An agriculture industry veteran from Black Diamond is bringing his years of experience to a new ag tech start up company.
Dan Brewin grew up and worked on an irrigation farm near Taber and advanced his career in the agriculture sector across Western Canada in areas like crop input sales and grain and livestock marketing, before joining the leadership team of AGvisorPRO as co-CEO.
Brewin says AGvisorPRO is a technology platform which connects farmers to industry experts in a similar way other platforms might connect a passenger with a driver, or a customer with a meal delivery.
"As a farmer has a challenge about a particular subject area on a particular day, he enters the search parameters in and up pops a list of experts, and he can choose based on price and rating which one he wants to talk to."
Brewin says he joined the organization for their initial launch to producers back in July during the Ag in Motion farm show in Saskatoon, adding he was brought onto to the team to help commercialize the business.
"Recognizing agriculture is so vast and so complex, there's no provider of information that can handle all aspects of their operation, and so we really wanted to just collaborate their particular farm with an expert that might have a solution for them in that regard."
He says the app is a cost-effective way to gain information as it's not a subscription and payment only occurs with each session.
Brewin says since the launch, they continue to move the needle with new sign ups from farmers and people signing on as advisors.
However, he says activity is still low at this point.
"We're not far off of where we projected to be at this point," he said. "We're pretty happy."
He says they're also looking at how they can use the app to connect people in agriculture with mental health experts, or a conversation with a peer who may have gone through a similar situation.
"They'll be able to reach out to that right from the spot that they're in, whether they're in the tractor or in their home office," he said. "It's not just about education and empathy, it's truly a way to reach out to provide at least the initial steps of a solution."
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