FarmLink picks up mobile management app

A Saskatchewan-developed, cloud-based mobile app for farm management is being uploaded into Prairie grain marketing consultancy FarmLink Marketing Solutions.

Winnipeg-based FarmLink announced Tuesday it will merge Farm At Hand, the software platform developed by Kim Keller and Himanshu Singh, into its operations. Financial terms of the merger weren’t released.

“It has long been our belief that to truly empower the farmer we have to be where they are, and they are on mobile devices,” Keller and FarmLink co-founder Brenda Tjaden Lepp said in a release. “This merger is about innovating to help build stronger relationships with farm business partners worldwide.”

“With FarmLink we gain new relationships and expertise, allowing Farm At Hand to truly become the platform for agriculture, from seed to sale,” Keller said.

FarmLink emphasized in its release that Farm At Hand’s policy of not sharing farmers’ information with outside parties will continue.

“Farmers will still choose who they share their data with,” the company said, and the Farm At Hand platform “will enable them to leverage technology to enhance their business relationships farm-wide.”

Keller and Singh, who launched Farm At Hand in Saskatchewan and made their app available in 2012, relocated to Vancouver the following year and have since expanded to include seven staff.

The free Farm At Hand app is now used by about 21,000 farmers in North America and overseas, and a paid version, designed for agribusiness, is expected to be rolled out by early next year.

FarmLink, founded in 2004, bills itself as Canada’s premier source for grain marketing advice, with market advisors in all three Prairie provinces and offices in Winnipeg and Carman, Man., Lethbridge, Camrose and Vermilion, Alta., and Saskatoon, Yorkton, Weyburn, Swift Current, Melfort and Kindersley, Sask. — AGCanada.com Network