Since launching Smart Farm Apps just over two years ago, Kerry natives Tommie Slattery and Ryan Garner have seen global interest in their farming data-driven products soar.
Selling apps into more than 30 countries so far, Slattery says "the biggest markets for us would be America, Canada, England, New Zealand and Australia". Farmers in Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa have also been convinced by their products.
Explaining the genesis of the company, Slattery says during his work with his family’s refrigeration engineering company he noticed most farmers “used diaries for storing information or wrote stuff down on the PC when they got back home”.
"If we could get them to put the information directly into their phone – which they'll have with them at all times – it might make life a lot easier."
Pro Cattle Breeding
He and friend Garner, who has an IT background, pooled their knowledge to create three initial apps – Pro Cattle Breeding, Pro Grass Rotation and Pro Dairy Event, with prices ranging from €9.99 to €24.99.
The Pro Dairy Event app notes individual cow medication needs, keeps track of crucial events in every cow’s life throughout the herd and sets milking time alarm notifications among other features.
The €24.99 Pro Grass Rotation app highlights high and low performing paddocks, identifies surplus grass and promises “substantial” reductions in fertiliser use. Pro Cattle Breeding records all the major milestones in the breeding cycle, predicts due dates, tracks breeding history of each animal and helps “manage the reproductive cycle of your cows 365 days per year”.
In all cases, data can be inputted offline so farmers living in areas with poor internet access will still be able to utilise the apps at any time.
In addition to the initial releases, the company has also developed the €1.79 Pro Milk Solids app which acts as both a production calculator and data archive for dairy farmers.
Slattery and Garner also created a personalised app for an agricultural company which was launched at last month’s Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois.
When discussing the apps with potential clients, Slattery says, “you could talk about all the brilliant data you have, but farmers don’t tend to talk in terms of data”. Instead, he says, he tends to discuss specific, applicable advantages – “for example, say with the Pro Grass Rotation app, ensuring that an allocation of grass for a day for 100 cows is the right amount, and you can easily tell if you go above or below that line”.
While Slattery’s father has made a “small” investment in the company, they also received a grant from Kerry County Enterprise Board.
"Myself and Ryan are both working in full time jobs alongside this," says Slattery, "but if we can make enough money through our own apps, and creating apps for other agricultural companies, then we're definitely looking towards promoting the apps in other countries to a greater degree."
New Zealand
While for the rest of this year, Slattery says he and Garner plan to look into “developing two or three apps around the Irish way of farming”, they also hope to develop apps and online platforms aimed at farm managers in countries like New Zealand in particular.
“That would be creating a log in-based back-end system so if you’re a farm manager and you have five guys working for you they’d be able to use their apps to build up data around the farm on different jobs. Then they’ll send [information] back to the manager, allowing them to make decisions based on that data.”
Slattery adds: “Like any start-up it’s about having the money, but we really started out with absolutely nothing to a point now where the business is paying for itself and we have customers from all over the world really.”
