Camilla Hayselden-Ashby, fieldmargin, on the challenges of time…

Camilla Hayselden-Ashby is Head of Product at fieldmargin, the digital farm mapping and management tool that links in with other technologies including satellite and drone imagery. Camilla works with farmers to understand how they are using the app, and what the overall challenge is that they are encountering within their business. The theme of the REAP conference is time; Camilla explains why this topic is so relevant to fieldmargin.
“One of the challenges we identified was the amount of paperwork in farming, particularly on the arable side. For example, the farm office prints off a job sheet for a spray job; that gets handed to the spray operator, they go off and do the job, meanwhile the farm manager is having to call them for an update on progress, then when the job is done a spray ticket goes back to the farmer and they need to type it all up.
“I’ve spoken to farmers who are doing a 60-hour work week out in the fields and then they’re spending their Saturday afternoon dealing with the data backlog.
“fieldmargin cuts out almost all of that. You have your phone with you all the time, you can log information on the go, and your records are automatically updated. There really is no need for that replication of data entry.
“On the livestock front, I was talking to a sheep farmer with about 1200 sheep across some rented ground and something he often has to do is provide information to the owner of the land on how many days it was grazed in that year and by how many animals. He said he has to go back through a notebook with the number of animals written and notes on where they were.
“Tackling that, we have a tool that helps farmers keep track of grazing. They set up livestock herds and can record where they are; it appears as a pin on the map and when you want to record a livestock move, all they need to do is select the herd they’re moving, tap the field they’re moving it to, and that’s done. On their herd and on their field, they can see where was grazed when, and on the field when they take the herd out it begins calculating the rest period, so if they’re allowing their field a particular amount of time to rest for the grass to regrow, that’s automatically calculated for them.”
fieldmargin are exhibiting at REAP 2021.
More about fieldmargin.

REAP 2021: Changing Time(s) for Agriculture – 10th November 2021

Imagine a world where agriculture is not constrained by time. The ability to manage and manipulate time is increasing and REAP 2021 will explore the advances in technology and breakthroughs in science that is making this possible.
REAP brings together people from across the agri-tech ecosystem who believe that innovation is the engine for change. The conference bridges the gap between producer needs and technology solutions and showcases exciting agri-tech start-ups.