Tony O’Boyle is one of hundreds of New Zealand farmers and rural professionals who have helped design farm software to make sure it meets farmers' future needs.
A Wairarapa farmer and company director, Tony was involved in development of the FarmIQ software, which is now being used on drystock and dairy farms, as well as in agribusiness.
Tony says he’s very pleased with how the software has turned out. It’s in daily use on Marangai Station, the 930ha property he has owned with his wife Pattie for 10 years. “Everyone at Marangai has the FarmIQ app on their phone.”
He is one of many farmers who have done their bit – giving the on-farm perspective and putting forward ideas as well as providing feedback when they’ve used a new feature. For his part Tony had a formal role as a member of the FarmIQ Technical Advisory Group that was set up in 2011, before the initial development phase.
One place for all the farm information
Looking back, he says FarmIQ has succeeded in achieving his main objective: “Yeah definitely. I was always keen to have one industry standard repository for all farm information – so a farmer can get all their information into one place at one time.”
A year ago when Tony was recruiting a new stock manager, he stated in the advertising that he wanted someone tech-savvy. “It simplifies the whole-farm system. In talking to a number of the applicants, they recognised that to be career manager now you have to be up on technology side of it.
“A stock manager needs to be able to work with files for things like performance recording and NAIT, and to report to the farm owner against the farm goals. Using the FarmIQ software for recording means you’re not chasing people for information and also it means the information is there for everyone to see. Chasing information was a source of frustration for us. If you’re there 24/7 you know the numbers, but if you are off-farm or working remotely, which I do a bit of – it’s handy being able to see the stock rec alter and being able to see what’s going on, on the farm. For example, I can see feed levels, stock numbers or a grazing rotation, or I can run scenarios for finishing a mob.”
In the end, the O’Boyles appointed Jake Coulston to run their sheep and beef breeding and finishing operation, along with one other fulltime equivalent. He had used the FarmIQ software in a previous role.
Simplifying recording
Asked to identify the main way that Marangai is getting value from using the FarmIQ software, Tony says it is how it simplifies compliance. “It’s easy to record information, then to find it and run reports. You’ve got one source of truth. You don’t have information all over the place in people’s notebooks.
“It gives us a real-time stock rec too. We’ve developed a protocol – so staff know what is expected to be entered daily or weekly. If there’s a stock death or stock are sold, the number is taken from the ASD form or the truck tally as they walk on. Then I go back when I get the sale note and edit the dollar amount – that automatically updates the stock rec and that’s the source of truth.”
It pays to be clear what you want to achieve with the FarmIQ software, he says. “You can get yourself bogged down if you are not clear on what want to use it for. We record as much as and as often as we need to, to get what we want out of it. We want to make sure we’re not just a slave to the system. For example, we stick to recording grazing rounds a couple of times a year.”
Tony says they are building up a valuable farm history. “We use it to keep track of paddocks, for example. Because we are EID’ing and weighing lambs at docking time, along with recording cropping rotations, we are getting an insight into paddock performance. You can drill down to whatever you want, it’s all there.”
All there for an audit
Marangai also use the FarmIQ software for planning. Their annual animal health plan was one item requested by the Ministry of Primary Industries team of vets who came to do an audit recently for the European Union.
“They were really interested in anything to do with animal welfare and the farmer’s duty of care. As part of that they wanted to see plans and records for animal health treatments and also feed. They looked for detail like proof that you had enough physical separation between mobs after giving an anthelmintic drench and keeping track of inventory for prescription drugs. They were satisfied. That audit provided a real insight into the future of farm data capture and recording.”
(This article first appeared in The Farmlander magazine, February 2018)
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