Iowa startup allows farmers to more efficiently track field operations

Amid fertilization, weather patterns, nutrient application rates and convoluted legal standards, farmers have a lot more to track than you’d think. For many Iowan families, this process is a business and a livelihood, but it’s also a science. Mike Sexton understands the complexity of large-scale farm …


Mike Sexton (left) demos Real Time Ag technology at the Upper Midwest Manure Handling Expo. 
Amid fertilization, weather patterns, nutrient application rates and convoluted legal standards, farmers have a lot more to track than you’d think. For many Iowan families, this process is a business and a livelihood, but it’s also a science.

Mike Sexton understands the complexity of large-scale farming. And with his web-based recordkeeping program Real Time Ag, he’s focused on maximizing the return on a farmer’s land while complying with strict regulations. The tough part is keeping things simple.

“Producers don’t have a lot of extra time, and they have many skills but they aren’t computer programmers, they’re livestock producers,” he said. “It had to be quick, it had to be simple.”

The Rockwell City, Iowa-based startup excels by uncomplicating the communications between livestock producers and the regulatory agencies, streamlining the tracking process for controlled elements and generating easy-to-follow nutrient management plans tailored to each operation. The combination of those services makes it an unparallelled tool for producers.

This isn’t a totally novel concept though: consulting companies have been bridging the gap between farmers and regulators for years. Sexton’s inspiration for Real Time Ag actually grew from his previous professional experience in the space.

In 2003, his wife, Becky, founded Twin Lakes Environmental Services, a company that translates legal jargon and requirements into manageable strategies for farmers. Sexton started working as a specialist in nutrient plans in 2005. But throughout their careers, the Sextons discovered tracking was a mile-high hurdle for their clients.

“I was watching producers struggle with having a way to record their spreading events,” Sexton (right) said. “I just kept hearing from producers over and over again that they really need help keeping track of this information in order to keep their business in compliance.”

So to clarify the process Sexton launched Real Time Ag, an online tool—launched in 2009—where producers and consultants alike can track the nutrients that make it onto their land. Now Twin Lakes uses it for their clients.

Compared to the old process, Real Time Ag is remarkably simple. First the client’s fields are added to the database, including information about size, shape and exact geographic location outlined on a map.

Once that’s set up, producers or spreaders can input manure spreading events—which track where and when the spreading occurred—along with levels of nutrients like phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium. The system also records manure source, the spreader that completed the work and the maximum rate per acre.

“Once they’ve done it a couple times, producers can input a spreading event in about a minute,” Sexton said.

The final product is a manure management recordkeeping form, which shows how much of the available nutrients have been used, information about the crop that was grown in that space and its optimum crop yield.

This report is exported as a PDF and shared with organizations like the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Or farmers can share with those groups via Real Time Ag itself. The program offers different login permissions that can be shared with consultants, producers, spreaders or regulatory institutions. So whether farmers need to write a nutrient management plan, share a spreading strategy with a contractor, or give the Iowa DNR limited access to land records, Real Time Ag is a one-stop shop.

“We wanted to give farmers one place to store records so they don’t have to have paper copies stuffed in a file somewhere,” Sexton said. “This whole program is based around meeting regulatory requirements.”

The end goal is a comprehensive record of everything that happens on a livestock producer’s land. This helps them meet environmental standards and save money, plus it allows easier enrollment in programs like EQIP, a United States Department of Agriculture effort that provides crop share money for the improvement of manure handling and storage.

Right now Sexton has been bootstrapping the business and growing it using the profits. He charges 5 cents per acre per month, but that’s generally sold to consulting companies like Twin Lakes. Those businesses can turn around and offer it in a retail-like structure, charging 7 cents per acre, for example, along with their other services.

In the coming months, Sexton is working to get Real Time Ag in the hands of more producers and more consultants. Plus he’s adding new features like a more advanced field-tracing system that breaks land into smaller chunks to measure events more precisely.

“I hope it grows into a business where we input all producers, even the non-livestock and non-regulated ag community,” Sexton said. “And that we can build enough tools into the program so that producers can save money on nutrient applications—more than what they will have to pay for the program.”

 

Credits: Photo from ManureWorks.com. Mike Sexton photo courtesy of Real Time Ag. 

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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