New App Aims to Ease Farm Labor Bottlenecks

Here’s the conundrum: You really need an extra set of hands to help take out a fence this weekend. Or, your long-time employee is taking a much-deserved vacation, and you need two semis of corn delivered to the elevator. 

Wouldn’t it be awesome to fill your spur-of-the-moment farm labor needs quickly and easily? Enter AgButler, the just-launched app that connects employers to laborers — one click at a time.

Three years ago, Kevin Johansen started seeing producers use social media to find part-time help. As a fifth-generation Missouri producer, he had felt the labor pinch himself. Through a little brainstorming, the idea for a mobile app was born.

“We discussed the idea with a small circle of folks and then put a simple survey together and kicked it out to a big group of friends and family in the industry,” he says. “That gave us a lot of information and validation to take the next step forward.”

Johansen’s years of working on cattle operations and experiences in 4H, FFA and the American International Charolais Breeders Association, armed him with first-hand knowledge of the “why” of the project. But the technical “how” was beyond his skillset. 

In sharing the idea with those in the industry, Johansen started building vital connections. “The biggest thing to know in creating products like this is you can’t do everything yourself,” he says.

Johansen formed an LLC for the company, rounding out the team with:

• His brother, Dustin, as the chief operating officer.
• Mark Allison as CFO.
• Charlie Nguyen as chief technology officer.
• His wife, Jamie, and sister-in-law Joanna Wilkinson as the marketing group. 

They connected with the National Center for Beef Excellence, which led them to a developer group in Kansas City. Once the AgButler team knew the idea was feasible, they built a demo in September 2018 and started raising funds. 

In early 2020, the AgButler team competed in the Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge, which is a national agtech competition that showcases U.S. startups from rural entrepreneurs.

“Of the 10 semifinalists, we were the only the startup that was pre-revenue; we just had the demo at the time,” Johansen says. 

Next, the team competed in the Ag Tech Innovation Competition by FCS of America at the Iowa Power Farming Show in Des Moines and won People’s Choice. Between those two competitions, they interviewed and were awarded a grant with the Missouri Agriculture and Small Business Development Authority.

“All of this catapulted us to build the technology,” Johansen says. “The MU Commercial Ag group worked on the feasibility study and we are finalizing the business and marketing plans for the grant.”

In August 2020, three years after the idea was first hatched, AgButler hit app stores. Similar to other ride-sharing or short-term-rental technology, the app connects those who need work done with those who can do it. It draws from a national pool, but for now the greatest participation is in Missouri and some surrounding states. The industries served are crops, livestock, transportation and construction.

Employers can post specifics and requirements for a job, and then laborers can filter jobs by location, type, price etc. Both parties can set up profiles for free. The only cost is a flat $20 fee paid by the employer once a connection is made.

“Our goal is to make the ideal connection,” Johansen says. “Young agriculturalists who want to be involved in production agriculture can be connected with the older demographics who need part-time help. We want to make connections in agriculture and help rural communities.”