Say the word Agri-Trend and many people still think micronutrients.
“Some people still think we’re just a micronutrient company because we did a lot of work in that area back in the 1990s,” says Agri-Trend founder and chief executive officer Rob Saik. “That’s a false perception.
“Agri-Trend concentrates on crop nutrition. Micronutrients are just one part of a strategic plan that deals with the overall agronomic view of the farm.”
Saik said the more than 100 coaches who belong to his Agri-Trend network have expertise in conventional cereal crops, specialty crops, livestock, corn, manure management, fruit and vegetables and just about any other aspect of agricultural production in Canada.
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Although Agri-Trend was launched as a prairie crop consultant firm in 2000, recent expansion into British Columbia, Ontario, the United States and eastern Europe has given the company direct links with a much wider range of specialists.
“This morning (June 19) we had an e-mail question with a photo of corn leaves from one of our agri-coaches in Ontario. Within an hour, he had answers from Canada and Berlin, Germany. That’s the kind of service our network provides to farmers. We don’t like to keep farmers waiting for answers.”
Saik explains that two parallel trends through the 1990s led him to believe that farmers needed access to an impartial source of high quality production information. The growing information void was leaving farmers with unanswered questions.
“We saw the attrition of government extension services right across the country. Many of the top producers saw this coming and had already gone looking for other sources of information.
“Secondly, we saw the erosion of profit margin at the input retail level. The local dealer was finding it more and more difficult to justify paying the salary of agronomists to spend quality time with their clients. Economics dictated that the sales agronomists in place at the retail level were being stretched thinner and thinner over a larger client base. They were no longer able to provide the personalized advice farmers had become accustomed to.”
Those two factors told Saik that farmers were looking for unbiased, quality information that would make more money for their farming operations.
“So I said to myself, ‘geez Rob, now that’s a business opportunity.’ If I can deliver high quality agronomic coaching, then my service will have a monetary value. Farmers will pay for access to impartial wisdom and knowledge.
“I could see by the late ’90s that individual farmers were making decisions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, based on very sketchy, dodgy advice. Nobody was trying to give farmers bad advice. It’s just that nobody in government or the retail sector had the time to do it right.”
Saik said most sales agronomists are highly qualified and ethical.
“But without a doubt, there’s a slice out there who are more concerned with sales commissions than they are with unit cost of production on the farm.
“Unit cost of production isn’t just the volume of product that leaves the farm. It’s totally a question of how much money you spent to produce it. When you look at unit cost of production, you’re looking at the potential to make profit. And that’s what it’s all about.”
Saik’s staff don’t deal only with farmers. They also provide advice to retailers.
“If you look at the fertilizer companies – Simplot, Agrium, Saskferco – they have no direct agronomic support to the farmer. The support and advice you get from the retailers comes from the fertilizer and chemical companies, who, of course, want more sales.”
Saik said that’s why he wanted something different for farmers that was based on unit cost of production rather than sales of inputs.
His idea was to form a network of the best available sources of agronomic information. This interdisciplinary team would deliver recommendations through locally franchised agri-coaches.
“We are not a soil testing company, although we do a lot of soil testing. We are not a crop scouting company, although we do a lot of crop scouting. Soil testing and crop scouting are important, but 60 to 70 percent of our work with a client takes place from September to April.
“That’s quite different from a crop adviser who just works with the growing crop. We work with the growing crop, but in the context of an overall farm plan.”
Other than extreme weather or insect outbreaks, Saik’s coaches and their clients should not be surprised during the growing season. They plan in advance for most of the stresses that will take place on that crop during the growing season.
Saik said predicting crop stress is all part of the strategic crop plan. The strategy for each farm is different, and includes such factors as risk assessment, soil fertility, manure management, tissue testing, crop scouting, field mapping and business management.
He said they start building the strategic crop plan in November, just after finishing the assessment of the previous year.
“We build individual field plans and then build them into an action plan for the whole farm. We monitor those plans regularly throughout the growing season.
“We manage all this with a very sophisticated integrated data layering program for each specific field. It’s called My SCP (strategic crop plan) and it’s something we’ve developed from scratch.”
The longer they work with a client, the more data is available for each field and the more accurate management becomes.
Saik said a good example might be a field with a pea, barley, canola rotation. After working with the field through a full rotation the coach can predict with a high degree of probability whether or not there will be issues with sulfur or boron.
“By layering on year after year of highly specific data like this, we can predict the potential plant stress issues long before seed goes into the ground. That reduces stress on our clients and ourselves.”
The coaches follow a set protocol in developing the strategic crop plans. Before any plan is delivered to the client, it must first go through a check by a quality control coach.
The Agri-Trend Network along with local coaches provides an information service that might be compared to the traditional ag extension service.
“You might have three agri-coaches in your town, representing three disciplines. You could have a special crops person, a livestock specialist and a conventional crops person. You’d do business with the agri-coach who’s most relevant to your farm.”
A local coach faced with a befuddling problem can find the answer a click or a phone call away.
To handle challenging problems quickly, Saik assembled an on-call team of senior coaches who respond to questions that can’t be handled locally. The interdisciplinary senior team consists of eight masters degree and six PhD agrologists from across the country, who work out of their own offices or homes.
“These are some of the top people in Canada. But due to government attrition programs, many of them found themselves retired long before they were ready to retire. These guys have no desire to be put out of service. They have a vast amount of knowledge and experience they’ve gained over their careers and they want to use it,” said Saik.
“When I’m interviewing a potential agri-coach, the first thing I look for is passion. I want people who are passionate about working with farmers.”
To help ensure that clients receive impartial information, Saik has a 10 point code of ethics that each coach must sign. A copy of the code is left with each client.
“If a farmer ever feels there’s a problem or that we’re offside on something or there’s a competence issue, they can phone me and we can deal with the matter immediately. If it’s more complex, we have an advisory council of senior people, and we can get the council together within a day or two.”
He said potential coaches also must display a long-term commitment to serving their area.
“We want to offer our clients continuity. We don’t want field agronomists who keep moving on. How often do you hear a farmer say, ‘I just trained that guy and now he’s gone again.’ We think farmers want continuity in the people who serve them.”
Saik said most of his coaches handle about 30 clients. Some have only five clients. A small number of coaches who have hired assistants handle as many as 60 clients.
Agri-Trend does not charge a fee per acre. After trying numerous pricing structures in the late ’90s while developing his business model, Saik settled on a system with an initial setup fee, an annual fee for the standard service, plus a combination of fees for the optional specialty services designed for each farm.
Saik said his coaches provide the farmer with the same agronomic service for a wheat field whether it’s 160 acres or 320 acres, so why should the fee be double for the larger plot of land?
“I don’t believe in price per acre for an agronomic service. Our system is a la carte, so the client pays for the different services he wants for his farm each year. People want different types of service and different levels of service, so our pricing is based on that, not on field size.”
But there’s always people asking for a ballpark dollar per acre figure, just for the sake of comparison. Saik said that depending on the agronomic services supplied to the farmer and the number of acres over which these are spread, Agri-Trend fees range from $2.50 to $6.50 per acre.
Under the billing system, the client pays the Agri-Trend head office in Red Deer directly. The head office then pays all coaches according to their contract.
“We are a very lean company in terms of top management. We have over 100 agri-coaches directly serving the farmer. But the way we’re organized, we have only four full-time people in our office. We’re efficient because we use technology to the limit.”
