Software company helps farmers manage operations and provide carbon footprint savings before setting foot in the field.
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com
Farming always has numerous “x-factors” attached to it that make the outcome difficult to predict—but one Canadian software company said its product can help create a more stable precision agricultural environment.
With employees in Canada and the US, Verge Agriculture—produces one product only, Launch Pad, which it calls a “the only interactive planning experience ever made.”
The privately held company currently employs 23 people (and growing), and has established itself as a SaaS (software as a service) company that lacks a brick-and-mortar-office, instead having its workers located across North America, as it establishes partnerships in numerous countries around the world.
Lyndsay Barch, Marketing Manager of Verge explained: “Launch Pad came about with the realization that farmers were lacking a solution which helps them manage the dependencies between their land and equipment.”
“We saw that farmers needed planning software with an intuitive interface to realize cost savings as it relates to increasing efficiencies, reducing the use of inputs, and managing equipment and labour,” she said.
To resolve it, a team was formed, including farmers, entrepreneurs, and yes, rocket scientists. Plural. Barch said that the team set about to develop the world’s first interactive software to help farmers plan their field operations.
Launch Pad was introduced to the market in 2020 as a software solution that “enabled farmers to plan, simulate, and validate the movement of equipment in the field and execute field operations efficiently,” Barch noted. “The combination of climate crisis and an already-declining net farm income is a perfect storm that threatens farmers’ livelihoods and our food supply. We wanted to develop a solution that led with an economic driver (increase efficiencies and reduce costs) but also solved the climate crisis (reduce GHG emissions, increase soil value, and long-term sustainability).”
As Barch pointed out, Launch Pad is the first product of its kind, and Verge is, as far as it knows, the only company focused on exposing the relationship between land, equipment, and best practices. It has doubled its customer base from 2020 to 2021 and is continuing to grow.
“The only input our product requires is a field boundary. This can either be created on Launch Pad or uploaded in the appropriate format by the user. With just that, farmers can plan, analyze, compare and manage the routes their equipment take across all of their operations,” said Barch.
Once the paths are completed for each stage of the production cycle, it is exported directly to the monitors in the machines. From there, operators follow the lines displayed in their monitors. By ensuring that all equipment is working off a consistent path plan for all fields, operators can focus more on execution of field operations and not just driving equipment.
“The product was built by farmers for farmers,” Barch stated. “We saw value in the product as farm sizes continued to expand and multi-fleet operations were becoming more common.
“We knew there needed to be a way for the equipment to move more efficiently—not just driving into the field and going for it.”
Barch said that Launch Pad takes into consideration field obstacles, such as tree rows, artificial and natural markers, et al when outputting path plans.
“Our target customer is primarily progressive cereal, grain or row crop farmers who have already adopted automation technology like auto-steer and guidance receivers in their equipment.”
Verge markets Launch Pad as a simple-to-use web application that within a mere three clicks allows a farmer to be off and running with field equipment management.
Interested users can visit Verge’s (https://vergeag.com/) website and click on “start trial” to create an account in less than a minute and indulge in an interactive planning experience. Here, users will see an aerial view of their fields and a dashboard that provides various information about their fields in terms of shape complexity and other data associated with the movement of equipment. They can select a field or multiple fields and start creating path plans for a specific field operation.
Launch Pad helps users visualize path plans and decide what is optimal for their specific goal. For some it may be reducing the number of passes in the field, for others it could be saving time, and in certain parts of the world users would want the least erosive field coverage plan.
Once these decisions are saved, users can easily export the path plans. Launch Pad supports all major OEM formats like John Deere (Gen 2-4), Case, New Holland, Raven, Trimble, and ISOXML. Users can export just AB lines or all tracks including inner and headlands as adaptive curves.
All created path plans remain stored within Launch Pad, allowing users to make year-to-year comparisons so that adjustments for each stage of the production cycle can be analyzed, and cost savings to be monitored.
“Additional benefits include the analytical tools inside the app,” said Barch. “Farmers can compare equipment types to understand what the best fit for their farm would be. We also allow farmers to compare various scenarios and associate cost savings of using each unique path plan.”
For ROI, Barch is even more enthusiastic: “Path planning reduces in-field decision making. This helps farmers and operators save time to complete operations, focus on increasing machine utilization rate, reduce fuel use —different for each farm based on what kind of equipment they are running—and how complex their fields are in terms of shape and terrain. We can calculate ROI for single- or multi-fleet operations—we have a subscription-based model, and results would be seen instantly on the first plan they run. This is compounded across all fields for the entire farming season.
“Our price is affordable for any farmer of any farm size.” See https://vergeag.com/product-pricing/.
For future endeavors, Barch said that as ag equipment becomes autonomous—such as the new John Deere tractor introduced in January of 2022–Launch Pad will be used as a complementary tool to path plan for autonomous farm equipment.
“We have one version of Launch Pad, but are working to develop more and more features,” summed up Barch. “With new features will come self-service pricing bundles based on each individual farmer's needs. Each user has a custom experience as the fields they see in Launch Pad are their own. We are fully integrated with John Deere Operations Centre but, as mentioned, also work with all machine types/brands.”
Case studies employed by Verge have shown that customers are happy with Launch Pad, seeing tremendous results after a single farming season. “You can find testimonials on our website,” said Barch. “Customers working off Launch Pad path plans are expressing how easy it is to navigate and are very satisfied.
“They also enjoy how easy the product is for planning and implementing,” she continued. “We offer an on-farm service as part of our Professional Services package (customer consultation and seasonal service), or for those farmers who are eager and understand tech, they can easily figure it out on their own.”
Verge offers Launch Pad worldwide, selling to farmers and dealers via partnerships in key ag regions.
“We are a unique product solving a real-world problem in agriculture—reducing the carbon footprint,” said Barch. “Customers are seeing value in Launch Pad no matter where they are located.”
For more information on Verge, visit https://vergeag.com/.
This article originally appeared in the March 2022 issue of the Precision Agriculture Digital Digest, a Farms.com publication. To subscribe to the digest, visit: https://secure.campaigner.com/CSB/Public/Form.aspx?fid=1812658&ac=gapc