Ag Retailer Navigates The Future With Technology

Driven by environmental responsibility, farmer efficiency and stewardship, and the possibilities of technology, in 2015 the team at Luckey Farmers Cooperative started its journey to digitize its business. 

As chief technology officer Andrew Gladden recalls, the turning point came with the 2014 algal bloom in Lake Erie that limited drinking water to half a million people. 

“So in 2015, we really focused on the four Rs, and joined the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program,” Gladden says. “We knew that our paper-driven processes that we had, weren't going to cut it for the certification. So we made a conscious effort in our agronomy department to digitize everything.” 

Luckey Farmers serves 1,000 members in a six county area located in the Lake Erie and western basin of Lake Erie in Ohio. The co-op provides grain marketing, crop nutrition, seed, feed and petroleum products. 

Gladden details the team uses AgWorld as its agronomy platform for its team as well as farmer customers. The team also uses Farmobile for real-time machine data. 

“Now that we have the agronomic data and we have the real time application data, we can pinpoint exactly how much fertilizer is being put on, on what field at what time, at what rate, which meets all the 4R certification,” he says. 

You can hear the full interview with Gladden on The Scoop Podcast:

And most recently started integrating Bushel for grain merchandising. 

“Our mindset was what we can do better than anybody else is help our members manage their data,” Gladden says. And he says the benefit to the farmer has driven every decision along their digital journey. 

While success can be measured in many ways, he shares the following: 

• Variable rate dry fertilizer acres have increased from 4,000 in 2015 to 45,000 acres in 2021. 
• Soil sample testing acres grew from 20,000 last year to 56,000 acres this year.

“We have to have 35% variable rate application with being 4R certified, and we're now at about 70% of the acres that we cover are variable rate applied. So it has gained traction, and it just has grown over the last four or five years,” he says. 

His message to other retailers is one of encouragement. 

“We started down this path not knowing. But the benefits outweigh any costs any, any problems that you may see,” he says. “Nobody likes changing their software. Nobody likes change in their process. But, you know, as we focused on what lucky farmers could be, and what lucky farmers can be to their members–helping our growers manage their data, helping them manage their farms, helping them manage their fields, having all that information in one place, will help them in the long run. What did we do a couple years ago? Well, we'd have to go look it up in a file cabinet somewhere. Right now we have everything at our fingertips.”