Muddy Boots Ag-Mag 2015

Ag-Mag 2015

We integrate with GLOBALG.A.P. & Fera

Learn how these developments could shape the future of food supply chain management.

Greenlight Grower Management in action Find out how our customers are collaborating with farmers, producers and processors.

The times, they are a-changing!

Welcome to the Muddy Boots Agricultural Magazine, 2015.

Dear Readers Over the last few years we have been investing considerably in our new Greenlight Grower Management software, which allows you to connect with your agri-service community online, enabling your crop records to be accessed, updated and shared in the field.

Still not sure if this is for you? Then read our Top 10 Reasons for using this new technology on the farm on page 5. This is a huge step forward for the agricultural industry and I detect a similar ­transformational change as when we first launched our CropWalker software back in the mid-90’s, when I was still walking fields in shorts!

Muddy Boots has come a long way since then and I’m pleased to say we’re still working with the same valuable businesses and some exciting new ones.

Some of our long-standing customers share their thoughts on our Greenlight Grower Management software on pages 8-10.

We are excited that this product is now live with a phased roll-out to agri-service clients well underway. Its impact and value is just beginning to be understood. Soon, you will be able to sign-up for your FREE no obligation trial, and start benefitting from a truly paperless solution. Contact your agronomist or visit our website to learn more: en.muddyboots.com/grower-management.

Our investment hasn’t stopped there; we are delighted to have recently partnered with the government agency Fera in the delivery of an online PPU and pesticide management system. This will

broaden and strengthen our Greenlight suite of tools, delivering even more transparency on pesticide usage and management. Turn to page 14 to read more.

The need for further transparency within the food supply chain is something which many retailers are now demanding. Food scandals such as horsegate, E.coli and food fraud continue to increase the pressure on our farming sector to improve transparency and deliver robust traceability systems.

The need to share information more easily will only grow as retailers begin to join the dots between their supply chain members to demonstrate quality, integrity and compliance at every level. Cloud-based systems will become the backbone to this brave new world. You can read more about this on page 13.

Our recent integration with GLOBALG.A.P. will significantly improve the whole process of making supply chains more transparent and providing your customers with safe, reliable and good quality food. Ben Horsbrugh, Director of Quality Management at UNIVEG Group, discusses the benefits of this new integration on pages 11-12.

As ever, I hope you enjoy this magazine, and I welcome you to join in the conversation @MuddyBootsLtd. Best wishes Jeff

Jeff Goulding Business Development Director Muddy Boots Software

In this Issue: 3

Sharing the future of food and farming

4

Let’s get social

5

Top 10 reasons for using technology in the field

7

Greenlight Grower Management - a smarter way of working

8

Software in practice - Agrovista

9

Software in practice - Frontier Agriculture

10

Software in practice - Russell Price Farm Services

11

Greenlight Supplier Approval integrates with GLOBALG.A.P.

12

GLOBALG.A.P. in practice - Univeg

13

How transparent is your supply chain?

14

Our partnership with Fera

02

Sharing the future of food and farming Jeff Goulding, our Business Development Director, talks about the shape of things to come.

As the realisation gradually dawns that the world is essentially running out of food and we need to grow more from less, the spotlight has seemingly fallen on technology as the primary solution to overcoming the increasingly unsustainable situation we’re in.

Advocates of the theory that technology can significantly improve our food production efficiencies are not alone. I can say this confidently, because we at Muddy Boots are with them. Thankfully, so are many of the big agricultural players and as such, I’ve have been very busy travelling around, sharing our knowledge on the subject.

It began in September 2014 when our MD, Jonathan Evans and I travelled to South Africa to speak at the Remitto ag-retailer Farmer Conference, discussing the future impact of technology in the agricultural sector. I then jetted off to Saskatchewan to talk to delegates at Cargill’s National Agronomy Meeting in Saskatoon.

At both events we were tasked with illustrating Muddy Boots’ vision of the future in Agricultural innovation, painting a vivid picture of things to come.

Exploring possibilities such as remote sensing, wearable technology and robotic farmers, we showcased who, and more to the point, what could be sowing and harvesting our crops in the not too distant future.

What Muddy Boots was keen to convey was that while all this potential technology is exciting, it will generate a

huge amount of data, which would need to be accurately and effectively harnessed.

Our Greenlight Grower Management platform is poised to receive increasingly diverse and complex data.

We will be able to absorb all of this data, process it within our system and feed it back to farmers and agronomists in a manageable and informative manner.

Akin to the technology I identified in my talk, when it comes to the possibilities of what Grower Management can achieve; we’ve only really scratched the surface…

It was interesting to hear the chatter the presentation generated amongst the delegates as the industry begins to understand the exciting period agriculture is entering into; it is effectively a total paradigm shift.

After my trip to Canada, I had a quick stop back in Herefordshire before then heading east to talk at the GLOBALG.A.P. summit in Abu Dhabi. It was a real honour to be invited to talk at this prestigious event, and a perfect opportunity to showcase the breadth and depth of our offer, as well as our working integration with the GLOBALG.A.P. database.

While the summit in Abu Dhabi was a slightly less specific area of focus, compared to the Cargill conference, it still boiled down to the fact that the management of big data is going to be paramount in the sustainable provision of food globally.

Word on the Tweet @SainsburysNews All surplus food in our supply chain that’s fit to eat should go to people who need it.

@mike_eurofruit UK grocery sales in decline for the first time

@TheGrocer LED lighting is one of the most important sustainability innovations in recent times.

@LogiAnalytics Learn how @MuddyBootsLtd is leveraging

in 20 years.

Logi to provide customers insight across the food supply chain.

Connect with us @MuddyBootsLtd

Meet a Muddy team member!

ANDY ORMISTON, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER What’s your background?

I started working life in a technical role with Siemens in Liverpool, but a break to do ‘a bit of travelling’ led me to an adventure travel company where I worked for 13 years in a range of customer facing, operational and IT roles. From there I joined the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group working with farmers and land based organisations grappling with the global challenge of producing more food in a more sustainable way.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

Meeting, working with and helping so many brilliant people and businesses. It’s a great company, working directly with farmers, growers, agri-businesses, produces, brand holders and retailers across the globe.

Explain your job: I act as bridge between our customers and the internal development and project teams helping with the uptake and roll-out of Greenlight Grower Management.

If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?

A beach bum - I spent three months living and windsurfing in Hawaii and would love to go back.

75m The population is growing by 75 million each year.

27 Food wasted in Europe last year weighs the same as 27 pyramids.

What are you most excited about?

The variety of the role and the scale and reach of the Muddy Boots range of products.

7,305 We use enough water in agriculture to fill 7,305 Empire State Buildings every day!

30% Agriculture generates 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

04

Let’s talk about tech Top 10 reasons for using technology in the field.

With the Internet comes a generation of immediacy, we want information and we want it now! And managing our field and crop data is no different. With the emergence of new, cloud-based software, we take a look at the opportunities that will come from managing your grower records in the field and via the Cloud.

1. Managing your crops where it matters most By harnessing internet based solutions your live data is accessible from anywhere, making you truly mobile. You can securely record, share and store your cropping data on the ‘cloud’ whilst harvesting crops in the field!

2. Connect with your supply chain partners Collaboration is key to this next generation of crop management systems. No longer are the various stakeholders working independently of one another.

With software solutions in place, agronomists, farmers and their operators can access, record and share field activity simply over the web and using a mobile offline App.

!

3. Make time critical decisions at the point required

The wireless syncing of data and notifications of record changes gives users immediate access to important crop information, so there’s no delay in making time-critical decisions.

4. Errors are costly The ability to meet customer requirements and consumer demand accurately, efficiently and sustainably is vital. By aligning the entire supply chain from source to shelf, farmers can ensure they adhere to compliance standards and maximise the success rate and security of their harvest.

5. Cure your audit With all data easily accessible from a single, searchable online location, you’ll never need to worry about an audit again. You can sleep easy knowing that your grower records are up-to-date and available at your fingertips.

6. Instant reporting saves time and builds trust With all of your data held online you can move from a paper-based process to a data-driven reporting system, with automatic dashboard reports highlighting the status of your crop and your business. You’ll save man hours and have valuable operational data for you and your customers.

7. Free up some time Who wants to burn the midnight oil typing up notes from the day’s activity? By using mobile devices businesses can completely remove any duplication of data entry so everyone is working more effectively and efficiently.

8. Safeguard your business against scrutiny Food safety and fraud incidents like horse meat and E.coli have cast a dark cloud over the food and farming industry. Growers that can pinpoint, isolate and remove risk from their business, supported by data evidence, will fare better in the glare of scrutiny.

9. Your data is safe and secure Why install a PC-based program and stress about program updates and back-ups when a cloud-based system provides a worry-free, secure and easy to use solution often at lower cost?

10. Rural connectivity is getting better Huge investment to improve connectivity in rural areas has resulted in significant advances and wider adoption of crop recording software.

Even so, new generation App technology and offline data capture mitigates connectivity issues. Business in the field can continue as normal until connectivity is found and syncing kicks in.

06

Greenlight Grower Management, a smarter way of working Making field recording and data sharing quick, simple and efficient.

Greenlight Grower Management ensures that whoever undertakes the task – and wherever they are based - cropping records are completed quickly and efficiently, avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort and speeding up operational processes.

Agronomists, farmers and their operators can access, record, share and store field activity simply over the web and using a mobile offline App. The automatic, wireless syncing of data and notifications of changes gives users immediate access to important crop information, so there’s no delay in making time-critical decisions. Furthermore all data is securely stored in the cloud relieving any worry over data back-ups and system updates.

Our CropWalker software is widely established within the farming industry and subsequently integration and automatic synchronisation between CropWalker and Greenlight Grower Management was a prerequisite of the design. Now, users of both technologies can share their data between the two systems, so cropping information is held in one

centralised location. A few taps of the finger, a couple of swipes and a multi-field and product agchem plan is created and submitted…simple and quick. The taking of images to support a crop inspection, auto-embedding into a report and sending it straight to the farmer whilst in the field really brings this software to life and keeps everyone up to speed with the changing crop conditions and impending issues.

But it’s not just the benefits at field level that make Greenlight Grower Management stand out. The operational information collected provides an excellent opportunity to engage with organisations higher up in the supply chain. This not only provides the transparency they demand of the source of their products but crucially strengthens the relationship and trust between the grower and the end customer.

This collaborative way of working will transform the way our customers collect and use their field records.

Food Processor & Retailer

Agronomist

Contractor

GREENLIGHT NETWORK

Farmer

Distributor

Collaboration is key to this next generation of crop management systems.

Greenlight Grower Management Crop Record

Greenlight Grower Management in practice Agrovista uses software to collaborate with farmers, producers and food processors.

Agrovista has been using our PC based CropWalker software for many years and it has become an essential tool for their business. Here, Lewis McKerrow, Agronomist and Head of Precision/Technology at Agrovista, talks about the launch of our new Greenlight Grower Management software and why being able to record crop data when on-farm rather than in the office will bring huge benefits to their business.

“The advantage of being a cloud-based system means that at any point in time, our customers, producers and food processors can access the latest information and share this with the relevant people immediately, instead of having to rely on a phone call or email which may be missed. This improved collaboration will save significant amounts of time and therefore costs for everyone on this new platform.

“With an increase in both workloads and the need to record greater levels of information, it became important for us to be able to access up-to-date information and legislation at the point required and at the touch of a button, rather than having to be back in the office in front of the PC.

“We have been working closely with Muddy Boots throughout the development process and we have now integrated Greenlight Grower Management with Axis, our own internal customer platform.”

“We were keen to work more collaboratively with our farmers, with an ability to easily collect and share data with them and we were therefore excited to hear that Muddy Boots was in the process of developing Greenlight Grower Management, a cloud-based crop recording system.

“This new software meets all of our requirements; it enables us to capture all necessary information with mobile technology and automatically publish the information onto the Greenlight cloud, providing live and complete records for us and our farmers to access.

Lewis McKerrow Agronomist and Head of Precision/Technology

08

Greenlight Grower Management in practice Frontier Agriculture harnesses software to work more collaboratively with customers.

Frontier Agriculture is a leading crop inputs and grain marketing business. They work with a team of 115 agronomists to support a large customer base, which generates masses of data. James Moldon discusses Greenlight Grower Management and how this new software will allow them to work more collaboratively with their customers.

Another great benefit to this simplicity is for farmers, as the product has been designed for their use. Being web and app-based means they can use it in the field and access data with only one or two clicks. This easy access to data is particularly important during an audit, making farmers feel more prepared and helping them to meet legal requirements.

“We currently use our own system called MyFarm which incorporates all the divisions of Frontier. We looked to Muddy Boots’ Greenlight Grower Management as the solution that allows us to become more interactive with our customers, and simplify the transfer of data information between our agronomists, farmers and contractors. This system enables complete visibility of this process, which is vital to the way Frontier works.

“For Frontier, the speed at which we can move data in a two-way sync is also beneficial. It has always been one-way traffic until now. Farmers can now input data for the agronomists to use as well. This software also loops the operators in, making it the first solution that is not designed only for the farmer and farm manager.

“Because we deal with masses of data, farmers wanted a solution that enables them to easily obtain and record data, whether that is for budgeting purposes, traceability or syncing purposes. There are so many solutions out there that all perform different functions, but no other system does this all in one place like Greenlight Grower Management.

“We did look at other companies but none offered such simplicity. Our agronomists are also already familiar with Muddy Boots’ CropWalker product, avoiding retraining and ultimately saving time.

Greenlight Grower Management provides time savings through one time data entry, and cost savings through better efficiencies. If you are working more efficiently, you are less likely to miss out on opportunities to get your timings right. This gives us an edge in the market place. Because of our use of Greenlight Grower Management and MyFarm, farmers can see we have IT solutions in place that will help them with their management of data, helping them make decisions that are right for their business.

James Moldon Crop Inputs Commercial Manager

Greenlight Grower Management in practice Russell Price Farm Services uses Muddy Boots to connect with agronomists, operators and the farm office on a cloud platform.

Russell Price Farm Services is an agricultural and contracting service but with a diverse portfolio of services on hand, there is a lot of information communicated via paper. Muddy Boots’ CropWalker is currently used for gross margin detail but the company was looking for integration that allows sharing of reports and the ability to slot them straight into their existing business accounts system, giving them a more accurate way of looking at stock and valuation. Here, Russell Price discusses how Greenlight Grower Management will offer big advantages to how they work with their customers.

“The ability to produce figures that integrate all the work we do for a farm means we can show farmers where accounts stand at the end of each year, highlighting all variable costs within a gross margin calculation. CropWalker does this very well but if this process can be carried out more easily, there will be a big advantage in how we work with our customers, which is where Greenlight Grower Management comes in.

“The challenge for our business is that there is a long trail of activity when it comes to ensuring all parties involved in the spraying process in particular are working cohesively, and to the same specifications. Currently this involves a long paper process which repeats itself on a monthly basis.

“What we really want is to see the agronomist going into the field, making his recommendation on a hand held device, posting it to the cloud that then automatically sends the information to the spray operator, the farm office and the farmer. This information can then be shared with spray operators and they can record what activity has been carried out. This makes for a system that is more integrated and open to everyone in the trail. This also results in less room for error as information in an electronic

device is safer than carrying around and relying on paper and hard copy reports. Details can’t be changed, lost or misread and it is always there for reference later.

“Greenlight Grower Management delivers on all of these requirements, and as an existing CropWalker customer there were clear advantages to using a Muddy Boots solution and streamlining our systems.

It is the integration between agronomist, operator and farm office that is most appealing about the solution. We spend a lot of resources paying employees to trawl through paper to create reports, invoices and budgets. Doing this automatically saves a lot of man hours and keeps our bottom line at a minimum. Greenlight Grower Management also keeps us out in the field doing what we should be doing and not stuck in front of a PC inputting information.

Russell Price Managing Director Russell Price Farm Services

10

Greenlight Supplier Approval integrates with GLOBALG.A.P. Improving the process of making supply chains more transparent.

Our Greenlight Supplier Approval software has integrated with GLOBALG.A.P., making it easy for our customers to ensure that all products comply with GLOBALG.A.P.

Greenlight Supplier Approval Greenlight Supplier Approval is a secure, online system for managing and maintaining all information relating to the approval status of suppliers and supply chains, giving businesses total confidence that every product from every consignment comes from a validated source that meets their customers’ protocol.

With all supplier information held in one centralised and secure location, our customers have instant access, and complete visibility of the approval status of both products and suppliers.

The integration with GLOBALG.A.P. makes this process even easier.

Now, Greenlight Supplier Approval can sync certificate and grower information from the GLOBALG.A.P. (GG) database, driven by a unique GG number. This saves significant time by reducing the need to manually upload and monitor GLOBALG.A.P. certificates.

GLOBALG.A.P. database The GLOBALG.A.P. database stores and connects the assessment and certification data of more than 140,000 farms in over 115 countries, making it one of the largest online sources for certification data on food safety and sustainability. More than 140 GLOBALG.A.P. approved certification bodies around the globe use it to register and manage their clients’ certification data.

The GLOBALG.A.P. database is an important part of the organisation’s comprehensive Integrity Program. Reliable certification information, linked to other traceability data in the food chain, is key to proper quality management.

GLOBALG.A.P. integration in practice UNIVEG Group uses Greenlight Supplier Approval and GLOBALG.A.P.

Ben Horsbrugh, Director of Quality Management for the UVIVEG Group, explains why the integration between our Greenlight Supplier Approval software and GLOBALG.A.P. has been such a benefit for their business.

“In our worldwide network of depots, UNIVEG companies move huge volumes of fruit and vegetables every day.

For every palette and box we move, we have to have full control of the traceability, from field to fork.

“Connecting and tracking this traceability data is an extremely challenging process, which is almost impossible without the use of specialised IT systems.

“The Greenlight Supplier Approval tool from Muddy Boots is one of the key programmes we use to gather, monitor and manage the due diligence data and documentation from our global supply base. We’re not just talking about GLOBALG.A.P. certificates; we’re talking about quality agreements, traceability data, pesticide lists, residue reports and a wide range of other information which we need on a daily basis in order to comply with our customer requirements.

“One of the great things about the cooperation between Muddy Boots, GLOBALG.A.P. and UNIVEG is that the integration of these systems has resulted in massive time savings for our business.

“The GLOBALG.A.P. database and Muddy Boots database communicate with each other and ensure that all GLOBALG.A.P. data is up-to-date. This has a huge advantage for our business; we used to be uploading JPEGs and PDFs of all the GLOBALG.A.P. certificates we were receiving. Now, all we need to do in Greenlight Supplier Approval is enter the GLOBALG.A.P. number and everything else is completed automatically by the system.

This means we don’t have to worry about files being out of date or certificates being invalid, because the system informs us when this is happening.

Quality Management nowadays is not just about having a great tool like the GLOBALG.A.P. database or Muddy Boots’ Greenlight Supplier Approval; it’s about getting companies and systems to talk to each other. If we are going to manage all this data on a global scale, keep it up-to-date and save time and resources in the process, we need intelligent systems and we need intelligent people who work together to ensure that we are all operating in the most efficient way possible.

Ben Horsbrugh Director of Quality Management “For this reason we are pleased to be working with Muddy Boots, with GLOBALG.A.P. and with all our suppliers around the world to improve the whole process of making supply chains more transparent and providing our customers with safe, reliable and high quality food.”

12

How transparent is your supply chain?

Transparency along the supply chain, from field to fork, has become increasingly important.

The food industry has been working towards better transparency for some time, but there’s now a real sense of urgency to rebuild consumer trust and prevent food scandals from taking place. The importance of quality assurance now ranks high on the agenda of most food businesses as the consequences for getting this wrong can be catastrophic; resulting in lost sales and lost share value. This isn’t a risk any business can afford to take, and it’s damaging to any brand.

In a nationally representative study, 38% of 900 food samples turned out to be something other than what was claimed, highlighting the abundance of fake food, an issue that with decreased testing looks to be sticking around.

It begs the question, where will the food industry be if budgets to carry out testing continue to be cut, putting the public at risk and deteriorating brand trust?

Looking at the big picture, third-party testing is only one component of the compliance process. There should be a drive for all supply chain partners to take a more active role to provide total visibility of the other elements of due diligence.

Retailers and suppliers now need full transparency of who is in their supply chain, where their product is coming from and evidence of the due diligence that is taking place. These are just some of the areas that need to be managed every day in order to mitigate risk.

Often quality and compliance data is built-up using a range of different systems that lead to multiple streams of data, which can make it difficult to see how a supply

chain is performing. Improving the management of this information is fundamental to mitigating risk.

By working with technology systems that capture all quality and compliance data, businesses, their suppliers and their growers will have easy access to the information that tells them that every product has come from a reliable, approved source and meets customer expectations and compliance regulations.

The Muddy Boots solutions provide complete transparency of the product journey from grower to retailer, and each member of the supply chain can access, update and share this information. This means that quality is managed and measured throughout the supply chain and ensures that everyone is focused on the end-customer compliance requirements.

Food businesses who manage and measure these areas of quality and compliance will have a greater degree of visibility and knowledge of their supply partners and the ability to isolate impact. There’s now a real understanding that any internal compliance process needs to go back to the source, and data needs to be shared up and down the supply chain. We’re not just measuring the performance of suppliers, but also the growers…right to raw material and back again.

Of course, issues like food fraud are very difficult to manage, and there’s no simple solution. But with technology in place to offer complete transparency businesses will have the competitive advantage; faring better than others in the glare of public scrutiny, as they will be able to pinpoint any problem areas and take action without delay.

Fera partnership Pesticide usage partnership between Fera and Muddy Boots has the potential to shape future policy.

Andy Reeves, Finance Director at Muddy Boots, and Dr. R Angus Hearmon, Director of External Affairs at Fera, signing the contract.

The traditionally laborious and time consuming task of manually managing PPU’s is now a thing of the past.

This is thanks to our new partnership with the UK Government’s Food & Environment Research Agency (Fera); a collaboration which could provide retailers with a unique solution to help inform future policy.

Fera’s vast, government recognised pesticide database has been loaded into our audit and assessment software, Greenlight Assessments, allowing suppliers and retailers to accurately and automatically crossreference PPUs against individual retailer pesticide requirements.

In essence, what sits behind the Greenlight Assessments platform is a “giant mixing bowl of data”, consisting of live PPU data, Fera’s government certified pesticide data and a specific retailer’s requirements.

While that’s all churning away in the background, the end result for the user is quick, simple and accurate access to relevant pesticide information. Whether it be a retailer obtaining PPU data from a supplier, or a supplier searching for clear information regarding a specific retailer’s requirements and Fera’s corresponding pesticide recommendations. It’s all there at the tap of a button.

The benefits Retailers will be able to protect their brand by reducing the risks associated with pesticide residue, with complete visibility of the status of pesticide use. This will in turn, allow them to influence change and drive quality down the supply chain.

Suppliers will experience huge time savings and therefore reduced costs, as well as improvements in due diligence and transparency. Equally, growers using this system can remove duplication of the pesticide information that they are required to provide.

This partnership comes at a key time in Muddy Boots’ development. This new functionality will bring huge value to the food supply chain; allowing retailers and shoppers to have total confidence that the produce available in store meets government and retailer standards for pesticides. It is something our customers want and we are very pleased to be able to deliver this to them.

Our knowledge solutions experts have extensive experience in the design of products which allow producers and retailers to identify, manage and mitigate risks from a variety of potential food contaminants. We are pleased to be working with Muddy Boots on this new partnership, which will provide vital support to businesses involved in the food supply chain, from field to fork, ensuring high standards of food and environmental safety’

Adrian Belton Chief Executive

14

Visibility, from grower to retailer

Get in touch +44 (0)1989 780540 sales@muddyboots.com @MuddyBootsLtd www.muddyboots.com