QuestionsI've been watching this one for a while and the strategy seems to have a lot of potential. If there is successful execution it could be the Shopify of Farming. I'm curious to know what others think about the following:
1) What is the level of farmer engagement with the platform? Facebook/Twitter they all post statistics on level of user engagement? I can't find any reference to frequency of grower logins to the platform this in FE filings. Agronomy recommendation on how much fertilizer to use have been in place for decades. If the farmers aren't actually utilizing the platform to aid in the recommendations, this is traditional agornomy with a techonology wrapper.
2) What is the true advantage provided by using the software compared to traditional agrononmy? Are the stats FE provides referencing increased yield compared to not using agronomy, or increased yield compared to other agronomy companies?
3) To determine the true acre growth, what is the right 2018 starting point? Looking at this compnay's past press releases in 2018 they were saying they have 22 million acres, but now the annual report on SEDAR says that at the end of 2018 ending acres were 10 million??
4) Is there any external validaiton by third parties of the accuracy of their virtual soil test? If this actually works its a game changer, but given the many variables which cause soil fertility to vary signifcinatly across area this seems to be something extremely complex and difficult to get right.
5) Three seems to be a lot of employee turnover at this company? The new CFO is leaving after less than a year and linkedin seems to who many former Farmers Edge senior managers. It looks like their CTO is also no longer there. Was this common at other startups like Shopify or Twitter?....in particular a change in the CTO role for a techonology company?