Carly Waddleton and Elena Soanes started Farmbase in 2019 with the aim of addressing a problem they often saw working in regional councils in New Zealand.
“We would hear from so many colleagues who were contacted by farmers before starting an activity to check the rules for doing something. There are a lot of rules and policies, and people can’t be expected to know them all, or know exactly who could help them complete the job. We realised then that this was a problem we not only wanted to solve, but could solve,” says Waddleton.
Farmbase is a free platform for farmers, pulling together a national rural directory, with relevant rules, regulations and other useful information allowing farmers to easily find who and what they need to know.
The website registers professional service providers and offers information for those looking to do over 270 farm specific activities, including effluent design and management, soil testing, and land drainage.
Farmers can use the website to search for service providers and rural professionals and contact them directly or through the site.
Waddleton and Soanes had been working on the business for a while when, in 2021, they realised they ought to change their business model to make the website free for rural professionals to use.
“We saw how hard farmers and service providers were hit and the impact that was having on agribusiness. For us our business is value driven and we honestly felt like this kind of service was important and necessary, and we knew it was hard out there.
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Carly Waddleton |
“So, we made the site free,” says Soanes.
“Now we are focusing on building the ways it can add value to people, and maybe help them feel like rules and regulations don’t have to be a nightmare,” she adds.
Waddleton says that for rural professionals wanting to trial the website for themselves, there is nothing to lose.
“There are only advantages for them in listing in our directory,” she says.
“And for farmers, I’d say that we really acknowledge the challenges and how tough it is out there. We want them to explore the site and find new people to help them do the jobs they need to do, because it can be expensive to get it wrong.”
Breaking The Bias
The theme of International Women’s Day this year is ‘Break the Bias’, and though both Carly Waddelton and Elena Soanes say they’ve faced very little bias from those in the rural industry, they have faced some businesspeople underestimating them, or what they are trying to achieve.
“That is the minority though thankfully,” says Carly.
“And often that’s turned into curiosity because some people found it a bit unexpected that the two of us were running this kind of business. So really it’s become a positive.”
The pair love being women in the rural industry and feel like they’re in good company, with so many other women in decision-making roles too.
“When we were just starting out in 2019, we did some market research, and found that 65% of respondents (made up of 137 farms from across the country) were women. That was so great to see,” says Elena.
After getting Farmbase to a good place Carly and Elena are focusing their efforts this year on getting even more farmers and rural professionals to use the website, and to show them the difference it can make says Carly.
This International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8, Elena and Carly are taking some time to reflect on how proud they are of their business.
“We really do want to do the right thing,” says Carly. “We are proud of the fact we genuinely want to help people and develop solutions. We’ve been able to articulate a customer problem and then do something to address it.”
