guys!
abbottry 14y ago
One of my favorite from W12, best of luck!
samstave 14y ago
This is more than amazing [stream of conscious to follow]: This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU FarmLogs could be used to actually teach ANYONE how to farm efficiently. You take the data that each farmer uses to track their crop and harvest and teach people how to do the same. You will need to incorporate sensors into the system, such as the TWINE SENSOR [1] into your system -- track the weather and moisture for every location, as well as the crop. You can build a DB of the yields over time for any given farm. Use this to inform people of the best times and conditions to plant various crops. You can track man-power-hours to yields as well and be able to help people understand that if they want to grow X amount of Y crop, they need Z people and Z1 hours... Finally, the most obvious, is cost - you can then say that for a property of X size, you need Y labor and Z dollars to produce Z1 crop! Seriously - alongside fake meat - if you have an APP that can actually TRAIN a farmer, this is farking planet changing. Use this info to build out a tutorial to train 3rd world people to micro-farm with HIGH yields. There was this articla about big-data being the next billion dollar industry: big farm data will be the trillion dollar industry. NEVER SELL OUT TO MONSANTO. NEVER. Ultimately: Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow. Knowing what the cost per squarefoot to yield is for massive famrs will allow such an engine to be built. Every single person on the planet should be able to access this app - enter their capabilities and determine how much they could produce to either sustain themselves or sell to the local market. This is revolutionary. If you can build this into an app that is stand alone, it should be married to the open-source civ kit [2] Look at big data as the future - this is the biggest (most important) data.. [3] [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-your-world-talk-to-the-internet http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li... [2] http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_DVD_v0.01 http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_D... [3] http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-big-data-the-next-billion-dollar-technology-industry http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-bi...
- daeken 14y ago
  > This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it. But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.
jameszol 14y ago
My father-in-law is a small farmer running 2000-3000 acres each year, depending on the year. My wife does the books for the family farm so I get to hear quite a bit about what is going on per field, per crop, etc. I signed up for the trial to see what it was like. The UI is very simple and looks easy to use. The only thing that I might recommend is that you look into standardized farm management taxonomy. Serious farmers will go take classes on how to scale and run profitable farms. Most of these classes teach them to separate tasks/costs into Enterprises and Overheads per field or other terms that I am personally not too familiar with. It looks like you're heading the right direction, I just didn't see a lot of the terms I hear thrown around when talking with my wife or father-in-law. They have both sat in on classes that I described above although they are farmers - they will do and say things their own way, class or not. Here's a Farm Management Glossary that looks pretty decent. Perhaps you can start here and compare your software's definitions with these: http://fdin.net/glossary.htm http://fdin.net/glossary.htm Good luck!
- bmelton 14y ago
  I wonder if this isn't a case of competing standards? I'm speaking entirely hypothetically here, as I've never been anywhere near a farm, but having seen ITIL, Six Sigma and other enterprisey terminologies vary between methodologies, I can't help but wonder if they're not using the right lexicon because maybe they're using a 'different', competing lexicon? Either way, that looks to be a great tip and solid criticism.
  - jameszol 14y ago
    Excellent point! I agree, I could be hearing only one of many standards and/or the developers are using another.
artag 14y ago
Congrats guys! I was curious, so I signed up for a free a/c. super easy to use, and beautifully designed product!
jacques_chester 14y ago
I wonder how this compares to Agworld? http://www.agworld.com.au/ http://www.agworld.com.au/ I've no relation to Agworld, except that they're based in the same city as I am (Perth, Australia).
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- benbruscella 14y ago
  Glad to see some other Aussie sites mentioned here. We launched eGrowers out of Deni last year, so this might just motivate us to run a second season.
troymc 14y ago
I grew up on a grain farm in Saskatchewan. As far as I know, my farmer brother and my dad still use paper and whiteboards to record this sort of information, if they record it at all --- which is amazing because the machinery alone is worth several million dollars. They do use GPS in the tractors, mostly to minimize overlap/gaps. They used a big paper ledger to do bookkeeping until my brother took over the bookkeeping, and I think he now uses Quicken (not QuickBooks). The farm is a strange mix of low tech and high tech, and I suspect that's not unusual. If you want to advertise to grain farmers in Western Canada, then one good way is to buy an ad in The Western Producer (a newspaper). Agricultural trade shows are probably a better bet though. I know they go to the Farm Progress Show every year. http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about
savrajsingh 14y ago
Would be happy to work with you guys to integrate farm energy use data into this. (Wattvision.com YC W09)
hnriot 14y ago
This is great, I'm so sick of seeing nothing but a plethora of useless stupid games, the world has gone entertainment crazy, this is really a great direction, I wish there were many many more useful apps, creative uses of the mobile platform to do something other than entertain the masses.
jprice 14y ago
I work in the dairy business, and I must say that a business like this is hit or miss. Most farmers are old timers that still use pin paper for record keeping. I know farmers that have built multi-million dollar dairy farms that are computer automated and they still prefer a pen/paper. I wish the FarmLogs crew the best of luck, but from my experience it's going to be a tough ride for them.

113 points by vollmarj 14y ago

radagaisus 14y ago

Also relevant: http://www.farmigo.com/ http://www.farmigo.com/

bira 14y ago
Maybe also the italian http://growtheplanet.com http://growtheplanet.com - a real-life farmville?
will_work4tears 14y ago
We have a local one: http://www.terra-organics.com/ http://www.terra-organics.com/
- ivanbernat 14y ago
  Also relevant, http://farmeron.com http://farmeron.com from Croatia.

jcarden 14y ago

Congrats to Jesse and Brad. Way to go!

jruppal 14y ago

I demand a Venn Diagram.

vollmarj 14y ago
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-aY4yLGeeNDY/UB22veANSoI/AAAAAAAABko/e805Mfelw6Y/w415-h220-n-k/venn_zoom_out_text.png https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-aY4yLGeeNDY/UB22veANSoI/A...

nikkidurkin 14y ago

Congrats Jesse and Brad! Smashing it!

chimi 14y ago

http://farmlogs.com/ http://farmlogs.com/ I'm all for this. It's a field I've considered many times. I'm an urban homesteader and programmer, so I see the value. I want you to succeed. Please understand my criticism is meant only to further your progress. I love what you're doing. My concern is that your product looks like a toy. Farmers are serious about their work. They aren't playing a Zynga game or... Agricola. That farm equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Farmers across the nation have lost $20 Billion worth of crops this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-insurance/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-in... Please, get a more sophisticated look. Let farmers know you are serious. If I could look at your website and believe you are serious, I may not need someone else to tell me you are serious.

vollmarj 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback.
- defrost 14y ago
  Something that might interest you re: Australian agriculture - http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm there's been keen interest in computers and software in agriculture for a good 30 odd years that I'm aware of, the first thought that crosses my mind when reading about your software is it's apparent dependence on the internet and regular cell towers. I'm nor sure how widespread good Internet is across the US farming areas, in Australia nothing is taken for granted in most farming regions - telephone, power, cell phone coverage, gas supplies, etc are all more or less present in many places but all are subject to accidental cut out from a few hours, to a few days, to sometimes a few weeks. There's always been a strong interest in solutions that continue to function when connections to the rest of the world are lost for a bit.
jswinghammer 14y ago
Are you talking about the icon sets? They seem nice to me. There isn't anything cartoony about them and they are very clear and easy to understand. Honestly it's better than many icon sets I've seen in web applications. The site looks fine to me. I'm not sure anyone thinks "I'm losing money and dammit this web app isn't reflecting my mood at this moment."

waxman 14y ago

Congrats guys!

abbottry 14y ago

One of my favorite from W12, best of luck!

samstave 14y ago

This is more than amazing [stream of conscious to follow]: This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU FarmLogs could be used to actually teach ANYONE how to farm efficiently. You take the data that each farmer uses to track their crop and harvest and teach people how to do the same. You will need to incorporate sensors into the system, such as the TWINE SENSOR [1] into your system -- track the weather and moisture for every location, as well as the crop. You can build a DB of the yields over time for any given farm. Use this to inform people of the best times and conditions to plant various crops. You can track man-power-hours to yields as well and be able to help people understand that if they want to grow X amount of Y crop, they need Z people and Z1 hours... Finally, the most obvious, is cost - you can then say that for a property of X size, you need Y labor and Z dollars to produce Z1 crop! Seriously - alongside fake meat - if you have an APP that can actually TRAIN a farmer, this is farking planet changing. Use this info to build out a tutorial to train 3rd world people to micro-farm with HIGH yields. There was this articla about big-data being the next billion dollar industry: big farm data will be the trillion dollar industry. NEVER SELL OUT TO MONSANTO. NEVER. Ultimately: Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow. Knowing what the cost per squarefoot to yield is for massive famrs will allow such an engine to be built. Every single person on the planet should be able to access this app - enter their capabilities and determine how much they could produce to either sustain themselves or sell to the local market. This is revolutionary. If you can build this into an app that is stand alone, it should be married to the open-source civ kit [2] Look at big data as the future - this is the biggest (most important) data.. [3] [1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-your-world-talk-to-the-internet http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li... [2] http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_DVD_v0.01 http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_D... [3] http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-big-data-the-next-billion-dollar-technology-industry http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-bi...

daeken 14y ago
> This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it. But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.

jameszol 14y ago

My father-in-law is a small farmer running 2000-3000 acres each year, depending on the year. My wife does the books for the family farm so I get to hear quite a bit about what is going on per field, per crop, etc. I signed up for the trial to see what it was like. The UI is very simple and looks easy to use. The only thing that I might recommend is that you look into standardized farm management taxonomy. Serious farmers will go take classes on how to scale and run profitable farms. Most of these classes teach them to separate tasks/costs into Enterprises and Overheads per field or other terms that I am personally not too familiar with. It looks like you're heading the right direction, I just didn't see a lot of the terms I hear thrown around when talking with my wife or father-in-law. They have both sat in on classes that I described above although they are farmers - they will do and say things their own way, class or not. Here's a Farm Management Glossary that looks pretty decent. Perhaps you can start here and compare your software's definitions with these: http://fdin.net/glossary.htm http://fdin.net/glossary.htm Good luck!

bmelton 14y ago
I wonder if this isn't a case of competing standards? I'm speaking entirely hypothetically here, as I've never been anywhere near a farm, but having seen ITIL, Six Sigma and other enterprisey terminologies vary between methodologies, I can't help but wonder if they're not using the right lexicon because maybe they're using a 'different', competing lexicon? Either way, that looks to be a great tip and solid criticism.
- jameszol 14y ago
  Excellent point! I agree, I could be hearing only one of many standards and/or the developers are using another.

artag 14y ago

Congrats guys! I was curious, so I signed up for a free a/c. super easy to use, and beautifully designed product!

jacques_chester 14y ago

I wonder how this compares to Agworld? http://www.agworld.com.au/ http://www.agworld.com.au/ I've no relation to Agworld, except that they're based in the same city as I am (Perth, Australia).

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
benbruscella 14y ago
Glad to see some other Aussie sites mentioned here. We launched eGrowers out of Deni last year, so this might just motivate us to run a second season.

troymc 14y ago

I grew up on a grain farm in Saskatchewan. As far as I know, my farmer brother and my dad still use paper and whiteboards to record this sort of information, if they record it at all --- which is amazing because the machinery alone is worth several million dollars. They do use GPS in the tractors, mostly to minimize overlap/gaps. They used a big paper ledger to do bookkeeping until my brother took over the bookkeeping, and I think he now uses Quicken (not QuickBooks). The farm is a strange mix of low tech and high tech, and I suspect that's not unusual. If you want to advertise to grain farmers in Western Canada, then one good way is to buy an ad in The Western Producer (a newspaper). Agricultural trade shows are probably a better bet though. I know they go to the Farm Progress Show every year. http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about

savrajsingh 14y ago

Would be happy to work with you guys to integrate farm energy use data into this. (Wattvision.com YC W09)

hnriot 14y ago

This is great, I'm so sick of seeing nothing but a plethora of useless stupid games, the world has gone entertainment crazy, this is really a great direction, I wish there were many many more useful apps, creative uses of the mobile platform to do something other than entertain the masses.

jprice 14y ago

I work in the dairy business, and I must say that a business like this is hit or miss. Most farmers are old timers that still use pin paper for record keeping. I know farmers that have built multi-million dollar dairy farms that are computer automated and they still prefer a pen/paper. I wish the FarmLogs crew the best of luck, but from my experience it's going to be a tough ride for them.