We were searching for a software solution that would help us drive precision farming in Northern Ireland, display soil data that could be interpreted easily and would show changes over time. SoilEssentials understand what we are trying to achieve and have a team of knowledgeable staff with a solid understanding of UK agriculture.
Company: Fane Valley
Location: Moira, Northern Ireland
Staff: 1000 employees across the Group, with 15 within the Agronomy & Forage Division
Based in Moira, Northern Ireland, Fane Valley Co-operative Society is a progressive agricultural and food processing business with interests in a wide array of related areas.
Formed in 1903 by a group of forward-thinking farmers in Counties Monaghan and Armagh, Fane Valley still remains 100% farmer owned today. Founded on the co-operative principle where working together achieves greater things than by working alone, they continue their commitment and resolve to enhance the lives of all those connected to the business. Fane Valley continues to develop through a strategy of organic growth and part of that was to improve the software system within their Agronomy & Forage division.
Soil sampling is the bedrock of the agronomy & forage division at Fane Valley. Offering a GPS soil sampling service to customers across Northern Ireland and a drop-in service which their team of FACTS qualified agronomists will interpret and make recommendations on.
Gary Spence, Technical Services Co-ordinator, tells how their quest for improvement led them to SoilEssentials.
He explains, “Soil analysis is the foundation to sustainable farming, helping our customers understand the status of their soils, and giving them the right advice to make the best management decisions to grow healthy crops and forage.
The challenges we were trying to solve were to create whole farm fertility maps and we also wanted the ability to create variable rate nutrient recommendations too – we did wonder if anything existed that could meet our needs.”
It was at this point that Gary found KORE, the precision farming platform from SoilEssentials, a completely customisable solution:
“KORE allows us to be market leaders in precision farming here in Northern Ireland. The KORE platform gives Fane Valley the opportunity to further develop our precision farming offering and allows us to work with our farmers and agronomists to drive soil, crop, and grassland management for continued improvement.”
“Working with SoilEssentials is great, and very easy, as they are always happy to answer our queries and take on board our feedback to ensure that their KORE software platform is truly tailored to our needs. We are really enjoying the system, can see the evident value for us and the clear benefits for our customers.”
In addition to agronomy, Fane Valley is also the largest retail distributor of animal health, crop protection, livestock identification products and general farm supplies in Northern Ireland. Their expanding network of agri-retail stores is complemented by a market leading online trading platform.
