How Gatekeeper Cloud transformed farm record keeping for a TEAGASC member

Smooth Transition to Digital Record Keeping

Simon used to rely on paper records and a notebook, but this was time- consuming and inaccurate. What he needed was a simple to use digital recording system that would make reporting and staying compliant easier, not to mention helping him record field data to improve decision making.

The Farmplan team introduced Simon to Gatekeeper Cloud software in February 2023. This transition has allowed him to digitise all his records, transforming the accuracy, speed, and ease with which he can access the data he needs for compliance. Being able to access his field records has helped decision making and built confidence in the business. While Simon occasionally still uses his notebook, he has embraced Gatekeeper Cloud and plans to continue to use it to help him drive profits in his business.

Smooth Transition to Digital Record Keeping

Gatekeeper Cloud is not just user-friendly; it’s exceptionally intuitive. It enables farmers to import recommendations from their advisors directly into the software, manage their records in real time, and effortlessly generate reports. It is designed to save farmers time and enhance accuracy in their activities, as well as making it easier for growers like Simon to collaborate with their TEAGASC advisor. “I haven’t found a lot of need to call the support team as Gatekeeper is so easy to use” says Simon.

With simplified reporting and control features, farmers can swiftly record and access crucial field data, effortlessly generate reports, and create documentation that demonstrate compliance, ensuring smooth and efficient farm operations.

Simon is already seeing the benefits of being more intentional when it comes to record-keeping. “It’s only as good as the information you put into it, so I am starting slowly, but I can already see the benefits,” says Simon.

With Gatekeeper Cloud, users can access their farm data from any device with an internet connection, to get a comprehensive overview of their fields, including inputs, outputs, and completed tasks.

Harnessing the Power of Partnership in Agriculture

The Challenge

The agricultural industry is facing significant challenges, with immense pressure on farmers to optimize resources and maximize productivity. In order to address these issues, farmers need the tools and data-led insights to drive efficiencies in their day-to-day operations. Additionally, farmers need effective solutions to help address the increasing requirements of enforced regulatory and compliance standards.

The Solution

The direct integration between Proagrica’s Farmplan Gatekeeper software and the John Deere Operations Center^TM enables farmers to manage the demands of compliance and traceability through performance analysis, workflow management, and advisor integration.

Through this integration, Proagrica supports John Deere in navigating regional requirements by providing a combination of global and local expertise. Together, both organizations support farmers throughout their workflows, enabling data recording and providing valuable insights to drive efficiencies and make informed management decisions.

‘‘John Deere delivers the machines, the technology, and the connectivity, and Farmplan Gatekeeper delivers the compliance, analytical capabilities, and integrations with agronomists and advisors. The two combine seamlessly providing farmers with invaluable business insights and ensuring decision making can be made with confidence.” Joedy Ibbotson, Division Business Manager and Brian D’Arcy, Division Sales Manager at John Deere

The Value

In the UK, farmers have been benefiting from Proagrica’s relationship with John Deere for more than 20 years. This latest integration helps to alleviate the day-to-day challenges faced by farmers by providing valuable support to ensure compliance, traceability, cost analysis, and product verification requirements are met.

The long-standing relationship between Proagrica and John Deere in the UK demonstrates the value that can be offered to farmers when partnerships are built on complementary objectives, offerings, and a shared vision. This relationship continues to grow from strength to strength and has now led to Proagrica earning the ‘Connect Partner’ status by John Deere.

”Our long-standing relationship with John Deere provides the joint thinking required by two leading organisations to ensure we deliver value to our farmer customers.” Piers Costley, Vice President of Operations at Proagrica Ag Solutions

Contact Us

To learn more about how this partnership can bring you value, contact us here.

Harnage Estates are new to Gatekeeper having upgraded from an alternative crop recording program in the last 18 months. In this short space of time, Simon, Doug and James who manage the estate’s farms have fully embraced Gatekeeper which they have successfully integrated with their agronomist, farm operators and precision farming equipment.

Harnage Estates farm 1430 hectares of land across Shropshire which includes 500 hectares on a separate farm holding situated 20 miles from the main estate. A Network version of Gatekeeper is installed at the estate office and offers concurrent data access for multiple users at the same time.

The estates contract farm is managed through an additional Gatekeeper computer providing the ability to work remotely and independently from the network. The Gatekeeper data is merged together from both of the farms via the secure online data facility. This ensures that Simon, James and Doug as well as other Gatekeeper users in the business are able to access the same up-to-date records.

Doug commented: “Updating information in Gatekeeper is simple. We synchronise our systems daily which ensures the data is consolidated and available to everyone in the business who use Gatekeeper. This is vital when working from different locations”.

The estate also has a responsibility to supply records to key stakeholders who require regular information with regards to the contract farm. Reports such as crop growing valuations and traceability reports are generated in Gatekeeper.

The estate employs the service of an agronomist who uses Gatekeeper to produce pesticide and fertiliser recommendations for the farms. At the beginning of each season, Simon will supply the agronomist with a revised field list. This exchange of data allows both grower and agronomist systems to work from the same standard information. Recommendations are then sent to the farm managers where they are ready to be given to the spray operators. The Sentinel Active module is used on both the main network and Doug’s stand-alone installations to ensure that all pesticide applications and records pass through vigorous verification checks before they leave the office. Doug adds:

“We recently had an Assured Produce inspection and thanks to Gatekeeper, we were able to produce the information that was required at a click of a button”.

Recommendations also include Nutrient application plans which are verified against the Planet RB209 decision support tool which forms part of Gatekeeper. Once the field applications have been logged in Gatekeeper, a copy of the records are published back to the agronomist to complete the process. This can be a daily update during the busy part of the season. The integration between Harnage Estates and its agronomist is invaluable and offers significant savings in time, office work whilst preventing costly errors.

The Gatekeeper Web App is used across both farms to collect application records in the field. Data is wirelessly passed from Gatekeeper to the operator’s smartphones and tablets allowing them to complete the agronomists spray sheets as they complete the work. Vital information such as times, quantities, operator details and health and safety check lists can all be entered.

“The Web Apps have been highly beneficial and give us a lot of control. They allow us to update records as we work rather than having to repeat the whole process once we have finished.”

To date, Gatekeeper’s main use has been as a business management tool. Invoices for the farms inputs and outputs are entered onto Gatekeeper to build vital financial analysis across the farms, fields, crops and varieties under the estates management. Gatekeeper’s ability to maintain stock inventory records for multiple farms on the same system has proved highly beneficial for Harnage who are able to keep two accurate in-stock accounts for both farm locations. In addition, the Gatekeeper Contract Business module provides separate invoicing addresses for purchases and sales for both home and contract farming operations. The additional Budget Module has been used to great effect when ordering this seasons seed. The budgets were created using the planned rotations for the upcoming season and provided a shopping list of seed products that were required.

Simon added: “with Gatekeeper, we can now effectively control purchase and spend and manage both farms effectively”.

Moving forward with Gatekeeper, Harnage Estates recognise that integrating more precision data will provide them with a one-stop-shop for all of their field records and precision farming information. Simon expanded:

“We use AgLeader displays to variably apply fertiliser, we do our own sampling and we have a lot of valuable data such as yield maps which can be used to make informed management decisions. Our aim is to make more of this in the coming seasons”.

“Gatekeeper is essential for our compliance and traceability requirements. It is s self-developing; the more you use the software the more you get out of it. We wouldn’t be without it”

CASE STUDY

Q&A with Will Haupt, Farm Manager & Agronomist

Tell us a little bit about your business set-up

I am currently managing an in-hand farming enterprise for a Bedfordshire Estate, covering some 1340 hectares. Alongside the 1000ha of combinable cropping, the farm runs a small beef herd of rare breed British White cattle (managed using Cattle Manager) and manages 3 environmental schemes, creating habitat rich environments for the Wild Bird shoot, another department of the Estate.

The farm is very keen on sustainable farming and made the transition 3 years ago to a no-till policy featuring cover crops and a larger area of Spring cropping. This all makes for some complex cropping plans and sequences, which are all managed through gatekeeper.

In partnership with Soil health and adopting precision farming techniques wherever possible, the farm has its own in-house RTK base station of which a 12m Controlled Traffic Policy is operated. Again, this is all managed through gatekeeper, storing and exporting the various guidance lines to the appropriate machines when they are required.

How long have you been using Gatekeeper software? What prompted you to start?

The Farm has been using Gatekeeper since 2006, largely to manage stocks and centralise recommendations made by the agronomist. Over time it’s use has been gradually increased, adding John Deere and mapping modules in recent years.

I myself have been using gatekeeper for 6 years now and developed an immediate interest in Gatekeeper’s potential, I set about learning it’s features and integrating this into my day to day processes.

2 years ago, I took the position of Farm Manager at Whitbread Farms and quickly began increasing Gatekeeper’s level of integration. There was a greater need for financial analysis, data handling and targeting our approaches via the Mapping module as well as generally stitching together lots of valuable precision farming technology that were happening across the farm.

Being the Farm’s agronomist as well, there isn’t a day where the Software isn’t used in some form where Sentinel Active and the precision farming modules have been added and are proving invaluable.

On a day to day basis – what key features are you using in Gatekeeper? And how do they benefit your business?

Day to day uses of Gatekeeper include managing all the stock, writing recommendations for all product applications, nutrient management planning and managing the data transfer from all the machines. We run separate contract farming agreements so accuracy in record keeping within Gatekeeper is critical to enable the correct charges to be made between businesses, allowing for thorough strategic analysis in how the Farms are performing.

Other features that are highly used include the mapping module for managing all the guidance lines for the CTF system, detailing the Environmental schemes, showing the positions of all the utilities across the Estate for staff and contractors, detailing blackgrass zones and pest pressures and creating various arable cropping reports. PF modules are used for creating VR plans through the grid generator, interpreting all the stored date such as soil type, nutrient analysis and yield maps.

Have you been able to identify any cost savings as a result of using Gatekeeper, mapping or planning tools?

Gatekeeper has proved very successful in storing and managing output data which can then be overlaid over various years to enable the identification of poorer areas that can be, if required, taken out of production and managed alternatively.

Being able to manage the wireless data transfer trough the software has meant the farm is now running a paperless system which has saved time and improved accuracy, the farm can be very reactive to crop requirements and send recommendations to working machines at the click of a button. The software plays a vital role in the Controlled traffic system which in itself has improved operator output, focused compaction areas and allowed tramlines to develop over time to allow machines to travel on firm wheeling’s in wider weather windows. Gatekeeper provides the central management for this where guidance can be altered and lines added quickly as required, i.e for strategic mole ploughing across field drains.

The Farm is now at a level with the financial recording that accounting time has been greatly reduced. Various reports can be quickly produced to monitor performance, manage inter business transactions and make informed business decisions.

Of course, when using Gatekeeper you have to invest time to create work plans and manage your data but do you find this is time well spent? Do you save time further down the line as a result?

Committing time in these areas is certainly time well spent. Once recommendations have been created, they serve as vital information for the operators and serve as legal documents that are saved within the system. Having various cropping sequences, machinery settings/costings, VR maps and footpath and utility alerts attached to them, they are complex documents that serve various purposes. Gatekeeper can centralise these which can be quickly stored and referred to.

Gatekeeper can then export these into our machines for the job to then be completed. Once this has occurred a file is then returned with key completion data (weather and times) as well as an actual applied map of the operation. This applied data can then add greater accuracy to the Gross margin maps, given parts of each field are treated differently.

How does the integration of Gatekeeper with in-cab software and hardware benefit you?

The Farm operates all John Deere AMS equipment with an RTK correction signal from an inhouse starfire base station.

From a machine point of view, they all carry 2630 screens, wireless data transfer MTG units, radio packs and starfire 3000 domes. Every machine has this attached to them to provide location data and communication links with Gatekeeper/John Deere software, this includes 2 tractors, a self-propelled sprayer and the Combine Harvester.

Being able to manage logistics and import and export data against every field operation has significantly increased our farm recording accuracy. The paperless system has streamlined data flow greatly and saved a great of time with being able to centralise a huge amount of data and then export as required from the farm office.

As a trained agronomist, you have a slightly different perspective to the standard farm manager. How does Gatekeeper help you form the agronomic point of view?

The Farm Agronomy is covered in house so it Is vital that decisions and are checked and supported when creating recommendations. This is taken care of by Sentinel Active and as a result, plays a very important role.

Not only are the recommendations both exported and imported back into Gatekeeper, but the software also receives an applied coverage map back from the machine, allowing us to know exactly what has been applied and where, adding further depth to our level of traceability.

Sentinel Active is a tool in constant use and is invaluable for cross checking products, sourcing the latest EAMU’s and providing peace of mind and legal cover for practicing agronomists. The feature remains active all of the time, providing constant feedback and guidance

Are you currently using drone data? How has this new technology helped you on farm?

A drone became another agronomy tool in the Spring of 2017. Its primary role was to fly fields using automated software, zoning field attributes to influence decisions and provide imagery to remain as historical data, building up a greater knowledge of areas of the farm.

This process has typically been used to influence growth regulator applications, measure slug and rabbit pressures and to zone blackgrass. The latter has been used to build a risk map within gatekeeper based around a traffic light system, to influence cropping decisions and the general management of each field given the historical pressure of the grassweed.

In certain cases, drone imagery has been imported into Gatekeeper to allow a target application map to be created, providing a variable rate glyphosate plan to completely destroy blackgrass at flowering within the crop to minimise seed return. This was then exported to the sprayer and on approach to an infested area, the sprayer would automatically treat with no influence from the operator.

CASE STUDY

Penllyn Estate – Integrated software for an evolving business

The financial size and complex nature of many agricultural businesses makes the use of purpose designed accounts and management software, such as Gatekeeper, ever more important if farmers are to be able to quickly and accurately record financial data, and then use that information to make informed financial decisions regarding their businesses.

Like many farming businesses, the 1,200ha (3,000 acre) Penllyn Estate outside Cowbridge in South Wales has changed considerably in recent years, with farming just part of the overall diversified business, which now also includes a large composting business (Cowbridge Composting), accommodation, storage and other non-agricultural businesses.

Having previously used an accounts software package that was becoming increasingly unsuitable for the business, the decision was made five years ago to adopt Farmplan’s Gatekeeper, Business Manager and Earnie payroll software.

“The business is constantly evolving,” says owner John Homfray, “but since changing to Farmplan and Business Manager it’s very easy to constantly monitor and call up past financial data. It completely governs the internal workings of the estate and we use it for every facet of the business. Every quarter, we now do a complete analysis of what we are doing and Business Manager is the only key way to compare actual costs with budgets and to make informed financial and management decisions. Previously we had no idea at all.

”For farm manager Damien Burnell, in addition to the ease with which field and financial data can be managed, one of the great strengths of Gatekeeper is the ability it provides to incorporate and utilise agronomic or precision farming data, generated both by themselves and also from outside providers, such as their agronomist Dai Llewellyn, who also uses Gatekeeper.

“It makes it extremely simple and easy to record and implement recommendations and applications,” he explains. “Having walked the crops and inputted his recommendations into his iPad, Dai will then subsequently email over his recommendations, which I can then synchronise with Gatekeeper. Using a USB stick I can then export that data into the sprayer controller, and then having finished export back into Gatekeeper, which will automatically update the field records and stock levels. Basically it means I now spend less time in the office and more time out in the field.”

The last four years has also seen the increased use of precision mapping and variable applications on the farm. The use of variable drilling rates is also being implemented across the estate after a trial in 2017. Here, one historically low yielding field was scanned by Soilquest and from this data Damien was able to create variable drilling maps using Gatekeeper, with the result that average yield rose by 1 tonne/ha.

Working with Business Manager on a day-to-day basis, estate bookkeeper Rhiannon finds features such a Items Inspector, the Reports Tabs and Audit Trail make it extremely easy to drill down into the financial data, find nominal codes, investigate individual enterprise costs and compare these against budgets, and draw up cash flow and management reports.

However, John Homfray and Rhiannon both say that one of the most important features of the Farmplan software package is the UK based support that the company offers. “The support we receive is exceptional,” comments Rhiannon. “It’s great to know that you have that service at the end of a phone and Cherry, who looks after us, could not be more friendly and patient.”

“We have a lot of plans for the future, and one of the great benefits of Business Manager and other software Farmplan offers is that it will enable us to separately manage these new and existing business operations within the one integrated software package, and will play an important role in the development of these new enterprises,” concludes John Homfray.