Inside the Southland Dairy Farm Where Robots and Pasture Work Together
In Dacre, near Invercargill in New Zealand’s South Island, Bruce Dinnington is running a dairy operation unlike any other.
The new digital assistance in the MyBallance app helps users quickly access key information about their nutrient recommendations, product and pricing information and place fertiliser orders directly from their phone.
Ballance Assistant was developed using AI technology alongside direct input from farmers.
Ballance Agri-Nutrients digital transformation lead Danusia Bathgate says farmers have made it clear they don't want to be in their office or on their computer working with complex technology and are seeking to have admin sorted quickly so they can get on with their day.
"We know that around 20% of our customers are using highly sophisticated digital tools in their farming businesses," she says.
"They're often large-scale operations managing significant volumes of data. For the vast majority, the biggest opportunity with tech is to make the benefits easy to access which in turn means the admin work gets done more quickly."
Farmers talk or type into the assistant to undertake tasks that would traditionally require navigating multiple pages on a website or contacting customer support.
Bathgate says the starting point for the assistant was understanding the most sought-after information farmers were seeking and then getting their input to design a tool that was simple, practical and built around how farmers work.
"When a farmer thinks of ordering nutrients, we want them to have a number of options to get that job done, without needing to wait for business hours, or needing to remember to do the job later on," she says.
"The process has been developed to mimic the simplicity of asking Siri a question but applied to the fertiliser ordering journey instead."
The tool was developed over 12 months with input from more than 50 farmers representing different farm sizes, regions and production systems.
Bathgate says following successful trials, the pilot has expanded to more than 200 farmers and growers across New Zealand, with the technology officially launched at this year's National Fieldays at Mystery Creek.
"Feedback from farmers and growers has been overwhelmingly positive, enabling them to work through ordering fertiliser in a step-by-step way at a time that suits them, and helps them feel confident they've done the right thing," she says.
Ballance Assistant is free of charge to Ballance shareholders and customers through the MyBallance app and can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
