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Brad Terral, Executive Chairman & Founder

 

The data movement in agriculture continues to gain momentum. As enthusiasm grows, tech companies churn out more and more data with greater relevance to producers. The question becomes: Are you prepared to interpret this flood of information and put it to use in day-to-day decisions about production and risk-management?

In order to adopt field-level information, it must be served up in a way that an average farmer trying to manage day-to-day operations can digest and use to make decisions. Essentially, farmers can benefit from a partner who sorts through this information and puts it into context, and that’s exactly what Ag Resource Management (ARM) does. ARM uses it to measure and manage income and risk. We provide alternative capital to farmers while staying close to the collateral — which is this season’s crop — and providing real-time measurement.

Capital markets need a company to use technology to measure the crop in a predictable way. ARM’s technology fills that gap. By synthesizing something out of the vast quantities of field data that capital markets can digest and fund, ARM’s clients reap the benefit of capital support they could not otherwise access. ARM has become the translator of field-level information which not only keeps farmers farming but allows them to grow their businesses.

An ag loan is just like the crop it represents — it’s alive. Every single day it changes, so managing that capital as part of a portfolio of changing loans is not a simple proposition. ARM relies strictly on the value of the crop, crop insurance and programs around it, so we must be razor-sharp on the valuation of the crop, tracking the minutest change as the crop matures. It’s not hard; it simply takes a methodology and system to track that level of detail.

Synthesis is ARM’s proprietary data software that integrates a farmer’s contextualized data with financial capital and information. It speeds up the loan process by monetizing not only the insured value but also the value of the growing crop measured above crop insurance. Simply put, it quickly calculates what something is worth in the future. For a growing crop, however, it’s not only about the math. It also involves the progress of the crop.

Synthesis calculates pricing and yield information, budget changes and insurance changes, to name a few factors in the complex data analysis. It calculates in real-time and expresses results as income and risk so decisions can be made quickly.

The groundbreaking nature of Synthesis lies in its control architecture as well as its ability to serve the farmer with income and risk information in a financial context. This information can help producers identify weak spots in their operation, improve efficiency and ultimately solve problems.