Farmers have seen the consolidation of equipment dealerships, input suppliers, grain companies, and feedlots. Consolidation of farms themselves has and is occurring. So should we be surprised that consolidation of ag data companies is now happening?
TELUS has entered the agricultural industry in a big way. Yes, TELUS, the outfit that many farmers view as just a phone company, is now a major player in Canadian and global agriculture and is looking to expand its presence even more. I had an interesting conversation with Bob Petrovic, Global Lead for Enterprise Solutions, Agribusiness, TELUS Agriculture and he was quick to describe TELUS Agriculture as “a global provider of digital technologies and data insights for the agriculture and food industry.”
According to Petrovic, TELUS Agriculture is the newest business unit of TELUS. It was officially launched just over a year ago, and it is one division of a TELUS family that also includes TELUS Communications, TELUS International and TELUS Health.
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“TELUS Agriculture is an amalgam of acquisitions we have made in the last three years that represent solutions we are offering to various participants in the overall food value chain,” Petrovic explained, adding that TELUS Agriculture is bringing those disparate heritage brands together under a single brand, and as a single face to customers globally. “The intention is to bring the best of those capabilities together in a single portfolio. And to drive interesting and substantial change in our industry by bringing those capabilities and organizations into one.”
Acquisitions
While it may shock many farmers that TELUS is now an agricultural service provider for solutions other than telephones, a bigger surprise is that some farmers may already be using TELUS Agriculture services and not even know it.
The acquisitions that Petrovic referred to include companies as these:
- Decisive Farming: an industry leader in precision agronomy and farm management.
- Farm at hand: a user-friendly farm management, field management, crop planning and sales management platform allowing farmers to plan, work and track production and processes.
- Agrian: a unified farm management platform focusing on precision, agronomy, sustainability, analytics, and compliance.
- HERDTRAX: Online Cattle record management
- Feedlot Health management services: individual feedlot and calf data collection focusing on health and productivity.
- TKXS: specialized software, program management and data solutions geared to deliver critical information to Agri-Businesses
- Muddy Boots: software applications which shares data from the farm right up the food chain to the consumer to ensure that sustainability, quality, and compliance conditions are met.
- AGIntegrated: a platform that enables agribusinesses to connect, organize, translate, validate, and integrate raw farm data.
- Ignition by TELUS: Supply chain management solutions purpose-built for food distributors and processors.
- EXCEEDRA: platform for food industry retailers wanting to improve marketing, retail execution; and supply chain management.
- Conservis: a technology company which created a platform that enables disparate farm data from different sources to be organized and streamlined into a single interface which can be used in multiple applications.
(It is important to note the Conservis acquisition was a joint venture with Rabobank, which itself had been a partner with Conservis in developing the platform since 2018. Rabobank is a global leader in the financial sector providing wholesale and retail banking services, leasing, and real estate services specializing in the food and agribusiness sector in 38 countries.)
Petrovic explained the reason for these acquisitions was TELUS was looking for new growth opportunities because he feels opportunities for growth in the communications sector in Canada are limited. Instead of buying movie studios or TV stations like their competitors, TELUS looked for an industry in which they could leverage their core competencies, which are data management and systems integration. “We looked for an industry that was data rich and information poor,” Petrovic said. Agriculture was that industry.
Petrovic feels the TELUS venture into agriculture is like the one they made into the health industry 15 years ago. “It (the health sector) was a very fragmented industry with a lot of technology in spots and not a lot in others, and data did not flow well across, so it led to a lot of expense and complexity with not good outcomes. So, we jumped into health because we figured it was an industry that we could connect better through secure data exchange.”
According to Petrovic: “When you look at the world supply-demand for a growing population, we need to get a lot more efficient, not only in how we produce food but how we deliver food to end use consumers.”
Benefits to farmers
So how is this data consolidation a benefit to farmers?
Petrovic stated the goal of TELUS Agriculture is “at the end of the day we want to make the art of farming more streamlined, and we want to make the business of farming more effective.”
TELUS Agriculture will focus on two things at the farm level. First is streamlining and simplicity. It wants to offer applications that do not take a lot of training.
The second is productivity. TELUS wants to enable farmers to do things with a single click instead of making a lot of phone calls. Said Petrovic “We want to deliver the benefits of technology to farming that so many other industries have been able to realize. We want to give growers the ability to better interact with their buyers so that a grower can make better decisions that will ultimately drive a return on investment.”
When asked for a specific example of how TELUS Agriculture would assist a farmer, Petrovic provided a scenario that many farmers would have heard before with respect to crop planning. He said that farmers know what they did last year and how it turned out, but if advisors are pitching something different, TELUS Agriculture could create some scenarios that compare the outcomes for yield and profitability.
TELUS Agriculture enables working with a partner or advisor on a plan to execute. And it moves away from notebooks and white boards to benchmarks and data to give better insights for guiding decisions.
Petrovic also pointed out that TELUS Agriculture provides farmers with a better opportunity to share their data so everybody can do a better job at the end of the day.
But then Petrovic added a line that farmers don’t often hear from advisors, agronomists and others involved in crop planning decisions. “And perhaps change the focus of farmers to one of returns rather than the traditional focus on yields and production.”
Data ownership
The elephant in the room when it comes to any discussion of farm data is who will own and control the data. Petrovic was very clear: “Farmers will always own the data. Farmers own the data for their farm and that data is in their control.”
That, he said, includes “encryption, storage of data, tools for identification of rights and privileges as to who is allowed to access the data in future as data moves along with commodities; making sure growers are really in charge as how data is shared.”
Petrovic noted that TELUS Agriculture has the benefit of the 15 years of experience that TELUS Health gained in developing data privacy and data security.
His comments echo a statement from the TELUS Agriculture news release from July 19, 2021, when TELUS and Rabobank started down this joint venture path: “Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture remain committed to Conservis’ strict data privacy standards. Farmers on the Conservis platform own their data and will continue to control when business partners, including Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture, receive information.”
However, when it comes to compiled information from multiple TELUS Agriculture customers, the picture became somewhat murky. When questioned if TELUS Agriculture would ever sell compiled information, Petrovic replied that TELUS is somewhat already in business of selling information. He noted TKXS out of Raleigh is already using compiled information to produce market research reports and to design different products for customers. He also pointed to the creation of benchmarks that individuals can use to compare how they are doing compared to other similar farm operations.
When pressed about selling production information to buyers that farmers sell their crops or livestock to, Petrovic replied, “A big part of the strategy is really about unlocking a lot of data so it becomes actionable information for different folks in the value chain. So I would say providing insights to buyers, to various folks in the value chain on things like how much canola might have been grown, how much different types of canola might have been grown would certainly be a valuable data set to various folks making decisions in contracts and in buying. But at this point we are not (selling this information). But I cannot comment on that specific use case.”
How it adds up
So does TELUS Agriculture bring a new, valuable service to Canadian farmers?
There is no question TELUS is a leading technology company, or that they have acquired well-known and successful heritage ag technology companies. Will TELUS Agriculture grow the existing technology and services for the benefit of farmers. Or, will they view the farming industry as a cash cow to grow TELUS?
The worst case is if the primary focus of TELUS Agriculture becomes buyers, retailers and consumers of food, at the expense of farmers. Time will tell.
Until then, farmers will be partnered with TELUS Agriculture if you deal with any of the heritage brands listed above, and likely other ag technology companies that will eventually be merged into the company. If not involved with any of these companies at this time, you can become a client of TELUS Agriculture through direct to grower solutions or through ag retailers that have partnered in providing services. Prices for service vary depending on the service sought.
Clients of TELUS Agriculture will be a part of a global network already operating right across Canada, in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand. TELUS Agriculture is already looking to expand across Europe and in Latin America.
Does it mean those colourful Decisive half-ton trucks you see on rural roads may someday be repainted to read TELUS Agriculture as heritage brand names are gradually replaced? You’ll be the judge of that.
