Farmers already grabbing hold of new self-service rural supplies solution.

While news travels fast in rural New Zealand, Farmlands wasn’t expecting talk of its new digital tool to start traveling as fast as it has. FarmlandsPRO is a bespoke online and app-based tool that allows customers to place, track and manage their rural supplies orders themselves. It’s being officially launched at Fieldays in Hamilton this week. 

Several hundred farmers and growers who have started using the pre-launch version of FarmlandsPRO are already benefiting from gaining greater control of their essential rural supplies. 

Farmlands CEO Tanya Houghton says, “We know that farming doesn’t line up with normal business hours – and our customers need to be able to order rural supplies at a time that meets their business needs, not ours. This was the starting point for developing our new FarmlandPRO tool that will support our customers in owning and controlling their relationship with Farmlands.”  

FarmlandsPRO offers a personalised experience for our farmer and grower customers – and includes everything from full order histories, through to existing contracts and farmer-specific discounted rural supplies prices. 

This new personalised digital tool reflects how farmers and growers are adapting the ways they do business and how Farmlands is continuing to evolve to better meet customer expectations.  

“We’re acutely aware of the challenges the rural sector is facing and the need for us to be more responsive and available. Farming is an increasingly digital and data-driven business and FarmlandsPRO supports this by giving customers better access to their rural supplies information,” Tanya says. 

“Everything we do is about increasing productivity and profitability for New Zealand farmers and growers. That means making use of the collective buying power of our customers and we’ve already completed a significant product and supply-chain transformation as part of that.”

The co-op plans to add future functionality to FarmlandsPRO that will help customers take even more control of the products they need and lower input costs. These features will include providing seasonal recommendations and offers based on sales history to help Farmlands source core products at scale and provide a better customer price. 

FarmlandsPRO will also allow Farmlands technical experts to spend more time supporting their customers in solving on-farm or orchard challenges, and less time processing orders.  

Feedback from customers using the pilot version of FarmlandsPRO has been very positive. 

“We’re already starting to hear that neighbours are talking to one other about FarmlandsPRO – how it speeds up placing orders and getting supplies on to farm, which lets them get back to what’s most important. That’s exactly what we hoped for with this tool,” Tanya says. 

The development of FarmlandsPRO is a natural evolution for an organisation that was first established to disrupt the status quo and put farmers and growers at the centre, Tanya adds. 

“Farmlands was set up by farmers over 60 years ago to get a better deal. That remains our purpose and is what drives us. It means we’re not afraid to challenge how we do things or push ourselves to do better. It also means we need to be well-connected to what’s happening on farms and how people are changing the way they work, so we can adapt to that,” she says.  

Farmers and growers can learn about the tool inside the Farmlands Village at Fieldays or by talking to any of the Farmlands team. It's quick and easy for Farmlands shareholders to download and start using the FarmlandsPRO app from the Apple App and Google Play Stores. Simply login using existing MyFarmlands details and start placing orders immediately.