Farmers hear it from every input supplier: “Our success hinges on your success.” Here’s how one bold Alberta company plans to go beyond the clichés
Bruce Schmaltz knows he isn’t the only person ever to have said it: “We have to continually ask ourselves in this business ‘what can I do to make the farmer — my customer — an extra buck?’ If the farmer remains profitable, then we remain profitable.”
That said, just because a thing gets said a lot doesn’t mean that it can’t possibly be true.
Read Also
Producers aren’t panicking over tariffs and trade threats
The Manitoba Canola Growers Association (MCGA) surveyed its members this spring to get a sense of how trade uncertainty was…
Equally, as Schmaltz passionately believes, just because a thing is true, that doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that everyone is going to get it right.
And that, in Schmaltz’s eyes, spells business opportunity.
A south-central Alberta company that has evolved over six decades from a car and machinery dealership into a full service agronomy centre, Schmaltz’s DynAgra Corp. is one of the few remaining truly independent agri-retailers and agronomic service providers left in Western Canada.
Today, DynAgra has expanded well beyond its base at Beiseker, a farming village of 800 located 70 km northeast of Calgary, with branch depots at Carseland, Standard and Rolling Hills, southern Alberta farming communities all within about 150 kms of Beiseker.
To anyone who does business with it, DynAgra is a company that knows where it has been and also knows where it’s headed. On the inside, however, the business thinkers who are driving DynAgra are convinced their success is based just as much on knowing ‘how’ to get where they want to go.
It takes insight, Schmaltz shows. It takes commitment to be on top of technology too, and it also takes skilled organizational
design that gets the most from smart people, including consultants and outside experts.
As DynAgra wrapped up its business year at the end of August 2008, Bruce, company president, turned the daily management of DynAgra over to his two sons, Tasha and Remi, who have been with the company for the past three years. Tasha (28) is general manager, while Remi (27) is manager of corporate development.
As a family, the Schmaltzes see plenty of potential and business growth opportunities by applying their core principles to the delivery of new crop production technology.
“Agriculture is an old business,” says Tasha, “But you look at the new technology being applied today, and it creates new concepts for business and new opportunities people hadn’t even thought of five or 10 years ago.”
Bruce agrees. “Agriculture has been 20 to 25 years behind other industries in adapting new technology,” he says. “The industry has a long way to go yet, and there is so much potential. Adapting that new technology is where the future is.”
Multiple innovations
While DynAgra’s reputation as a crop input supplier was well-established, the business hit a new stride when Tasha and Remi joined the company in 2005. Beyond selling chemical and fertilizer, DynAgra looked to use the latest technology to help producers improve crop production efficiency, as well as improve over all farm management.
Today it is not only a supplier of chemicals and fertilizer, the company provides a full line of agronomic services that can range from a few minutes of production advice over the phone to a full season of field scouting, crop monitoring and advisory services.
One of the main business focuses is DynAgra VRT — services specializing in variable rate fertilizer technology. By using a combination of soil testing, satellite imagery or mapping, yield monitoring and ground truthing, the company can produce farm and field-specific prescriptions on how much fertilizer to use to optimize yields. This service is being offered over an expanding area of Western Canada.
The company has also developed DynAgra Finance, which provides producers with credit options and bridge financing during the year.
Also important, DynAgra expanded and refocused the role of their front line sales and marketing team, and they have a full time researcher on staff involved in crop protection and management research and development.
As well, crop marketing information is posted on their expanded internet website at which also provides access to many of their other services.
“I think producers see DynAgra as bringing innovation to the marketplace,” says Tasha. “On the agronomic side we have variable rate technology and on the retail side we have upgraded our plants. We have created financing options, and we have upgraded our software so producers can go online, for example, and look at their accounts or make a payment, and these are all changes that make our company more inviting.”
Agrees Remi: “Our services have done well with the progressive farmer who is looking to move his business forward.”
